Compliance of land cover changes with municipal land use planning: Evidence from the Lisbon metropolitan region (1990–2007)

In the past few decades, urbanisation has become a major phenomenon in European cities, thus representing one of the key human land cover changes with socio-economic and environmental impacts. In the Lisbon metropolitan region it is estimated that 17% of natural and farmland have been transformed into artificial areas. Since the end of 1990s, specific EU guidelines have been issued to contain urban sprawl and preserve agricultural land. Spatial planning in Portugal obviously is integrating these assumptions into the statutory land-use master plans. But what is the performance of this land use planning system regarding land cover evolution itself? Based on the Lisbon metropolitan region (LMR), one of the major areas of urban growth in Portugal, we examine spatio-temporal land cover patterns between 1990 and 2007 by integrating cross-matrix analysis, spatial metrics, and gradient analysis. Additionally, we overlay these land cover dynamics with municipal master plans that regulate land development in order to assess the compliance levels of this land-use regulatory system. Results indicate that: artificial areas are growing by coalescence and/or by scattered development along an urban–rural gradient; agricultural land is reducing and fragmentation is increasing to enlarge peri-urban spaces; there are high levels of conversion of agricultural land into urban land in protected areas, thus showing a lack of compliance to the land use regulatory system visible in the existing gaps between the original land-use assignments of the master plan and the actual developments.     

Skyscrapers and the economy in Latin America

Skyscrapers are an intellectual challenge for urban analysis because of their imposing visual presence in the city landscape, and because of their environmental and real estate impacts. These characteristics however have not received much attention in the literature, particularly in analyses about Latin American cities. In this paper, we describe and test four theories about record-breaking buildings height: traditional microeconomic theory, game theory, business cycle, and global cities. We use a 2000–2012 panel database of 29 cities from 10 different Latin American countries, in order to contrast the contesting explanations about buildings’ height. We design a baseline model and then, using four different estimation techniques and diverse specifications, find that traditional theory and more strongly, global cities are good predictors of buildings’ height.     

城市三维形态与热环境的相关关系研究——以大连市金普新区为例

由城市各种实体空间结构所构成的三维形态是城市形态的重要组成部分。而城市的空间结构与城市空间环境的热场分布也有着密不可分的关系。本文运用地理信息系统与遥感技术,获取三维形态指标与地表温度,对各因子进行回归分析,建立城市空间形态热场分布研究的回归模型。分析了金普新区空间实体的占空度、错落度、建筑密度等空间形态对城市亮度温度的影响,发现占空度与城市亮温成正相关并且相关性较高,绿化率与亮温成负相关,而建筑密度与错落度对城市热场的影响较小。     

Patterns of growth in Chinese cities: Implications of the land lease

A special feature of China’s housing market is land use rights in the form of land leasehold contracts granted by the government. We consider an equilibrium model in which a representative developer may choose to redevelop existing centrally located housing or to develop new housing at the periphery of the city. We show that as the city grows, the land leasehold system results in the city center being developed less intensely and more land being used on the outskirts of the city when compared to a fee simple environment. Thus, cities in China are likely to be relatively more spread out, with city centers relatively older than would be the case with “fee simple” ownership. Our model suggests that excess residential land use is about 6 percent. In addition, compared with the ownership case, housing supply will grow more quickly in the near future, but more slowly later on during the transition of the Chinese economy. Parallel to the supply growth pattern, equilibrium price grows relative slowly in the near future, but more quickly later on. While we focus on residential uses, we believe our model can be applied to other land uses.     

A methodology for prioritising HSR corridors: from U.S. theory to Spanish practice

The assessment of methodologies to prioritise the construction of new high-speed rail (HSR) corridors has recently become a key issue for transport planners in countries like the U.S., where HSR does not exist. In a climate of financial instability since the onset of the global crisis of 2007–2008, support for new projects is being eroded by serious concerns over the extremely steep costs of high-speed rail, and there is a need for the scientific clarification of the procedure for prioritizing construction.In 2009 a new ranking methodology was developed and applied to 30,000 city pairs in the U.S. to determine their suitability for high-speed rail investment. The existing literature on ranking tools for prioritising HSR corridors is practically non-existent, and, as none of these U.S. lines has been built or put into in operation, this methodology has not been validated. The main aim of this paper is to contribute to these ranking models and highlight their importance in the HSR planning process. The preliminary ranking tool described in this work has been validated using data from the current HSR Spanish network. The results confirm the consistency of the model as a first approach to ranking pairs, mainly for the top O–D relations; however the model has some drawbacks chiefly due to the type of variables used, and their assigned weightings. Finally, some specific improvements are proposed for this ranking approach in order to provide policymakers with a useful tool when planning the construction of new HSR networks.     

Tourism agglomeration and urbanization: empirical evidence from China

Tourism-driven urbanization presents a new way of exploring the construction of a new-type of urbanization. Consequently, the relationship between urbanization and the frequent agglomeration of tourism activities has attracted much research attention in recent years. This paper empirically investigates the influence of tourism agglomeration on urbanization using China’s provincial panel data for years 1999–2012. A panel data model with a fixed effect model and a two-step system generalized method of moments estimation is constructed to explore that influence. Results show that tourism agglomeration positively influences urbanization, and there exists a U-shaped relationship between these two variables. After capturing the dynamic nature of urbanization, we estimate the long-term tourism agglomeration elasticity in China as 0.4566. This paper provides theoretical and practical implications on urbanization of China in view of tourism agglomeration.     

Transport impacts of government employment decentralization in an Australian city – Testing scenarios using transport simulation

Australia's largest cities are more mono-centric than most US cities and may be over-centralising, particularly in terms of office employment. Government worker relocation programs are being employed with policy debate over what should be an ideal urban structure including in terms of travel behaviour. The paper explores research approaches to explore transport impacts of employment decentralization. A review shows the results of: surveys of workers moved to suburban locations; longitudinal analyses of transport and land use changes in city-regions using cross-sectional census or HTS data; comparative analysis of urban structure variables across cities using similar datasets; combinations of longitudinal and comparative research; and, scenario-based modelling approaches. A modelling framework is then developed to appraise the possible transport impacts of decentralization in Brisbane. To test the possibilities further, two decentralization scenarios modelled and compared. Decentralization mostly to middle-suburban locations better addresses jobs-housing balance and maximises proposed new public transport services, producing good transport outcomes. However, decentralization to outer-suburban locations in Brisbane exacerbates the propensity for decentralization to increase travel distances, especially by car.     

Taming Airbnb: Toward guiding principles for local regulation of urban vacation rentals based on empirical results from five US cities

Urban vacation rentals, a phenomenon that has grown explosively very recently, bring benefits to cities but also impose quality of life and housing market impacts on neighborhoods. As a consequence, cities are beginning to grapple with creating regulatory regimes for managing this new land use and its encroachments on residential areas. This article uses webscraped data from Airbnb, the industry leader, to analyze the geographical patterns and concentrations of these impacts in five US cities: Austin, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. It uses the findings to put forth four general principles for cities seeking to manage impacts imposed by Airbnb and its competitors. These are that webscraping is an imperfect but relatively cheap and effective means of gathering locally specific data; that “spiky” usage patterns dictate a microgeographic approach to regulation; that meaningful regulation necessitates dedicated enforcement, likely paid for with permit fees; and that it is desirable to distinguish between “mom-and-pop” hosts and those operating at a commercial scale.     

Identifying the internal structure evolution of urban built-up land sprawl (UBLS) from a composite structure perspective: A case study of the Beijing metropolitan area,China

Differences in the internal composite structure during urban built-up land sprawl (UBLS) will generate different effects, and thus, a city’s spatial structure has important bearings on urban sustainability. This study investigates the spatial and temporal characteristics of the internal structure and allocation relationship of UBLS using multivariate spatial correlation and the Weaver-Tomas composite coefficient based on site data of granted built-up land parcels. Moreover, the composite structure evolution process of UBLS and its driving mechanism are examined in this study. The results reveal that the amount structure of the three types of UBLS (i.e. industrial land sprawl, residential land sprawl and commercial land sprawl) tended to be balanced during the study period. Following the transformation and upgrade of the urban industry structure, the overall composite structure of UBLS ranged from single residential land-use structure (Res.) to industrial-residential land-use structure (Ind.-Res.) In the early period of land marketization, the marketization land granting mechanism caused low spatial correlation between the various types of UBLS and a single composite structure, i.e. Res., single commercial land-use structure (Com.), and residential-commercial land-use structure (Res.-Com.). Subsequently, a dual-driving force including the market economy and government interventions caused a relatively high degree of spatial correlation and a multiple composite structure, i.e. Ind.-Res. and industrial-residential-commercial land-use structure (Ind.-Res.-Com.). However, the evolution characteristics of the composite structure in various regions illustrate some problems, such as the spatial isomorphism phenomenon of the composite structure and the dislocation of urban built-up land allocation. The urban internal built-up land spatial layout pattern is the embodiment of two dominant driving forces, the market and the government, interacting with each other according to natural and socioeconomic conditions. Therefore, we suggest that it is necessary to reform the future urban built-up land granting mechanism based on market guidance, and the composite structure of UBLS should be adjusted according to the regional function. The government should reinforce the macro-control of land-use planning for the dispersed granted land parcels so as to optimize the urban land-use structure.     

How to overcome the implementation gap in ecosystem services? A user-friendly and inclusive tool for improved urban management

One of the main issues with the concept of ecosystem services is its absence on the ground in concrete operational decision-making contexts; that is, an implementation gap. In this study, we investigated if this gap could be overcome through the use of open-source data and free tools, and the adoption of a short-term participatory process. We tested these methods in the context of a project in the urban metropolitan area of Bordeaux (Communauté urbaine de Bordeaux: CUB) in France. The ecosystem services were defined using a participatory approach involving local stakeholders, and then selected scenarios were simulated to test the impact of various development or conservation plans. The study addressed three main questions: (1) Is it possible to adopt a simple methodological approach that overcomes the implementation gap through the development of a user-friendly and inclusive method? (2) What is the added value of a participatory approach? (3) With regards to four scenarios in this territory, what are the ES trends in the selected biophysical and monetary indicators, and will knowledge of these trends help planners to shape a sustainable trajectory for the territory?