Sustainable urbanism in the age of Photoshop: Images, experiences and the role of learning through inhabiting the international travels of a planning model

Learning is one of the critical processes in enabling the international mobility of urban planning and policy ideas. A particularly effective form of learning in this context is an immersive, sensory approach we can describe as 'inhabiting'. This article illustrates the role that inhabiting plays in facilitating the mobility of the planning model of sustainable urbanism. To do so, it draws on research carried out in the industry of international private sector architects, planners and engineering consultants, sometimes called the Global Intelligence Corps (GIC). In the article, I illustrate how the GIC use inhabiting, drawing on visual media and personal experience to encourage their clients to incorporate sustainable urban planning and design proposals into large urban development projects. These explorations demonstrate the value of research methodologies that focus on the everyday practices and social interactions through which people mobilize ideas

Utopian visions and real estate dreams: The eco-city past, present and future

This article traces the evolution of the eco-city as a concept and an urban planning model over the last 40 years, outlining the various definitions, applications and critiques of the term historically and today. What distinguishes the eco-city from work on sustainable urbanism more broadly, the article argues, is its attempt to create a comprehensive and transferable model of sustainable urban development. Over the years, the eco-city, in both theory and application, has evolved along with broader trends in environmental thought. The idea of the eco-city originally emerged out of counterculture movements of the 1960s and 1970s as an approach to urban development that would respect environmental limits. Contemporary eco-city projects attempt to transcend these limits and are often driven as much by economic objectives as environmental ones. Although many eco-city projects market themselves as models for future urban development, the article argues that they are better seen as sites of experimentation and innovation, helping drive broader socio-technical transitions. The article concludes that the ability of eco-cities to achieve their utopian ambitions may be limited by the realities of operating within a profit-driven, entrepreneurial planning environment. However, they can still play a valuable role, providing a place to test new ideas and an ideal to aspire to

Globalising sustainable urbanism: the role of international masterplanners

How do you design a sustainable urban area from scratch? A growing number of urban development projects, marketing themselves as sustainable or ‘eco’ cities, claim to have the answer. This paper focuses on the companies who create the masterplans that guide the development of such sustainable urban projects. While these projects are appearing in a diverse array of locations around the world, they are largely conceived and designed by a small, elite group of international architecture, engineering and planning firms based in North America and Europe sometimes referred to as the global intelligence corps (GIC). Drawing on research into these firms, the paper examines the contemporary drivers of internationalisation in sustainable urban planning and design. These include enhanced professional reputations and satisfaction for designers and branding benefits for clients with a desire to be seen as modern and ‘global’. The paper then considers the role of international masterplanners in the global dissemination of ideas in this area, concluding that the GIC and the plans they develop are playing a significant role in the development of an international model of sustainable urbanism. However, the way in which this model is actually expressed in material form is strongly influenced by the demands and priorities of the GIC's international clients. The paper concludes by reflecting on what this research demonstrates about what it means for a planning model to be both relational and territorial

Unique bid auctions: Equilibrium solutions and experimental evidence

Two types of auction were introduced on the Internet a few years ago and have rapidly been gaining widespread popularity. In both auctions, players compete for an exogenously determined prize by independently choosing an integer in some finite and common strategy space specified by the auctioneer. In the unique lowest (highest) bid auction, the winner of the prize is the player who submits the lowest (highest) bid, provided that it is unique. We construct the symmetric mixed-strategy equilibrium solutions to the two auctions, and then test them in a sequence of experiments that vary the number of bidders and size of the strategy space. Our results show that the aggregate bids, but only a minority of the individual bidders, are accounted for quite accurately by the equilibrium solutions.

Unique bid auctions: Equilibrium solutions and experimental evidence

Two types of auction were introduced on the Internet a few years ago and have rapidly been gaining widespread popularity. In both auctions, players compete for an exogenously determined prize by independently choosing an integer in some finite and common strategy space specified by the auctioneer. In the unique lowest (highest) bid auction, the winner of the prize is the player who submits the lowest (highest) bid, provided that it is unique. We construct the symmetric mixed-strategy equilibrium solutions to the two auctions, and then test them in a sequence of experiments that vary the number of bidders and size of the strategy space. Our results show that the aggregate bids, but only a minority of the individual bidders, are accounted for quite accurately by the equilibrium solutions.unique bid auctions; equilibrium analysis; experiment

Potential Maximization and Coalition Government Formation

A model of coalition government formation is presented in which inefficient, non-minimal winning coalitions may form in Nash equilibrium. Predictions for five games are presented and tested experimentally. The experimental data support potential maximization as a refinement of Nash equilibrium. In particular, the data support the prediction that non-minimal winning coalitions occur when the distance between policy positions of the parties is small relative to the value of forming the government. These conditions hold in games 1, 3, 4 and 5, where subjects played their unique potential-maximizing strategies 91, 52, 82 and 84 percent of the time, respectively. In the remaining game (Game 2) experimental data support the prediction of a minimal winning coalition. Players A and B played their unique potential-maximizing strategies 84 and 86 percent of the time, respectively, and the predicted minimal-winning government formed 92 percent of the time (all strategy choices for player C conform with potential maximization in Game 2). In Games 1, 2, 4 and 5 over 98 percent of the observed Nash equilibrium outcomes were those predicted by potential maximization. Other solution concepts including iterated elimination of dominated strategies and strong/coalition proof Nash equilibrium are also tested.Coalition formation, Potential maximization, Nash equilibrium refinements, Experimental study, Minimal winning

Affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties in affine flag varieties

This paper studies affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties in the affine flag manifold of a split group. Among other things, it proves emptiness for certain of these varieties, relates some of them to those for Levi subgroups, extends previous conjectures concerning their dimensions, and generalizes the superset method.Comment: 44 pages, 4 figures. Minor changes to font, references, and acknowledgments. Improved introduction, other improvements in exposition, and two new figures added, for a total of

Reporting of child maltreatment during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in New York City from March to May 2020

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd Background: School closures and other public health responses have decreased the extent that children interact with mandated reporters and other professionals trained to detect child maltreatment. Objective: To assess associations between the pandemic public health response and the number of allegations of child abuse or neglect. Methods: This study analyzed monthly data from New York City of the number of child maltreatment allegations, stratified by reporter type (e.g., mandated reporter, education personnel, healthcare personnel), as well as the number of Child Protective Services (CPS) investigations warranting child welfare preventative services. SARIMA models were trained using data from January 2015 to February 2020 to predict expected values for March, April, and May 2020. Observed values were compared against predicted values at an alpha of .05. Results: Substantially fewer allegations of child maltreatment were reported than expected in March (-28.8 %, deviation: 1848, 95 % CI: [1272, 2423]), April (-51.5 %, deviation: 2976, 95 % CI: [2382, 3570]), and May 2020 (-46.0 %, deviation: 2959, 95 % CI: [2347, 3571]). Significant decreases in child maltreatment reporting were also noted for all reporter subtypes examined for March, April, and May 2020. Fewer CPS investigations warranted preventative services than expected in March 2020 (-43.5 %, deviation: 303, 95 % CI: [132, 475]). Conclusions: Precipitous drops in child maltreatment reporting and child welfare interventions coincided with social distancing policies designed to mitigate COVID-19 transmission. In light of these findings, educators and healthcare providers must be especially vigilant when engaging online with children and their families for signs of child abuse and/or neglect