3,681 research outputs found
Towards an Integrated Scenario Approach for Spatial Planning and Natural Hazards Mitigation
In the frame of the support to the conception, definition and implementation of European policies, the Land Management Unit of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability (Directorate General Joint Research Centre (DG-JRC) of the European Commission (EC)) is developing an integrated framework to evaluate and propose strategies for the sustainable management of the European territory. An important tool within this framework is the MOLAND (Monitoring Land Use/Cover Dynamics) model for urban and regional growth forecast. The model is part of an integrated methodology based on a set of spatial planning tools that can be used for assessing, monitoring and modelling the development of urban and regional environments.
The MOLAND model has been specifically designed for urban and regional development assessment. It is based on a spatial dynamics bottom-up approach. The model takes as input several georeferenced datasets for the future simulation of urban areas and/or regions. Thus, future urban scenarios can be produced by taking into account land use development trends, population growth, socio-economic factors and spatial planning policies. Urban simulations offer a useful approach to understanding the consequences of current spatial planning policies. Among other causes the analysis of urban areas and their development has particular relevance because of their growing exposure to natural hazards, particularly floods and forest fires. Inappropriate regional and urban planning can exacerbate the negative effects of natural hazards. On the other hand, good land management and planning practices, including appropriate land use and development control in flood-prone areas, represent suitable non-structural solutions to minimise flood damage.
The effects of urban and regional development on flood risk should be evaluated to support both flood protection and spatial planning policies. This work supports policies such as the 6th Environment Action Program (Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment; Thematic Strategy on Soil Protection), the forthcoming Floods Directive “Reducing the risks of floods in Europe”, the ESPON (European Spatial Planning Observation Network) programme, and the growing awareness at local level amongst spatial policy-makers of the close connections between world-wide land degradation and global change, as underpinned by the European Climate Change Programme. The new regulations for renewed Structural Funds and instruments for the period 2007-2013, adopted by the EC on 14 July 2004, foresee specific measures for “developing plans and measures to prevent and cope with natural risks”.JRC.H.7-Land management and natural hazard
Barriers to the Implementation of Smart Projects in Rural Areas, Small Towns, and the City in Brno Metropolitan Area
The implementation of smart projects can contribute to solving the current development problems of municipalities and cities of varied sizes. Although the concept of smart development is a vague term in the literature, in practice it refers to projects based on the use of modern technologies, to improve the quality of life considering economic, social, and environmental dimensions. However, not all local governments in the Czech Republic implement smart projects, even though the smart city concept is currently receiving considerable attention from national governments and from the European Union. This paper characterizes the perception of barriers to the implementation of smart projects from the perspective of fifteen representatives and officials of local governments located in the Brno Metropolitan Area in the Czech Republic. The research was conducted using semi-structured interviews with these fifteen territorial actors. It was found that the barriers to the implementation of smart projects are related to internal factors in the municipalities, such as the lack of interest of municipal leaders and officials or potential technical complications accompanying the implementation of projects. However, external factors such as the Czech government's vague grasp of the smart cities concept or cyber threats also play a role. Perceived barriers were categorized according to their type and schematized.O
Modernist Urbanism in the Age of Automobility: Producing Space in the Suburbs of Toronto and Prague
Theorizing the effects of the expanding system of automobility has been an important area of inquiry in urban studies. What remains largely absent, though, are concrete investigations into the relationships between automobility and the transformations and production of urban space. Automobility is defined by its contradictions. This dissertation explores how urban planners, architects and theorists have historically responded to and attempted to resolve the contradictions of automobility. I locate these responses within the broader theoretical framework of the production of space, considering how the mode of conceiving space from the 1920s on was directly related to the car and the expanding system of automobility. Automobility as an assemblage of objects, ideologies, and institutions was central to the way architects and planners conceived of urban space: as a work of art. I argue that this conception of space circulated globally, which I show through the work of the Czechoslovak architectural avant-garde theorist Karel Teige in the 1920s and the urban theorist Humphrey Carver in post-war Canada.
In this dissertation I explore automobility and the production of space by way of two post-war suburbs: Jižnà město (South City) in Prague and Willowdale in Toronto. Both places were considered as solutions to problems associated with automobility and both were key nodes in the circulation of ideas on modernist urbanism. I argue that the building of South City and the rebuilding of Willowdale are the culmination of the circulation of a modernist urbanism across space and over time that attempted to respond to the forces of urbanization and automobility through planning and designing the suburb.
Overcoming the contradictions of automobility will involve more than just new technologies of mobility—urban planners, architects and theorists will have to consider the production of a wholly different space for urban life. To move beyond automobility means accounting for the ways the system of automobility unevenly affects city and suburban dwellers. In an attempt to offer a critique of the city-suburb dichotomy, this dissertation argues that to go “beyond automobility” means collapsing the separations that mark both modernism and automobility
Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for
Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality
Central Europe – Modernism and the modern movement as viewed through the lens of town planning and building 1895 - 1939
This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis sets out to re-locate and redefine the historical arguments around the development of the Modern Movement in architecture. It investigates the development of architectural modernism in Central Europe from 1895-1939 in the towns and cities of the multinational Habsburg Empire, in a creative milieu in which opposition, contrast and difference were the norm. It argues that the evolution of the Modern Movement through the independent nations that arose from the Empire constituted an early and significant engagement with urbanisation, planning and architectural modernism that has been largely overlooked by western scholarship. By reviewing the extant literature in discussion with Central European authorities and by drawing upon a little known range of sources, this thesis brings into focus the role of key individuals such as Plečnik, Fabiani and Kotěra and it explores the significance of developments in town planning in places like Zagreb and Ljubljana. In restoring some of this missing detail and revisiting some of the key sites, the thesis reveals how Central European individuals made early and significant contributions to the development of architectural modernism and the Modern Movement that have hitherto received little critical acknowledgement. What this research reveals is how these figures developed what can be seen as local solutions, rooted in the context and culture of individual towns and cities and their unique histories. However more significantly, this thesis also demonstrates that these independent initiatives were formed with an understanding of - and in response to - wider national and international developments in the field of architectural modernism. In this connection, the thesis can be regarded as part of an emerging academic effort to redress the history of the Modern Movement and an attempt to set in motion a raft of suggestion for further research into this rich field of cultural endeavour
Landscape related factors affecting urban sprawl in European cities
Mestrado em Arquitetura Paisagista - Instituto Superior de Agronomia - ULThis thesis aims to discuss some issues related to the actual situation of suburban sprawl in Europe and focuses on the nature and landscapes. Urbanization is a main topic in EU, since cities are still growing, economy is stabilized, although it faced some challenges during the last decade and the larger part of Europe experiences a long period of time with no war or health epidemic. People have the resources to invest in new housing and in many cases they want to fulfill their dream of a house with garden. But this vision requires a lot of space usage so cities are sometimes spontaneously expanding beyond their borders and sometimes it does not even correspond to state urban policies.
Urban sprawl is also a serious issue for European nature that does not have as many space alternatives as for example the USA. There are issues with coastal habitats, landscape fragmentation and loss of natural habitats.
Thus, this thesis aims to find the main drivers behind urban sprawl and issues related to them. It analyzes its political, economic or social background and deducts solutions for urban sprawl repair with the help of successful projects or experience of states/cities, that suffered from urban sprawl but managed to find a way how to keep the urban development in balance. In this thesis it is a case of Norway. In practical part of this thesis, two case studies were chosen to represent characteristic problems of urban sprawl. They are from Portugal (regional level) and Czech Republic (community level). Those two cases are analyzed independently on each other and variations of solutions are found for themN/
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