Probing the position of the Jakarta metropolitan area in global inter-urban networks through the lens of manufacturing firms

This paper presents an analysis of the position of the Jakarta metropolitan area (JMA) in global inter-urban networks. Our starting point is our aim to provide a more nuanced understanding of the JMA’s connectivity in world city networks (WCNs). To this end, we steer clear of top-down approaches, which tend to analyze cities in singular taxonomies of global prominence, and instead propose a framework that is attuned to the JMA’s contexts to provide an alternative and complementary reading of how the JMA has been inserted into the WCN. To this end, by drawing on the interlocking network model, which helps to proxy inter-urban networks based on the multi-locational operations of manufacturing firms, we examine the JMA’s network positionality on the global and national scales. The results provide evidence of the JMA’s global inter-city relations being strongly geared toward East Asian cities. In addition, the results suggest that the JMA cannot be detached from its national geography, as evidenced by its strong connections with cities located on the island of Java

Impacts of climate change: challenges of flooding in coastal East Asia

Over recent years a body of evidence has grown to suggest that East Asia is experiencing the effects of climate change. Allied to this is that coastal populations and economic assets are becoming more vulnerable to flood hazards. Flood vulnerability has increased owing to the combination of a number of human and physical variables: a) rapid coastal urban growth, b) anthropogenic changes to the environment, such as land subsidence through natural resource extraction or the removal of natural protective barriers, and c) increase in frequency and magnitude of coastal hazards associated with typhoons, storm surges, and sea-level rise. East Asia’s population is highly concentrated on low-lying coastal regions and deltaic cities are especially at risk. However, effective adaptation to climate impacts on many coasts is yet to develop. In this chapter, the drivers of coastal vulnerability are reviewed and examined in East Asia, exemplified by the Pearl River Delta (PRD), and its megacities of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The population of the PRD is expected to reach 120 million by 2050 and the delta is one of the most important economic centres in East Asia. Flood risk is substantial in the PRD, but flood-risk management appears to suffer from a lack of sufficient strategic planning to prepare for future climate extremes. Drawing on international experience of climate change adaptation and flood risk management, we suggest a path forward to develop adaptation strategies for deltaic and coastal cities in East Asia

Alterations within the Coastal Urban Environments: Case of the Coastal Squares of Istanbul Megacity

Two-thirds of the megacities of the world are standing on the coastal areas. Today, coastal megacities are under the impact of varying factors like human-induced changes such as urbanization and mega projects and the natural ones as global climate change and natural disasters. Many European coastal cities are examining the impacts of the sea level change due to the global climate change. Regarding its long history, interplay with the sea and the drastic population, Istanbul captures a significant place both in Turkey and in the world. It is standing as a city, which is phase by phase losing its interaction with the sea due to the mega projects generated within the last decades. Although their limited number; public squares and parks attached with the promenades are the only openings to the sea and they contribute maintaining the continuity and sustainability of coastal identity. This chapter handles five significant historical squares and interrogates their interplay with the natural and physical challenges of the twenty-first century. Regarding this aim, case areas are evaluated by parameters of morphological attributes, formation of squares, qualification of the surfaces and coastal-based natural disaster impacts such as sea level rise and tsunami through literature-based studies and spatio-temporal diagrammatic maps

No. 01: Hungry Cities of the Global South

The recent inclusion of an urban Sustainable Development Goal in the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda represents an important acknowledgement of the reality of global urbanization and the many social, economic, infrastructural and political challenges posed by the human transition to a predominantly urban world. However, while the SDG provides goals for housing, transportation, land use, cultural heritage and disaster risk prevention, food is not mentioned at all. This discussion paper aims to correct this unfortunate omission by reviewing the current evidence on the challenges of feeding rapidly-growing cities in the Global South. The paper first documents the magnitude of the urban transition and the variety of indicators that have been deployed to measure the extent of food insecurity amongst urban populations. It then looks at the way in which urban food systems are being transformed by the advent of supermarkets (the so-called “supermarket revolution”) and the growth of the informal food economy. The final section of the paper examines the relationship between formal and informal food retail and asks whether the one is undermining the other or whether they co-exist in an uneasy, though symbiotic, relationship. Against this backdrop, the secondary purpose of the paper is to lay out a research agenda which will guide the Hungry Cities Partnership as it attempts to give greater global prominence to the critical but neglected issue of urban food systems and food insecurity

Expansion of Major Urban Areas in the US Great Plains from 2000 to 2009 Using Satellite Scatterometer Data

A consistent dataset delineating and characterizing changes in urban environments will be valuable for socioeconomic and environmental research and for sustainable urban development. Remotely sensed data have been long used to map urban extent and infrastructure at various spatial and spectral resolutions. Although many datasets and approaches have been tried, there is not yet a universal way to map urban extents across the world. Here we combined a microwave scatterometer (QuikSCAT) dataset at ~1 km posting with percent impervious surface area (%ISA) data from the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) that was generated from Landsat data, and ambient population data from the LandScan product to characterize and quantify growth in nine major urban areas in the US Great Plains from 2000 to 2009. Nonparametric Mann-Kendall trend tests on backscatter time series from urban areas show significant expanding trends in eight of nine urban areas with p-values ranging 0.032 to 0.001. The sole exception is Houston, which has a substantial non-urban backscatter at the northeastern edge of the urban core. Strong power law scaling relationships between ambient population and either urban area or backscatter power (r2 of 0.96 in either model) with sub-linear exponents (β of 0.911 and 0.866, respectively) indicate urban areas become more compact with more vertical built-up structure than lateral expansion to accommodate the increased population. Increases in backscatter and %ISA datasets between 2001 and 2006 show agreement in both magnitude and direction for all urban areas except Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP), likely due to the presence of many lakes and ponds throughout the MSP metropolitan area. We conclude discussing complexities in the backscatter data caused by large metal structures and rainfall

SUSTAINABLE ENERGY IMPLEMENTATION IN URBAN NIGERIA

A global new deal (describing a comprehensive programme designed to respond to multiple crises in financial, economic, environmental and social sectors) recently adopted by advanced countries comprises sustainable (renewable and efficient) energy and environmentally-friendly technologies. Despite the abundance of natural renewable energy resources in Nigeria, sustainable energy remains ignored and underplayed. Aetiological method and concept of postneoliberalism were used to analyse historical data on sustainable energy production and use in Nigeria. The findings include prolonged use of neoliberalistic political framework: military dictatorship, ineptitude in terms of adoption of sustainable energy due to the culture comprising historical scramble to steal and misappropriate funds earned from export, production and use, of fossil fuels (petroleum oil and natural gas). After criminally enriching themselves by stealing public funds, Nigeria’s elite (characterized by opulent living) over-use and rely on conventional energy technologies (CETs)-especially gigantic and powerful fossil fuel-run power generating sets It is concluded that the failure of Nigeria’s elite to facilitate massive and rapid implementation of sustainable energy technologies to address multiple crises hampering the achievement of sustainable development in the country beckons for the creation of new postneoliberalistic policies are required to promote massive and rapid implementation of sustainable energy technologies at decentralized sub-national urban regions based on the proven model of distributed generation and supply of SETs.postneoliberalism, sustainable energy technologies, Nigeria, conventional energy technologies

Big Cities. Big Water. Big Challenges: Water in an Urbanizing World.

This paper applies the water footprint methodology to six megacities across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to explore the effect of urbanization on water use and demand and determine what measures need to be taken to meet this demand. Key threats to water resources in many or all of the cities studied include: water stress or scarcity, pollution and decreasing water quality, and vulnerability to extreme weather caused by climate change

Projecting Progress: Are Cities on Track to Achieve the SDGs by 2030?

This report explores for the first time the scale of the challenge for 20 cities across the world to reach selected targets set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). More than half of the targets included will require a profound acceleration of efforts if they are to be achieved by the majority of selected cities. Targets that are not on course to be met by the majority of cities studied include ending child malnutrition, achieving full and productive female employment, access to adequate housing and access to drinking water and sanitation.The report makes a series of recommendations to increase progress towards the SDGs, including:Central governments and donors should work to strengthen local governments' capacities.Government and city administrations should invest more in ways to monitor progress on the SDGs.Statistical offices' and cities' information systems should improve the data available

Brazil: Modernity and Mobility

This essay examines the field of Brazilian mobility studies, concentrating mainly on recent (2010-2013) scholarship by Portuguese-speaking Brazilian academics published in English-language journals. The mass demonstrations and violent protests that have erupted in Brazilian urban centres over the past one hundred years demonstrate the importance of mobility to Brazil’s traveling public. Several strikes by transport workers have occurred since 1903 and, over the past fifty years, there have been numerous passenger revolts too: in São Paulo in 1947, in Rio de Janeiro in 1974-5, and most recently in 2013, when protests over a proposed twenty centavos (eight US cents) increase in the price of a bus ticket broke out in more than a dozen cities. While Brazilians care deeply about their public transport, they also like their cars. The nation has had a love affair with the car since the 1920s that shows no sign of diminishing