Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the empirical ‘world city network’ (WCN) literature by proposing an analytical framework that considers the significance of the positions of cities in the urban networks created by multinational corporations. To this end, we introduce an approach in which network centrality measures are interpreted against a randomized baseline model that retains the network's original degree distribution. Our framework is applied to Taylor's (2001 Geographical Analysis 33 181–194) specification of world cities being ‘interlocked’ through the office networks of globalized service firms. We thereby develop a new analytical take on Taylor's specification by using a primary-linkage algorithm that produces a one-mode directed graph based on the initial two-mode city and firm network data. We then randomize the resultant empirical network with a bootstrapping simulation approach, and compare the simulated parameters of this null model with our empirical network parameter, that is, betweenness centrality. We show the potential and limitations of our framework by discussing the position of cities such as Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, Almaty, and Karachi, which seem to hold more strategic and valuable positions than is suggested in Taylor's analyses. We discuss the wider significance of our approach by showing that the analytical strategy of interpreting measures against a randomized baseline model can also be adopted in other WCN approaches, including those using other data sources and network-related measures.

The idea of ‘place’ has long been central to the planning and design practice. Recent trends illustrate increased intervention in the ‘experience’ and ‘feeling’ of places, in order to influence and enhance community dynamics. While place-making is an important tool for experts to utilize in community planning, it should be accompanied by a thorough understanding of the contemporary social dynamics of place and the implications it has for the people who inhabit these places. In this sense, participatory planning forms an integral part of future place-making processes and planning thereof. In this paper, the first aim is to capture the importance of incorporating public perspective into the place-making process when considering future urban planning. The second is to stress the importance of the creative participatory processes to attract stakeholders and enhance their willingness to partake in the participatory planning processes. The third aim is to identify creative participatory planning tools that can be used to enhance participatory planning within the place-making process.

An algorithm has been developed to generate, without external intervention, a road and land-use plan for a regular or irregular site. It starts from an ‘embryo’ and grows a plan rather than trying to modify an initial solution. The basic modules are universal building blocks which change and adapt in a guided search with random selection of branching points followed by operations to add links or make connections. Deletion operators guide development by removing branches which do not improve the outcome. A hypothetical application, maximizing combined everyone-to-everyone connectivity and dwelling density, has evolved a highly interconnected street plan. However, no step is specific to the example; the operators will grow a road and land-use network under various specifications and constraints guided by an objective function. Making the process applicable to an actual development might require more constraints and certainly an enlarged objective function. Cost and other goals can be included so long as each goal is functionally related in some way to every change in the plan made by the search procedure.

Urban growth is discussed according to the impact of size on metric and topological space syntax measures that describe street networks. The quantitative analysis of three historical stages of cities on the Adriatic and Ionian coastline is supported by a unique database of historical maps and axial map representations. The empirical evidence demonstrates strong and significant allometric relationships of total length of lines to the area of urbanized territory, and total length, total connectivity, overall depth, total choice (betweenness), and total depth entropy to axial map size. In this paper allometric equations are derived for the measures and it is shown that comparative analysis based on means of measures traditionally used in space syntax does not comply with the observed ontogenetic relationships. The allometric trends of length to area and of connectivity to network size are shown to have sublinear scaling exponents, whereas allometric relationships of length, depth, choice, and entropy to network size are expressed with superlinear exponents. The comparison among three historical stages shows that allometry of depth to axial map size maintains statistical equivalence at the ontogenetic scale that transcends various types of street patterns, growth models, and physiographic conditions. In contrast, allometric relationships of depth, choice, and entropy to size reveal distinct universality classes between cities on the Italian and Balkan coasts, and between cities with and without gridiron street patterns.

One of the difficult tasks in urban renewal is land assembly because it requires consent from landowners. The major obstacle for negotiation comes from the fact that some landowners ask higher than market price for their land. The characteristics of landowners are classified into two types according to prospect theory. This study adopts game theory to analyze strategic interaction and negotiation processes between a developer and landowners in Taiwan. The aim of this study is to show the impact of the characteristics of landowners on the implementation of the project and the best strategy for developers to deal with the uncertainty of landowners' characteristics. We found that not only the characteristics of the landowners, but also the strategies adopted by a developer may hinder the implementation of an urban renewal plan.

The main goal of this paper is to study the design and implementation of a digital serious game for civic engagement in urban planning. Digital serious games are games that aim to support learning in a playful and engaging way. Learning about the environment and planned changes is essential in civic engagement. The study case is taken from a city district, Billstedt, in Hamburg, Germany. In the implementation of a game concept we concentrated on the design of a marketplace in Billstedt. The game was called “B3—Design your Marketplace!” The B3 game aims to provide a playful digital environment in which the citizens gain information about the current situation in the city district, have the possibility of submitting their own designs for the marketplace, vote for the preferred designs, and chat with the experts and other participants. The prototype of the B3 serious game was evaluated with a group of students and a group of elderly people. The majority of the participants involved in testing expressed appreciation for the digital serious game as a new form of online civic engagement in urban planning. The paper concludes with a discussion about the potential of digital serious games for civic engagement and open research questions.

The concepts ‘typological process’ and ‘morphological period’ have received surprisingly little empirical substantiation despite their familiarity to many urban morphologists. They are examined here in two contrasting cultural areas—England and the Shanghai area, China—over the period from the mid-19th century to the late-20th century. Sequences of ordinary residential building types are recognized in the two areas: for example, historical series of terraced house types in England and historical variations on the lilong development unit in the Shanghai area. Periods characterized by different types and connections between those types are identified. The areas are different in both their building types and their periodizations but commonalities in their processes of change, including those related to the spread of Western fashions, are found. The difficulty of uncovering the mechanism of the typological process whereby one form type is succeeded by another reflects major problems of assembling the requisite data. Many more comparative studies, including between contrasting cultural areas, are needed.

Although information has been used as a strategy to influence short-term travel behavior, there is a paucity of research on whether information can result in long-term behavioral changes. To examine the impact of providing information on location choices and travel behaviors we used an experimental design with a sample of incoming students at two area universities. Information was administered to individuals in the experimental group before they selected a residential location in the area. With a survey, we collected information on residential locations and travel behaviors from all participants six months after the intervention. Students in the intervention group from one university traveled between 50% and 68% fewer km/day by automobile, located closer to the university, and located in areas with more transit stops than students in the control group. Information appears to be a promising strategy for influencing location decisions and prompting travel behavior change.

In this paper we investigate variations in the adoption of LEED-certified commercial buildings across 174 core-based statistical areas in the United States. Drawing upon a unique database and using a robust analytical framework, the determinants of the proportion LEED-certified space are modeled. We find that, despite high growth rates, LEED-certified stock accounts for a relatively small proportion of the total commercial stock. The average proportion is less than 1%. A further contribution of the paper is that our concentration measure avoids the biases associated with simple percentage measures that were used in previous studies of this topic. Strongest predictors of the proportion of LEED-certified commercial space in a local market are market size, educational attainment and economic growth. In terms of policy effectiveness, it is found that only a mandatory requirement to obtain LEED certification for new buildings has a significant positive effect on market penetration.