Briefing: re-engineering the city 2020–2050 – urban foresight and transition management

Cities may be responsible for up to 70% of global carbon emissions and 75% of global energy consumption and by 2050 it is estimated that 70% of the world's population could live in cities. The critical challenge for contemporary urbanism, therefore, is to understand how to develop the knowledge, capacity and capability for public agencies, the private sector and multiple users in city regions systemically to re-engineer their built environment and urban infrastructure in response to climate change and resource constraints. Re-Engineering the City 2020–2050: Urban Foresight and Transition Management (Retrofit 2050) is a major new interdisciplinary project funded under the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council's (EPSRC) Sustainable Urban Environments Programme which seeks to address this challenge. This briefing describes the background and conceptual framing of Retrofit 2050 project, its aims and objectives and research approach.

Retrofit city futures: visions for urban sustainability

This report (which is part of the EPSRC Retrofit 2050 project) sets out three contrasting long term (2050) visions for retrofit city-regional futures, developed through an in-depth participatory backcasting and foresight process. These contextual scenarios are intended as a tool which can be adapted and used by a wide variety of stakeholders and organisations to stimulate discussion and inform future policy and long-term planning.

Sustainable urban metabolism as a link between bio-physical sciences and urban planning: the BRIDGE project

Urban metabolism considers a city as a system with flows of energy and material between it and the environment. Recent advances in bio-physical sciences provide methods and models to estimate local scale energy, water, carbon and pollutant fluxes. However, good communication is required to provide this new knowledge and its implications to endusers (such as urban planners, architects and engineers). The FP7 project BRIDGE (sustainaBle uRban plannIng Decision support accountinG for urban mEtabolism) aimed to address this gap by illustrating the advantages of considering these issues in urban planning. The BRIDGE Decision Support System (DSS) aids the evaluation of the sustainability of urban planning interventions. The Multi Criteria Analysis approach adopted provides a method to cope with the complexity of urban metabolism. In consultation with targeted end-users, objectives were defined in relation to the interactions between the environmental elements (fluxes of energy, water, carbon and pollutants) and socioeconomic components (investment costs, housing, employment, etc.) of urban sustainability. The tool was tested in five case study cities: Helsinki, Athens, London, Florence and Gliwice; and sub-models were evaluated using flux data selected. This overview of the BRIDGE project covers the methods and tools used to measure and model the physical flows, the selected set of sustainability indicators, the methodological framework for evaluating urban planning alternatives and the resulting DSS prototype.

Nature of vegetation and building morphology characteristics across a city: influence on shadow patterns and mean radiant temperatures in London

Vegetation and building morphology characteristics are investigated at 19 sites on a north-south LiDAR transect across the megacity of London. Local maxima of mean building height and building plan area density at the city centre are evident. Surprisingly, the mean vegetation height (zv3) is also found to be highest in the city centre. From the LiDAR data various morphological parameters are derived as well as shadow patterns. Continuous images of the effects of buildings and of buildings plus vegetationon sky view factor (Ψ) are derived. A general reduction of Ψ is found, indicating the importance of including vegetation when deriving Ψ in urban areas. The contribution of vegetation to the shadowing at ground level is higher during summer than in autumn. Using these 3D data the influence on urban climate and mean radiant temperature (T mrt ) is calculated with SOLWEIG. The results from these simulations highlight that vegetation can be most effective at reducing heat stress within dense urban environments in summer. The daytime average T mrt is found to be lowest in the densest urban environments due to shadowing; foremost from buildings but also from trees. It is clearly shown that this method could be used to quantify the influence of vegetation on T mrt within the urban environment. The results presented in this paper highlight a number of possible climate sensitive planning practices for urban areas at the local scale (i.e. 102- 5 × 103 m).

Climate and more sustainable cities: climate information for improved planning and management of cities (producers/capabilities perspective)

In the last two decades substantial advances have been made in the understanding of the scientific basis of urban climates. These are reviewed here with attention to sustainability of cities, applications that use climate information, and scientific understanding in relation to measurements and modelling. Consideration is given from street (micro) scale to neighbourhood (local) to city and region (meso) scale. Those areas where improvements are needed in the next decade to ensure more sustainable cities are identified. High-priority recommendations are made in the following six strategic areas: observations, data, understanding, modelling, tools and education. These include the need for more operational urban measurement stations and networks; for an international data archive to aid translation of research findings into design tools, along with guidelines for different climate zones and land uses; to develop methods to analyse atmospheric data measured above complex urban surfaces; to improve short-range, high-resolution numerical prediction of weather, air quality and chemical dispersion through improved modelling of the biogeophysical features of the urban land surface; to improve education about urban meteorology; and to encourage communication across scientific disciplines at a range of spatial and temporal scales.

The role of location in knowledge creation and diffusion: evidence of centripetal and centrifugal forces in the City of London financial services agglomeration

In this paper we report on a major empirical study of centripetal and centrifugal forces in the City of London financial services agglomeration. The study sheds light on (1) the manner and magnitude of firm interaction in the agglomeration; (2) the characteristics of the agglomeration that aid the competitiveness of incumbent firms; and (3) the problems associated with agglomeration. In addressing these issues, we use the data to (1) test emerging theory that explains the high productivity and innovation of agglomerations in terms of their ability to generate and diffuse knowledge; and (2) evaluate the ‘end of geography’ thesis.

Hollywood in the world market – evidence from Australia in the mid-1930s

By the mid-1930s the major Hollywood studios had developed extensive networks of distribution subsidiaries across five continents. This article focuses on the operation of American film distributors in Australia – one of Hollywood's largest foreign markets. Drawing on two unique primary datasets, the article compares and investigates film distribution in Sydney's first-run and suburban-run markets. It finds that the subsidiaries of US film companies faced a greater liability of foreignness in the city centre market than in the suburban one. Our data support the argument that film audiences in local or suburban cinema markets were more receptive to Hollywood entertainment than those in metropolitan centres.