Observations on the formation, growth and chemical composition of aerosols in an urban environment

The charge and chemical composition of ambient particles in an urban environment were determined using a Neutral Particle and Air Ion Spectrometer and an Aerodyne compact Time-Of-Flight Aerosol Mass Spectrometer. Particle formation and growth events were observed on 20 of the 36 days of sampling, with eight of these events classified as strong. During these events, peaks in the concentration of intermediate and large ions were followed by peaks in the concentration of ammonium and sulphate, which were not observed in the organic fraction. Comparison of days with and without particle formation events revealed that ammonium and sulphate were the dominant species on particle formation days while high concentrations of biomass burning OA inhibited particle growth. Analyses of the degree of particle neutralisation lead us to conclude that an excess of ammonium enabled particle formation and growth. In addition, the large ion concentration increased sharply during particle growth, suggesting that during nucleation the neutral gaseous species ammonia and sulphuric acid react to form ammonium and sulphate ions. Overall, we conclude that the mechanism of particle formation and growth involved ammonia and sulphuric acid, with limited input from organics.

Relating urban airborne particle concentrations to shipping using carbon based elemental emission ratios

This study demonstrates a novel method for testing the hypothesis that variations in primary and secondary particle number concentration (PNC) in urban air are related to residual fuel oil combustion at a coastal port lying 30 km upwind, by examining the correlation between PNC and airborne particle composition signatures chosen for their sensitivity to the elemental contaminants present in residual fuel oil. Residual fuel oil combustion indicators were chosen by comparing the sensitivity of a range of concentration ratios to airborne emissions originating from the port. The most responsive were combinations of vanadium and sulfur concentration ([S], [V]) expressed as ratios with respect to black carbon concentration ([BC]). These correlated significantly with ship activity at the port and with the fraction of time during which the wind blew from the port. The average [V] when the wind was predominantly from the port was 0.52 ng.m-3 (87%) higher than the average for all wind directions and 0.83 ng.m-3 (280%) higher than that for the lowest vanadium yielding wind direction considered to approximate the natural background. Shipping was found to be the main source of V impacting urban air quality in Brisbane. However, contrary to the stated hypothesis, increases in PNC related measures did not correlate with ship emission indicators or ship traffic. Hence at this site ship emissions were not found to be a major contributor to PNC compared to other fossil fuel combustion sources such as road traffic, airport and refinery emissions.

Urban Informatics and Public Transport

The holistic urban experience we perceive when immersed in an urban context is at the heart of urban informatics. This experience encompasses all urban elements such as architecture, people, and culture. Urban informatics explores the possibilities and opportunities created by new technologies and information for enhancing the urban experience. Public transport is an essential urban experience. Everyday, urban dwellers takes public transport to commute and move between different parts of the city. Public transport serves people from all over the city and moves them through different places in the city, using different means of transportation. The nature of public transport—involving people, places, and technologies, makes it a fitting context for urban informatics interventions. There are three main aspects of the public transport experience that can readily benefit from urban informatics interventions the: pragmatic aspect, hedonistic aspect, and social aspect. From the pragmatic perspective, these interventions can help people to be more efficient and effective in taking public transport. Hedonistic-related interventions aim to bring enjoyment and fun to our mundane commute. Finally, urban informatics can strengthen the sense of community in a socially-passive context like public transport environments through adopting socially focused interventions.

Before and after the creative city : the politics of urban cultural policy in Austin, Texas

This article examines the politics and practice of urban cultural policy in Austin, Texas. I demonstrate how aspects of the local context frame how local government and cultural sector interests strive to initiate the direction of policy. While larger trends—such as Richard Florida's creative city thesis—influence cultural policy and planning, specific contextual factors including prior economic development and growth management policy, departmental organization, the forum for interaction between municipal actors and non-governmental coalitions, and the character of the city's cultural economy mediate such trends to produce policy outcomes. As this case shows, contemporary urban cultural policy is not simply due to the rise of the creative city discourse, but is an evolving product of past policy structures and shaped by local institutions and actors.

Cultural development strategies and urban revitalization

Municipal governments around the globe increasingly turn to museums, performing arts centers, arts districts, and other cultural activities to promote and revitalize their cities. While a significant body of literature examines revitalization strategies that focus primarily around entertainment and commerce, the empirical body of research that specifically investigates the role of cultural strategies in urban redevelopment is still growing. This paper first discusses the development of municipal cultural strategies in the United States, and draws from the literature to outline the characteristics of three different models of such strategies. Second, the paper presents findings from a national survey distributed to municipal agencies involved in the promotion and development of cultural activities and facilities in large and medium‐sized US cities. The survey data indicate that although most agencies are guided by a varied set of goals, entrepreneurial objectives continue to guide the development and support of cultural activities in most cities.

The Politics of Urban Cultural Policy : Global Perspectives

The Politics of Urban Cultural Policy brings together a range of international experts to critically analyze the ways that governmental actors and non-governmental entities attempt to influence the production and implementation of urban policies directed at the arts, culture, and creative activity. Presenting a global set of case studies that span five continents and 22 cities, the essays in this book advance our understanding of how the dynamic interplay between economic and political context, institutional arrangements, and social networks affect urban cultural policy-making and the ways that these policies impact urban development and influence urban governance. The volume comparatively studies urban cultural policy-making in a diverse set of contexts, analyzes the positive and negative outcomes of policy for different constituencies, and identifies the most effective policy directions, emerging political challenges, and most promising opportunities for building effective cultural policy coalitions. The volume provides a comprehensive and in-depth engagement with the political process of urban cultural policy and urban development studies around the world. It will be of interest to students and researchers interested in urban planning, urban studies and cultural studies.

Urban branding : an analysis of city homepage imagery

This paper examines a practically ubiquitous, yet largely overlooked, source of city marketing, the official city homepage. The extent to which local governments use the Web as a marketing tool is explored through a comparative analysis of the images featured on the city, convention, and visitors bureau homepages in large and medium-sized U.S. cities. The article goes on to analyze the ways in which the city homepages reflect the population, geography, and built environment of a city and, through a typology of marketing themes found on the city homepages, to suggest the range of ways they may package images of city spaces to communicate a brand identity. The research contributes to an understanding of the ways in which municipalities may attempt to represent the city and suggests that most city homepage imagery is oriented toward marketing goals of tourism and attracting and retaining residents and businesses.

Museums as urban catalysts : the role of urban design in flagship cultural development

A long-held urban redevelopment strategy has been the investment in flagship cultural projects—large-scale, iconic museums and arts centres that are intended to enhance the city image while catalyzing private sector investment and attracting tourists to the surrounding area. This paper concentrates on an aspect of the flagship cultural strategy that has received surprisingly little focused attention—the role that urban design and context play in realizing project outcomes. The analysis concentrates on two established flagship museums in Los Angeles and San Jose, California. The research demonstrates that certain urban design characteristics can negatively affect the ability of a project to attract visitors and generate commercial activity. However, at the same time, factors beyond the local context may be an overriding factor in project outcomes thus calling into question the concept of cultural catalyst.

Urban food futures : ICTs and opportunities

Food is a vital foundation of all human life. It is essential to a myriad of political, socio-cultural, economic and environmental practices throughout history. As Kaplan [1] contends, “the scholarship on food has real pedigree.” Today, practices of food production, consumption and distribution have the potential to go through immensely transformative shifts as network technologies become increasingly embedded in every domain of contemporary life. This presents unique opportunities for further scholarly exploration on this topic, which this special issue intends to address. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are one of the pillars of contemporary global functionality and sustenance and undoubtedly will continue to present new challenges and opportunities for the future. As such, this special issue of Futures has been brought together to address challenges and opportunities at the intersection of food and ICTs. In particular, the edition asks, what are the key roles that network technologies play in re-shaping social and economic networks of food?

The Habitual Rhythms of Becoming-Involved: Insights into Participation Experiences in Urban Spaces by Children with Diverse Mobility

This chapter reports on a study that reveals the essence of participation in urban spaces by ten children who live with various physical conditions: Muscular Dystrophy, Cerebral Palsy, and Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases. These conditions affect muscle and movement differently resulting in diverse ways in which children move through space (personal mobility). The children at the time of the research were 9-12 years of age residing in South-east Queensland, Australia. The approach and methods selected for this study, interpretive phenomenological inquiry and grounded theory, were chosen for their capacity to capture the complexity and multiple interactions of the child’s urban living. The confronting and poignant accounts by children and their families of their experiences produced a new way of understanding the concept of participation, as a ‘journey of becoming involved.’ Their accounts of performing everyday routines (e.g. leaving home, getting in and out of the car, and entering places) in urban spaces (neighbourhood streets, schools, open spaces, shopping centres, and hospitals) revealed differences in the way settings were experienced. These differences were associated with the interplay between the body, space and context. Where interplays were problematic, explicit decisions about children’s involvement were made. These decisions were described in terms of ‘avoid going’, ‘pick and choose’, ‘discontinue’, ‘accept’, or ‘contest.’ What these decisions mean is some spaces are avoided, some journeys are discontinued, and some barriers encountered in journeys are normalised as everyday experiences, i.e. ‘tolerable discrimination’. These actions resulted in experiences of non-participation or partial–tokenistic participation. The key substantive contribution of the research lies in the identification of points in children’s journeys that shape participation experience. These points identify where future interventions in policy, programming and design can be made to make real and sustaining changes to lives of children and their families in geographies crucial to urban living.

Towards prosperous sustainable cities : a multiscalar urban sustainability assessment approach

Prosperity and environmental sustainability of cities are inextricably linked. Cities can only maintain their prosperity when environmental and social objectives are fully integrated with economic goals for the purpose of a sustainable urban development. Sustainability assessment helps policy-makers decide what actions they should and should not take in an attempt to make our cities more sustainable. There are numerous models available for measuring and evaluating urban sustainability, and they focus their analysis on a specific scale—i.e., micro, mezzo, or macro. In most cases these results are inadequate for the other scales, though generating reliable results for that particular scale. The paper introduces a multiscalar urban sustainability approach by linking two sustainability assessment models evaluate sustainability performances in micro- and mezzo-levels and generate multiscalar results for the macro-level. The paper puts this approach into test in Gold Coast, Australia, and sheds light on the development of a more accurate sustainability analysis that may be interconnected with UN-Habitat’s City Prosperity Index.

Measuring Productivity Gains from Deregulation of the Japanese Urban Gas Industry

The Japanese government initiated a series of regulatory reforms in the mid-1990s. The Japanese urban gas industry consists of various sized private and non-private firms. Numerous previous studies find that deregulation leads to productivity improvements. We extend the literature by analyzing deregulation, privatization, and other aspects of a regulated industry using unique firm level data. This study measures productivity to evaluate the effect of the deregulation reform. Using data from 205 firms from 1993 to 2004, we find that the deregulation effect differs depending on firm size. Competitive pressure contributes to advanced productivity. The deregulation of gas sales to commercial customers is the most important factor for advancing productivity. Copyright © 2013 by the IAEE. All rights reserved.

Exploring the properties of macroscopic fundamental diagram : analysing Brisbane urban network

This thesis explored traffic characteristics at the aggregate level for area-wide traffic monitoring of large urban area. It focused on three aspects: understanding a macroscopic network performance under real-time traffic information provision, measuring traffic performance of a signalised arterial network using available data sets, and discussing network zoning for monitoring purposes in the case of Brisbane, Australia. This work presented the use of probe vehicle data for estimating traffic state variables, and illustrated dynamic features of regional traffic performance of Brisbane. The results confirmed the viability and effectiveness of area-wide traffic monitoring.