A tale of two cities: restoring water services in Kabul and Monrovia

Kabul and Monrovia, the respective capitals of Afghanistan and Liberia, have recently emerged from long-lasting armed conflicts. In both cities, a large number of organisations took part in emergency water supply provision and later in the rehabilitation of water systems. Based on field research, this paper establishes a parallel between the operations carried out in the two settings, highlighting similarities and analysing the two most common strategies. The first strategy involves international financial institutions, which fund large-scale projects focusing on infrastructural rehabilitation and on the institutional development of the water utility, sometimes envisaging private-sector participation. The second strategy involves humanitarian agencies, which run community-based projects, in most cases independently of the water utilities, and targeting low-income areas. Neither of these approaches manages to combine sustainability and universal service. The paper assesses their respective strengths and weaknesses and suggests ways of improving the quality of assistance provided

The New Urban Agenda: key opportunities and challenges for policy and practice

The UN-HABITAT III conference held in Quito in late 2016 enshrined the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) with an exclusively urban focus. SDG 11, as it became known, aims to make cities more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable through a range of metrics, indicators, and evaluation systems. It also became part of a post-Quito ‘New Urban Agenda’ that is still taking shape. This paper raises questions around the potential for reductionism in this new agenda, and argues for the reflexive need to be aware of the types of urban space that are potentially sidelined by the new trends in global urban policy

Smart Cities: Towards a New Citizenship Regime? A Discourse Analysis of the British Smart City Standard

Growing practice interest in smart cities has led to calls for a less technology-oriented and more citizen-centric approach. In response, this articles investigates the citizenship mode promulgated by the smart city standard of the British Standards Institution. The analysis uses the concept of citizenship regime and a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods to discern key discursive frames defining the smart city and the particular citizenship dimensions brought into play. The results confirm an explicit citizenship rationale guiding the smart city (standard), although this displays some substantive shortcomings and contradictions. The article concludes with recommendations for both further theory and practice development

Process and impact evaluation of the Greater Christchurch Urban Development Strategy Health Impact Assessment

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>despite health impact assessment (HIA) being increasingly widely used internationally, fundamental questions about its impact on decision-making, implementation and practices remain. In 2005 a collaboration between public health and local government authorities performed an HIA on the Christchurch Urban Development Strategy Options paper in New Zealand. The findings of this were incorporated into the Greater Christchurch Urban Development Strategy;</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>using multiple qualitative methodologies including key informant interviews, focus groups and questionnaires, this study performs process and impact evaluations of the Christchurch HIA including evaluation of costs and resource use;</p> <p>Results</p> <p>the evaluation found that the HIA had demonstrable direct impacts on planning and implementation of the final Urban Development Strategy as well as indirect impacts on understandings and ways of working within and between organisations. It also points out future directions and ways of working in this successful collaboration between public health and local government authorities. It summarises the modest resource use and discusses the important role HIA can play in urban planning with intersectoral collaboration and enhanced relationships as both catalysts and outcomes of the HIA process;</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>as one of the few evaluations of HIA that have been published to date, this paper makes a substantial contribution to the literature on the impact, utility and effectiveness of HIA.</p

Aligning ancient and modern approaches to sustainable urban water management in China: Ningbo as a ‘Blue-Green City’ in the ‘Sponge City’ Campaign

Modern urban flood and water management emphasises holistic strategies that reduce flood risk while providing co- benefits to urban economies, societies and environments. The ‘Blue‐Green City’ concept provides a viable framework for putting this into practice. Ningbo, is a coastal city with high flood risk, whose history as a Chinese ‘water town’ demonstrates that approaches to water management implicit to the ‘Blue‐Green’ concept were practiced in ancient times, and lessons can be learned from these applications. Furthermore, recent launch of the ‘Sponge City’ campaign by China's National Government demonstrates the political will to implement sustainable flood and water management in ways consistent with the ‘Blue‐Green’ ideals. Selection of Ningbo for a pilot project presents the opportunity to integrate new ‘Sponge city’ approaches with ancient ‘Blue‐Green’ principles, within the contexts of both new urban development and retrofit. Reinventing traditional approaches to urban water management and governance offers the possibility of maintaining flood risk at acceptable levels without constraining urban growth in China and other countries experiencing rapid urban development

Reservists and veterans: Viewed from within and without

This chapter describes two important groups relative to military service – reservists and veterans. Definitions are provided regarding who is a member of each group. A summary of past and current research findings for each group is provided. The summary is organized by investigative topics or themes, which provide the current scope of the field for reservists and for veterans. Finally, approaches to the study of reservists and veterans are described, along with challenges – both substantively and methodologically – for future research studies. These serve as fertile areas for improvements and investigations in future research studies

Does urban rail increase land value in emerging cities? Value uplift from Bangalore Metro

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd This paper seeks to understand how urban rail can influence land value uplift, especially in emerging cities which are largely unstudied. It examines the Bangalore Metro and shows that the uplift from the metro rail was substantial in the ‘catchment area’ and ‘across the city’. The analysis was based on the panel data hedonic price model for around 160,000 apartments over the period 2012–16 and a cross-sectional data hedonic price model for 314,000 apartments in 2016. The panel data resulted in a stronger model and show significant land value increases, even beyond the traditional 500 m catchment. A ‘before’ and ‘after’ from the commencement of the metro rail operations shows a price uplift of 4.5% across the whole city and indicates a major agglomeration economic event resulting in substantial willingness to pay of USD 306 million from the metro rail accessibility. Emerging cities can expect metro rail to substantially improve their economies and other co-benefits as long as finance can be obtained by capturing this value