Pub Date : 2023-07-04DOI: 10.3389/frsc.2023.1196428
Susannah Bunce
Toronto's official intensification policy has directed increased density primarily through residential development over the last 20 years. Recently, new intensification efforts have focused on increasing density in existing residential neighborhoods through so-called “gentle density” and “missing middle” built form, as a new “frontier” of intensification. These efforts have included a focus on the production of garden suites on residential properties. In this short intervention, I suggest that Yes-In-My-Backyard narratives, that celebrate intensification, raise problematic arguments under the guise of sustainable urbanism and liberal progressive politics which foreclose important critiques of intensification. I argue that increased YIMBYism and new intensification efforts in Toronto are entwined with homeownership wealth-building and market-oriented property development.
{"title":"From “smart growth” to “frontier” intensification: density, YIMBYism, and the development of garden suites in Toronto","authors":"Susannah Bunce","doi":"10.3389/frsc.2023.1196428","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2023.1196428","url":null,"abstract":"Toronto's official intensification policy has directed increased density primarily through residential development over the last 20 years. Recently, new intensification efforts have focused on increasing density in existing residential neighborhoods through so-called “gentle density” and “missing middle” built form, as a new “frontier” of intensification. These efforts have included a focus on the production of garden suites on residential properties. In this short intervention, I suggest that Yes-In-My-Backyard narratives, that celebrate intensification, raise problematic arguments under the guise of sustainable urbanism and liberal progressive politics which foreclose important critiques of intensification. I argue that increased YIMBYism and new intensification efforts in Toronto are entwined with homeownership wealth-building and market-oriented property development.","PeriodicalId":33686,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sustainable Cities","volume":"50 43","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41285624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-29DOI: 10.3389/frsc.2023.1149901
J. Barke, V. Boelman, Vinkha Khairunnisa, Salma Shah
Introduction This paper reports the findings of research activity carried out as part of the UPLIFT project in Corby, United Kingdom. The project aimed to understand young people's experiences of education, employment and housing, and determine how young people navigate these domains, make choices and develop strategies within what is available to them. Through understanding the opportunities and strategies that young people employ across these domains, our aim was to consider how young people might engage locally to co-create a reflexive policy agenda. Methods We worked with peer researchers in Corby and interviewed local people (n = 40) and policy makers (n = 7) about the local context in Corby, and analyzed data, exploring themes. Results Findings highlighted the importance of young people understanding how systems work locally and suggest that young people, and their families, need greater support understanding how they can engage with and change systems. Discussion There needs to be better, easily accessible guidance developed around the support and opportunities that are available locally. Our research underlines the need to engage with young people in policy making to develop effective robust policy that works in a real-world context.
{"title":"Young people's strategies for navigating education, employment, and housing: a case study from Corby UK","authors":"J. Barke, V. Boelman, Vinkha Khairunnisa, Salma Shah","doi":"10.3389/frsc.2023.1149901","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2023.1149901","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction This paper reports the findings of research activity carried out as part of the UPLIFT project in Corby, United Kingdom. The project aimed to understand young people's experiences of education, employment and housing, and determine how young people navigate these domains, make choices and develop strategies within what is available to them. Through understanding the opportunities and strategies that young people employ across these domains, our aim was to consider how young people might engage locally to co-create a reflexive policy agenda. Methods We worked with peer researchers in Corby and interviewed local people (n = 40) and policy makers (n = 7) about the local context in Corby, and analyzed data, exploring themes. Results Findings highlighted the importance of young people understanding how systems work locally and suggest that young people, and their families, need greater support understanding how they can engage with and change systems. Discussion There needs to be better, easily accessible guidance developed around the support and opportunities that are available locally. Our research underlines the need to engage with young people in policy making to develop effective robust policy that works in a real-world context.","PeriodicalId":33686,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sustainable Cities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46061533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-29DOI: 10.3389/frsc.2023.1156815
Yusif Idies, Samuel Mössner
In the discursive battle about the big and important ideas, some topics are considered more important than others and more likely to mobilize society. More recently, marine plastic pollution has become a key topic for environmental movements. In this study, we aimed to contribute to a more detailed understanding of how specific issues of sustainability are brought forth. Conceptually, we argue that recourse to relational theories from science and technology studies might help to strengthen the conceptualization of social movement research. By drawing on the concept of “boundary objects”, we extend the range of social movement approaches in order to better understand how the process of framing is put to work materially. The focus on boundary objects can therefore explain the selective formation of environmental discourses and policies when applied to the field of environmental protection and sustainability.
{"title":"Environmental movements in a material world. A relational perspective on single-use plastic in Penzance, UK","authors":"Yusif Idies, Samuel Mössner","doi":"10.3389/frsc.2023.1156815","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2023.1156815","url":null,"abstract":"In the discursive battle about the big and important ideas, some topics are considered more important than others and more likely to mobilize society. More recently, marine plastic pollution has become a key topic for environmental movements. In this study, we aimed to contribute to a more detailed understanding of how specific issues of sustainability are brought forth. Conceptually, we argue that recourse to relational theories from science and technology studies might help to strengthen the conceptualization of social movement research. By drawing on the concept of “boundary objects”, we extend the range of social movement approaches in order to better understand how the process of framing is put to work materially. The focus on boundary objects can therefore explain the selective formation of environmental discourses and policies when applied to the field of environmental protection and sustainability.","PeriodicalId":33686,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sustainable Cities","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41444997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.3389/frsc.2023.1154124
R. Zinkernagel, Lena Neij
Cities have an important role to play in implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to mobilize sustainability at the urban level. Yet, municipalities encounter challenges in localizing the SDGs into their governance structures, and there is a need to advance our understanding of cities strengths and weaknesses in such processes. In this article we provide knowledge and reflections gained in analyzing the process of localizing the SDGs into the spatial planning of Smörkajen, a former industrial harbor site in Malmö, Sweden. By applying the analytical framework of Institutional Capacity Building, the study explores the process of localizing the SDGs in terms of building relational and knowledge capacities and to provide mobilization capacity by the formation of a sustainability strategy. The results illustrate an inclusive approach supporting relational capacity and numerous measures to enhance knowledge capacity, bringing about the formation of a draft sustainability strategy, strongly supported by the municipal participants. But rather than formally adopting the full strategy in the spatial planning of the Smörkajen area, the results of the process were only to be considered to the extent the traditional documents and processes allowed. In all, the results illustrate a strong support for the use of localized SDGs among municipal administrative units to mobilize sustainability, but also the challenges in actually implementing these in the formal planning and development process.
{"title":"Localizing SDGs: the case of city planning in Malmö","authors":"R. Zinkernagel, Lena Neij","doi":"10.3389/frsc.2023.1154124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2023.1154124","url":null,"abstract":"Cities have an important role to play in implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to mobilize sustainability at the urban level. Yet, municipalities encounter challenges in localizing the SDGs into their governance structures, and there is a need to advance our understanding of cities strengths and weaknesses in such processes. In this article we provide knowledge and reflections gained in analyzing the process of localizing the SDGs into the spatial planning of Smörkajen, a former industrial harbor site in Malmö, Sweden. By applying the analytical framework of Institutional Capacity Building, the study explores the process of localizing the SDGs in terms of building relational and knowledge capacities and to provide mobilization capacity by the formation of a sustainability strategy. The results illustrate an inclusive approach supporting relational capacity and numerous measures to enhance knowledge capacity, bringing about the formation of a draft sustainability strategy, strongly supported by the municipal participants. But rather than formally adopting the full strategy in the spatial planning of the Smörkajen area, the results of the process were only to be considered to the extent the traditional documents and processes allowed. In all, the results illustrate a strong support for the use of localized SDGs among municipal administrative units to mobilize sustainability, but also the challenges in actually implementing these in the formal planning and development process.","PeriodicalId":33686,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sustainable Cities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41736606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-26DOI: 10.3389/frsc.2023.1140838
Kassa Moges Tareke
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on every aspect of human life and economic sectors such as transportation operations around the world. This paper tries to investigate how COVID-19 pandemic factors influenced the driving and customer handling behaviors of urban public transportation operators in Addis Ababa city, Ethiopia. To that end, a framework of mixed research, pre/post study design, and protection motivation theory (PMT) was used to guide the development, quantification, and analysis of the causal relationships of pandemic-related constructs on driving and customer handling behaviors. The examined driving behavior variables included harsh speeding, harsh braking, and drink-drive events concerning the time period before and during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Customer handling was also operationalized in terms of the level of friendly handling and care provided to customers. As a result, primary data were collected through transport surveys on 143 randomly selected public transit operators, including city buses, midsize buses, minibuses, bajajs, and light rail transits. Furthermore, contingency indexes, likert scales, and binary logistic regression models were used to estimate and predict the most significant factors that affected driving and customer handling behavior. Findings showed that the new COVID-19 pandemic and response measure-related factors were the most significant factors impacting driving behavior during the pandemic. Driving frequencies and intentions, as well as driving decisions or choices, were significantly influenced and reduced. Due to the pandemic-related factors, harsh driving behaviors such as harsh speeding and braking became more frequent during the pandemic compared to the pre-COVID period. Additionally, the correlation between harsh driving behavior and other factors, mainly trip distance traveled, driving during risky nighttime hours, and driving requests, was significant. Furthermore, due to the impacts of COVID-19, government measures, and changes in driving behavior, customer handling and care behaviors were predominantly unfriendly. Findings revealed that the performance of PMT was relevant, and it could inform and guide studies to understand such an impact analysis. Thus, policymakers must learn from the harsh lessons of COVID-19 and make bold investments in preparedness, prevention, and response, including pandemic-sensitive strategies and customer-oriented strategies.
{"title":"How the driving behaviors and customer handling of public transportation operators have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: the perspective of protection motivation theory?","authors":"Kassa Moges Tareke","doi":"10.3389/frsc.2023.1140838","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2023.1140838","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on every aspect of human life and economic sectors such as transportation operations around the world. This paper tries to investigate how COVID-19 pandemic factors influenced the driving and customer handling behaviors of urban public transportation operators in Addis Ababa city, Ethiopia. To that end, a framework of mixed research, pre/post study design, and protection motivation theory (PMT) was used to guide the development, quantification, and analysis of the causal relationships of pandemic-related constructs on driving and customer handling behaviors. The examined driving behavior variables included harsh speeding, harsh braking, and drink-drive events concerning the time period before and during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Customer handling was also operationalized in terms of the level of friendly handling and care provided to customers. As a result, primary data were collected through transport surveys on 143 randomly selected public transit operators, including city buses, midsize buses, minibuses, bajajs, and light rail transits. Furthermore, contingency indexes, likert scales, and binary logistic regression models were used to estimate and predict the most significant factors that affected driving and customer handling behavior. Findings showed that the new COVID-19 pandemic and response measure-related factors were the most significant factors impacting driving behavior during the pandemic. Driving frequencies and intentions, as well as driving decisions or choices, were significantly influenced and reduced. Due to the pandemic-related factors, harsh driving behaviors such as harsh speeding and braking became more frequent during the pandemic compared to the pre-COVID period. Additionally, the correlation between harsh driving behavior and other factors, mainly trip distance traveled, driving during risky nighttime hours, and driving requests, was significant. Furthermore, due to the impacts of COVID-19, government measures, and changes in driving behavior, customer handling and care behaviors were predominantly unfriendly. Findings revealed that the performance of PMT was relevant, and it could inform and guide studies to understand such an impact analysis. Thus, policymakers must learn from the harsh lessons of COVID-19 and make bold investments in preparedness, prevention, and response, including pandemic-sensitive strategies and customer-oriented strategies.","PeriodicalId":33686,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sustainable Cities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48473064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-12DOI: 10.3389/frsc.2023.1182408
Erik Lind, Thomas Prade, Johanna Sjöman Deak, A. Levinsson, H. Sjöman
Introduction Planting trees in urban areas can mitigate some of the emissions generated in cities by carbon sequestration (annual uptake of CO2 through the process of photosynthesis) and carbon storage (amount of carbon stored in the tree's biomass throughout its lifespan). The aim of this study was to calculate the carbon footprint from nursery production to final establishment of different tree species grown for planting in urban parks in a northern European context. Material and methods The analysis included a cradle-to-gate approach and investigated the amount of carbon the adult trees needed to sequester in order to compensate for initial carbon emissions and which temporal perspectives are of concern. Greenhouse gas emissions were estimated based on an inventory of consumption of fuels, energy, materials and other production inputs during cultivation, delivery, planting and establishment of three different tree species in three different locations in Sweden. The tree species considered in the analysis (Salix alba, Quercus rubra, Pinus sylvestris) were selected due to significant differences in their growth rates. Salix alba is a competitive strategist in resource-rich habitats, and is proficient at converting these resources into vigorous growth. Pinus sylvestris is a pronounced stress strategist with good ability to handle resource-limited habitats, and invests in traits accordingly, resulting in significantly slower development. Quercus rubra has its main distribution in cool and moderately resource-rich habitats, but has relatively high stress tolerance and can be considered intermediate between the other two species in terms of growth rate. Results and discussion The results showed that within 16 years of planting, all species in all three cities, except Pinus sylvestris planted in Umeå, compensated for initial carbon emissions, i.e. showed net absorption of CO2 after emissions from cultivation, delivery, planting and establishment of the trees had been deducted. There was a clear link between the time by which compensation of initial carbon emissions was achieved and growth rate of the different species, with the fast-growing Salix alba showing the best results. The single largest source of emissions among all activities carried out during cultivation, delivery and planting of all species, regardless of the city in which they were planted, was fuel consumption during tree planting.
{"title":"How green is an urban tree? The impact of species selection in reducing the carbon footprint of park trees in Swedish cities","authors":"Erik Lind, Thomas Prade, Johanna Sjöman Deak, A. Levinsson, H. Sjöman","doi":"10.3389/frsc.2023.1182408","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2023.1182408","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction Planting trees in urban areas can mitigate some of the emissions generated in cities by carbon sequestration (annual uptake of CO2 through the process of photosynthesis) and carbon storage (amount of carbon stored in the tree's biomass throughout its lifespan). The aim of this study was to calculate the carbon footprint from nursery production to final establishment of different tree species grown for planting in urban parks in a northern European context. Material and methods The analysis included a cradle-to-gate approach and investigated the amount of carbon the adult trees needed to sequester in order to compensate for initial carbon emissions and which temporal perspectives are of concern. Greenhouse gas emissions were estimated based on an inventory of consumption of fuels, energy, materials and other production inputs during cultivation, delivery, planting and establishment of three different tree species in three different locations in Sweden. The tree species considered in the analysis (Salix alba, Quercus rubra, Pinus sylvestris) were selected due to significant differences in their growth rates. Salix alba is a competitive strategist in resource-rich habitats, and is proficient at converting these resources into vigorous growth. Pinus sylvestris is a pronounced stress strategist with good ability to handle resource-limited habitats, and invests in traits accordingly, resulting in significantly slower development. Quercus rubra has its main distribution in cool and moderately resource-rich habitats, but has relatively high stress tolerance and can be considered intermediate between the other two species in terms of growth rate. Results and discussion The results showed that within 16 years of planting, all species in all three cities, except Pinus sylvestris planted in Umeå, compensated for initial carbon emissions, i.e. showed net absorption of CO2 after emissions from cultivation, delivery, planting and establishment of the trees had been deducted. There was a clear link between the time by which compensation of initial carbon emissions was achieved and growth rate of the different species, with the fast-growing Salix alba showing the best results. The single largest source of emissions among all activities carried out during cultivation, delivery and planting of all species, regardless of the city in which they were planted, was fuel consumption during tree planting.","PeriodicalId":33686,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sustainable Cities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43681875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-07DOI: 10.3389/frsc.2023.1197434
Gang Liu, Lisheng Shu, Yuhui Yang, Chen Jin
In this paper, an innovative approach to detecting anomalous occurrences in video data without supervision is introduced, leveraging contextual data derived from visual characteristics and effectively addressing the semantic discrepancy that exists between visual information and the interpretation of atypical incidents. Our work incorporates Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to capture video data from a different perspective and to provide a unique set of visual features. Specifically, we put forward a technique for discerning context through scene comprehension, which entails the construction of a spatio-temporal contextual graph to represent various aspects of visual information. These aspects encompass the manifestation of objects, their interrelations within the spatio-temporal domain, and the categorization of the scenes captured by UAVs. To encode context information, we utilize Transformer with message passing for updating the graph's nodes and edges. Furthermore, we have designed a graph-oriented deep Variational Autoencoder (VAE) approach for unsupervised categorization of scenes, enabling the extraction of the spatio-temporal context graph across diverse settings. In conclusion, by utilizing contextual data, we ascertain anomaly scores at the frame-level to identify atypical occurrences. We assessed the efficacy of the suggested approach by employing it on a trio of intricate data collections, specifically, the UCF-Crime, Avenue, and ShanghaiTech datasets, which provided substantial evidence of the method's successful performance.
{"title":"Unsupervised video anomaly detection in UAVs: a new approach based on learning and inference","authors":"Gang Liu, Lisheng Shu, Yuhui Yang, Chen Jin","doi":"10.3389/frsc.2023.1197434","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2023.1197434","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, an innovative approach to detecting anomalous occurrences in video data without supervision is introduced, leveraging contextual data derived from visual characteristics and effectively addressing the semantic discrepancy that exists between visual information and the interpretation of atypical incidents. Our work incorporates Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to capture video data from a different perspective and to provide a unique set of visual features. Specifically, we put forward a technique for discerning context through scene comprehension, which entails the construction of a spatio-temporal contextual graph to represent various aspects of visual information. These aspects encompass the manifestation of objects, their interrelations within the spatio-temporal domain, and the categorization of the scenes captured by UAVs. To encode context information, we utilize Transformer with message passing for updating the graph's nodes and edges. Furthermore, we have designed a graph-oriented deep Variational Autoencoder (VAE) approach for unsupervised categorization of scenes, enabling the extraction of the spatio-temporal context graph across diverse settings. In conclusion, by utilizing contextual data, we ascertain anomaly scores at the frame-level to identify atypical occurrences. We assessed the efficacy of the suggested approach by employing it on a trio of intricate data collections, specifically, the UCF-Crime, Avenue, and ShanghaiTech datasets, which provided substantial evidence of the method's successful performance.","PeriodicalId":33686,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sustainable Cities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47304511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}