Urban Governance最新文献

In the Global South, the COVID-19 crisis has compelled varied efforts to quickly address the pandemic's impact on urban livelihoods. Families, friends as well as public, private, and civil society organizations have mobilized various resources to avert the pandemic's onslaught on the survival of the urban vulnerable. Indeed, there is a burgeoning ‘pandemic urban scholarship’ that shed insights on COVID-19 risks, local responses, and impacts on everyday urban life. Yet, it is unclear how many of these responses are affecting urban livelihoods. This paper thus investigates the impact of COVID-19 on urban livelihood capitals (financial, human, social, and physical) and analyses the moderating role of COVID-19-related support (from families, friends, government agencies, faith-based and non-governmental organizations) to address the pandemic's impact on these capitals. Drawing on a quantitative study in Adenta Municipality of the Greater Accra Region, Ghana, the study finds a negative association between COVID-19 impacts and all urban livelihood capitals. Crucially, COVID-19-related support only reduced the negative impact of the pandemic on financial capital, and not on the other forms of capital. The study suggests that building post-pandemic community resilience warrants the need to transition from the usual reactive, fragmented support to integrated, holistic, and contextually embedded long-term strategies that consider the multi-dimensionality of everyday urban life.

Governments in many developing countries have consistently experienced budgetary shortfalls due to several problems, including tax evasion and avoidance. An important social capital identified in the literature that drives an individual's behaviour towards responding positively to taxation is trust. Leveraging on the theory of trust, we disaggregate trust in government into trust in the Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary and investigate the extent to which trust in any of the three arms of government drives behavioural changes towards the decision to pay for the electronic levy in Ghana. Using a survey approach and a regression analysis, we show evidence that trust in any of the three arms of government is a key driver of individuals' decisions to pay for the electronic transaction levy. In order of importance, trust in the Executive explains more of an individual's payment behaviour, followed by the Judiciary, then the Legislature. This study highlights the role of trust in the three arms of government, especially the Executive in committing to the government's tax-related policies.

The Central Business District (CBD)[1] mimics a jungle where businesses and people compete for the best space and use because of its socioeconomic and political roles in a city. This zone attracts many users and uses, making it a focus of regulative planning, which is perceived as a useful behavioural control tool. However, whether a CBD's space user behaviour and use patterns are attributable solely to zoning guidelines and planning standards is not established. Using a case study design with Kumasi's CBD as the geographic scope, the study explored the patterns in space use within the lens of Ghana's Zoning Guidelines and Planning Standards and the factors informing user behaviour. The study found that space use in the CBD conforms extensively to the permissible activities enshrined in the guidelines, though open spaces and recreational parks are going extinct. However, some use prohibitions outlined in the Zoning Guidelines disconnect from reality and user rationality amid space use competitions. The study suggests that profit maximisation is the critical factor informing use patterns and user behaviour, aside factors like location, statutory demand, inheritance, social influence, and family decisions. The paper concludes that users’ subjective profit motives inform the user behaviour in CBDs of developing economies as against the perceived behavioural control embedded in guidelines and planning standards. It is recommended that attaining and maintaining inclusive and operative space use in the CBDs should integrate routine updating of regulatory frameworks and guidelines underpinned by rational choice models.

[1] Central Business District.

Land use planning remains an integral tool for guiding the growth and development of human settlements due to competing interests and claims of individuals over land. Two major land use planning approaches are adopted - conventional and participatory - with inconclusive findings on the best approach to employ towards promoting orderly development and growth. This study thus contributes to this debate by exploring how conventional and participatory land use planning approaches affect the preparation and outcome of land use plans in Ghana, using Abuakwa Newtown in the Atwima Nwabiagya Municipality and Krapa No.1 of in the Ejisu Municipality as case study areas. Through a comparative case research design, quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed to gather and analyse data from 397 property owners and other relevant stakeholders. The aim was to explore the similarities and differences between the two approaches and stakeholders’ perception and satisfaction with both processes. The findings largely revealed differences in the land use plan preparation process – plan initiation, preparation and approval - in the two communities. It was revealed that only plan implementation activities had similar outcomes in both communities. The ordered logistic regression model deemed significant at p ≤ 0.05, revealed a negative relationship of satisfaction between tenure security, plan initiation and preparation in Abuakwa Newtown, but a positive relationship in Krapa No.1. The research recommends that planning authorities adopt participatory land use planning and improve upon communication in the processes for active participation and involvement.

Although inner-city livestock rearing provides households with food security and cash income opportunities, urban farmers and planners face challenges balancing urban livestock rearing with sustainable cities’ ideals. Literature on the interface of inner-city rearing, sustainable cities and urban governance dilemma is limited in African cities. Using the city of Wa in Ghana as a case, this study seeks to understand cattle-rearing practices, driving forces, the public health risk and governance challenges in African cities. The study employed a questionnaire to elicit data from 96 cattle keepers, while interviews were conducted with neighborhood residents and city authorities. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression were used to analyze the quantitative data, and thematic analysis employed to analyze the qualitative data. The study found that cattle keepers are spread across the inner-city and keep indigenous, exotic, and crossbreeds. Open grazing and stall feeding were adopted in the wet and dry seasons, respectively. The animals are kept in makeshift structures and open kraals. The holders earn substantial income, making demand for cattle the main determinant of farmers' decision to rear. Although the cattle pose a health risk and cause inconvenience to residents, political interferences and logistical constraints limit local authority's efforts to govern rearing in the inner-city. Based on the challenges and the benefits, city authorities might be faced with trying to strike a balance with sustainable cities' agenda. Therefore, actions towards harmony between livestock rearing, environmental sustainability and human safety are imperative for effective urban governance.

The urbanization process in countries in the global south has enormous implications for the social and the spatial structure of cities. Despite the complexities associated with urbanization and the socio-spatial structure of urban centers, there is limited research in this area of study. This study seeks to assess the effects of urbanization on the socio-spatial structure of the Tamale Metropolis. The research relied on both secondary and primary sources of data. The primary data was collected through the interview of 68 respondents in the Central Business District of the Tamale Metropolis. The researchers also interviewed representatives of the Physical Planning Department, Development Planning Office and the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority. The results of the study showed that there is a major shift from the extended family system to the nuclear family system. The changes in the social structure have led to a considerable urban expansion with the built-up area increasing from 12% to 24%. The urbanization process has led to the creation of sub-CBDs to respond to the changes on the spatial structure. This has resulted in the paradigm shift in the spatial structure of the metropolis from a monocentric structure to a polycentric structure. This research therefore concludes that there is a direct relationship between the social structure and the spatial structure of the Tamale Metropolis and this has implication for sustainable urban management.

Rapid urbanisation and its associated challenges in Global South countries have necessitated the use of digital technologies in urban management. Key to their successful utilisation for urban management is residents' perceptions and utilisation of these technologies. Yet, little attention has been given to this area of research. Using data gathered from a cross-sectional survey in three suburban communities, the study examined residents' perceptions and utilisation of the digital property address system (DPAS) in Accra, Ghana. The findings revealed that residents understand the benefits of the DPAS. However, residents’ perceived benefits, usage and challenges varied by socio-demographic groups. More importantly, the findings revealed that the use of the DPAS is beset with operational difficulties and non-use by government agencies. To ensure that digital technologies such as the DPAS provide opportunities for sustainable, inclusive, and resilient development trajectories in Ghana and Africa, it is imperative that residents' use and challenges of such technologies inform improvements in their design and implementation.

Accelerating flood risk is outstripping household preparedness, leading to higher costs when disasters occur. This has profound implications for the governance of urban areas on and around floodplains which often hold most of the responsibility for managing this risk. Effective community-wide flood preparedness strongly depends on human behaviour patterns before (yet-to-be experienced or imagined) unprecedented events. Whilst education is an accepted approach to changing human behaviour patterns, risk communications have not succeeded in prompting preparedness. We provide a systematic review using Steg & Vlek's extended General Framework because it describes the four key issues that, unless addressed, can impede risk communications’ ability to promote behaviour change.

The results suggest current research and practice gaps remain in what behaviour is targeted, what is communicated, how it is communicated, and what is learnt from evaluating education campaigns. A predominant focus of ‘get ready’ flood lists on response rather than anticipatory preparedness items may decrease their relevance for households. Education campaigns may fail to change relevant preparedness behaviours because they are perceived as irrelevant, not attuned to households’ important beliefs or agency, employ counter-productive messaging strategies, or fail to meet best practices for communicating actionable risk. Effective education messaging might well depend on co-production of local contextualised content between emergency agencies and households.

It is a clear finding of this review that current research and practice is highly limited by scholarships’ theoretical and methodological issues. We argue addressing scholarship gaps can inform urban governance arrangements, and thereby better support efforts to foster household and community flood preparedness. This will have inordinate value for emergency agencies, often tasked with preparedness-through-education, and the communities they serve.