Towards sustainable urban development: the social acceptability of high-rise buildings in a Ghanaian city

Over the years, many city managers, policy makers and academics alike have turned to high-rise buildings as pathway to sustainable urban development. However, the sustainability of such types of development in various geographical contexts, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, is a subject less explored. Amidst the promotion of high-rise development in a rapidly urbanizing metropolis in Ghana, Kumasi, the research empirically examined the social acceptability of high-rise residential facilities and the institutional capacity for their effective management. By conducting face-to-face interviews with sampled households, and critical public service providers in the metropolis, the study uncovered that, contrary to the evidence from many Asian cities, there is generally low social acceptability of high-rise developments, and a weak institutional capacity for effective service delivery. The research concludes that, whilst it is tempting to embrace high-rise buildings as sustainable development pathway, it is crucial they are pursued with much circumspection. In addition to their design being tailored to the local needs of the people for whom they are built, the promotion of high-rise development should recognize the importance of effective service delivery, and general social acceptability

Is climate change in the curriculum? An analysis of Australian urban planning degrees

The profession of urban planning contributes to the design and spatial arrangement of cities, and has been recognized as a key potential facilitator of action on climate change. Yet, there has been limited research to understand if, or how, urban planning students are being educated for climate change competency. This paper investigates the coverage of climate change in the curriculum of professionally accredited urban planning university degrees in Australia. Climate change coverage was assessed across three fields: 1) explicit climate change issues; 2) sustainable urban form issues (e.g. contributing to climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions), and 3) education for sustainability (with links to professional competencies relevant to climate change action). A content analysis was undertaken of: 1) the Planning Institute of Australia’s Policy for the Accreditation of Urban Planning Qualifications, and 2) a sample of nine accredited urban planning degrees. Limited coverage of explicit climate change issues and sustainable urban form issues was found. Coverage of education for sustainability themes (liberal education; civics; interdisciplinarity; cosmopolitism) was stronger. Results indicate that the professional accreditation policy, and the content of urban planning degrees should be revised to include greater coverage of explicit climate change issues

Analyzing the Driving Factors of Urban Transformation in the Province of Potenza (Basilicata Region-Italy)

The main transformation dynamics in the province of Potenza territory (Basilicata region in the south of Italy) correspond to those of urban sprinkling. The urban sprinkling phenomena is typical of mainly mountainous internal areas with indices of settlement density and artificial coverage ratios very low. The temporal and spatial analysis of the urban sprinkling phenomenon gives a picture of the transformation dynamics of the territory, i.e. the phenomena of fragmentation and compaction of the urban territory. Through a logistic regression, the driving factors that have affected the dynamics of urban transformation and specifically the phenomena of fragmentation and compaction between 1998 and 2013 will be analyzed. The two transformation phenomena (dependent variables Y), will be analyzed separately and built on the basis of the variation of the sprinkling index in the analyzed period. In the model, eleven independent variables concerning physical characteristics, proximity analysis, socioeconomic characteristics and the urban policies or constraints, have been considered. The result of the logistic regression consists of two probability maps of change of the dependent variable Y from non-urban to fragmented or compacted. The indexes of the relative operational characteristic (ROC) of 0.85 and 0.84 respectively for compaction and fragmentation, testify the goodness of the model