Urban Forum最新文献

This research uses the concept of 'urban scenes' to explore and characterise the economy of the city of Makhanda (Grahamstown). It is argued that this framework can create a thorough situational analysis on which to plan for locally-appropriate Local Economic Development (LED). It does this through characterising a local economic context that situates economic activity within a framework that acknowledges the role and interactions of consumers, culture, clustered amenities and economic activities, and urban place. It thus adds to traditional situational analyses by focusing on the urbanisms, activities, and character of the city-making these factors indivisible from the local economy. The framework reveals that two prominent scenes exist within Makhanda: the Education and Tourism Scenes. Education institutions like top public and private schools and Rhodes University are located within the city, and a tourism product exists in the form of creativity and the arts, festivals, edutourism, heritage, and wildlife safaris and hunting. These scenes bring significant money into the local economy through tourism and temporary education-led migration. They are both, however, under significant threat from a dysfunctional local municipality that has consistently failed in its mandate to support the local economy, engage with local stakeholders, and create an enabling environment for business. Intermittent and unreliable water supply, sewerage spills, and the deterioration of existing infrastructure are just some of the issues faced within the city. Any successful LED programme needs to tackle this issue and others to succeed. In addition to creating an enabling economic environment, cooperation within and between stakeholders in the identified scenes needs fostering. The local municipality also needs to create employment and a more inclusive economy to tackle issues of high unemployment and inequality.

Background: Recent studies have shown potentially detrimental effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical activity (PA) in emerging adults (ages 18-29 y). However, studies that examined the effects of COVID-19 on PA location choices and maintenance for this age group remain limited. The current study investigated changes in PA location choices across 13 months during the pandemic and their associations with PA maintenance in this population.

Methods: Emerging adults (N = 197) living in the United States completed weekly survey on personal smartphones (May 2020-June 2021) regarding PA location choices and maintenance. Mixed-effects models examined the main effects of PA location choice and its interaction with weeks into the pandemic on participants' PA maintenance.

Results: On a given week, participants performing PA on roads/sidewalks or at parks/open spaces were 1½ and 2 times as likely to maintain PA levels, respectively. Moreover, after September 2021, weeks when individuals performed PA on roads/sidewalks had a protective effect on PA maintenance.

Conclusions: Performing PA on roads/sidewalks and at parks/open spaces was associated with PA maintenance during the COVID-19 pandemic. PA promotion and intervention efforts for emerging adults during large-scale disruptions to daily life should focus on providing programmed activities in open spaces to maintain their PA levels.

Although mobility shapes the material landscape, for the majority of ordinary people, their movements are structured by space. For this reason, ordinary people bear the bodily and financial costs of commuting to the metropolitan core areas from their peripheries. In particular, the city's core areas and peripheries are shaped by privatisation, racism and other forces of change, each driving urban change in particular, complementary ways (Pierce and Lawhon, 2018; Czegledy, 2004). That said, there are interpretations that the city's core areas are multiple and shifting, with their peripheries being unstable and indeterminable. In this sense, the city's peripheries do not always coincide with the spatial distribution of marginality and deprivation (Pieterse, 2019). Howe's (2021) idea of popular centralities through popular agency may in some ways be seen to transcend these diverging accounts of the city's uneven spatial structure. This paper uses the case of the Mabopane Station precinct in northern Tshwane to give content to this transcending idea of popular centralities. With respect to popular agency, Coe and Jordhus-Lier's (2010) forms of agency (resilience, reworking and resistance) are useful for further analysing the resilience of the residents and commuters of northern Tshwane. The paper demonstrates some of the ways through which popular centralities are constituted-how movement becomes space; and also that it is in specific places (which are always constituted by the local and the elsewhere) where resilience is exercised in ways that perpetuate and even overcome peripherality. In this sense, the paper treats a social and cultural context seriously, highlighting ordinary people's cautious uses of and intuitive, creative reuses of peripheral spaces as they turn some of them into urbanisms of self-realisation.

Problematic drug use is a growing problem in South African urban spaces. In Durban, as in other cities in the country, the dominant response of the capital-oriented Municipality has been to make drug use invisible through prohibition and a promotion of abstinence approaches. This governance mentality and technology has failed dismally, evidenced in the rise of street-level heroin use. During the COVID-19 hard lockdown, the municipality was forced to re-examine its governance approach to drug use, taking guidance from non-state actors in an attempt to more effectively reduce the harms associated with drug use. In tracing the historical contestations around street-level drug use in Durban, this paper shares the untold story of how, when prompted by an unforeseen crisis, a municipality was able to successfully shift its mentality and technology in governing street-level drug use. Drawing conceptually on nodal governance theory and the quadruple helix approach, it reveals the complexities of urban governance processes and demonstrates the power of political opportunities, the transformative role of unexpected consequences, and the importance of informed political leadership. It also shows how multi-stakeholder partnership projects can be a useful mechanism not only to implement innovative and creative policy goals, but also to build robust relationships to navigate the manifestation of informal urbanism. It also calls for governing through harm minimisation rather than through actuarial risk management approaches that are closely associated with a neoliberal agenda.

Innovative water governance practices are essential to achieve sustainable cities through robust public policies and stakeholder engagement. This study assessed the dynamics of water service delivery in Gweru and its impact on household food security. The study focused on the city's food sources, water service pricing, power struggles in decision-making, and the implications for household food security. A household survey was conducted with 489 respondents selected by stratified random sampling. Interviews with purposively enrolled key informants and observations were also used. Findings revealed a multi-faceted scenario of water governance challenges that crippled household food security. Food purchases and farming, the primary household food streams for the city, were under threat due to water shortages and high monthly water bills. More than 90% of household incomes were below the Poverty Datum Line and the Total Consumption Poverty Line; water bills accounted for a significant portion, ultimately causing food insecurity. The grant-aided municipality emphasized revenue collection to mitigate the central government's 2013 debt cancellation. Gweru had no useful alternative sources of water for agriculture. The existing water governance failed to capture the complex symbiotic relationship between the city's water and food availability. While we advocate minimal central government interference, the municipality must introduce an efficient dual-purpose water system to protect residents, the natural environment, and the local authority's finances.