Studentification is it a key factor within the residential decision-making process in Kuala Lumpur?

Studentification is the process that generates from residential concentration of Higher education students and accompanied by spatial structure transformations which has social, economic, cultural and physical impacts in districts enclaves of university campuses or higher education institutes. This process is believed to have some influences like gentrification and can stimulate social segregation and the widening socio-spatial polarization of different social groups, via the displacement of established residential groups. Studentification has been represented as a BritiSh phenomenon; although; recent evidence suggests that it occurs within other international contexts. The important key factor in this regard is the government-sponsored expansion of higher education to foster global economic competitiveness and innovation via knowledge-based economies and societies. In this paper we wish to scrutinize the meaning, causes and consequences of studentification and raise questions about some of underlying influences and effects of current and future forms of urban change in Kuala Lumpur city. We do this by focusing upon the relationships between national agenda in terms of economic and knowledge development and regional as well as local plans and strategies, and consider how process of studentification may be instrumental to the production of gentrifiers within Kuala Lumpur city context. The outcome of this study will support the residential decision making process

The Impact of New-build Gentrification in Iskandar Malaysia: A case study of Nusajaya

AbstractA practice of adopting In-situ concrete (ISC) construction method for wet areas in pre-cast concrete (PC) buildings to overcome leakage problem is a setback for full IBS adoption. Various options explored while developing ideal solution only to discover the answer is possible within the existing parameters of IBS. The proposal adopts composite construction comprised of metal permanent formwork and ISC casting for toilet floor, while PC components remained as buildings structural framing system. This proposal combined different elements of IBS systems offers all the advantages associated with IBS; minimize wastages, better quality, shorter construction period and minimized unskilled workers

Multi-criteria expert based analysis for ranking the urban gentrification drivers in developing countires

More than 40 years have passed since the term “gentrification” was coined by Ruth Glass (Torrens & Nara, 2007). Originating from Britain, gentrification has become popular concept in developed countries and much research has been conducted in the US, Europe, Canada and Australia since the 1970s on gentrification of the inner cities (Bounds & Mourris, 2008; Hamnett, 1991). Research was also conducted in some premier cities of developing world such as Mexico, Istanbul, Ankara and Seoul (Ha, 2004; Ergun, 2004; Guzey, 2006; Jones & Varley, 1999). Most of the gentrification researchers come to the point that appearance of the already formulated origins of gentrification are time and place-specific (Guzey, 2006), as this urban phenomenon through an evolutionary process found different aspects and drivers. The reason is that through its evolution from late 1950s different preconditions have brought different logics and outcomes in different geographies. Thus it is worth to threat gentrification as a complex phenomenon by sophisticated tools to examine the ideas and hypotheses behind it. In this research it is intended to use the analytical network process (ANP) integrated with GIS to figure out the gentrification drivers in Kuala Lumpur inner city and rank them according to their influence. This would provide a decision support system as tool par excellence for exploring the expert idea based on time and place. Besides, the methodology will foster the future works on modeling and simulating the behaviors of gentrification in developing countries that have not been applied hitherto

Leveraging VGI Integrated with 3D Spatial Technology to Support Urban Intensification in Melbourne, Australia

High density residential development in metropolitan Melbourne, where contradictory imperatives of neighbourhood character and urban intensification play important roles, remains an uncertain practice. One key issue for plan implementation is the lack of consistency between authorities, developers and the community in interpreting the standards, design guidelines, and state/local strategies, especially those relating to neighbourhood character. There is currently no mechanism to incorporate community perceptions and place experiences as subjective aspects of neighbourhood character in development assessments. There is also little use of micro-scale and multi-dimensional spatial analysis to integrate these subjective aspects with objective measures (e.g. building volume and height; streetscape) to communicate effectively—and in a limited timeframe—with all stakeholders. This paper explores the potential of two emerging geospatial technologies that can be leveraged to respond to these problems. Evidence in the literature suggests that volunteered geographic information (VGI) can provide community input around subjective aspects of the urban environment. In addition, a deluge of three-dimensional (3D) spatial information (e.g. 3D city models) is increasingly available for micro-level (building- or property-level) assessment of the physical aspects of the urban environment. This paper formulates and discusses a conceptual framework to link these two spatial technological advancements in a virtual geographic environment (VGE) that accounts for micro-scale 3D spatial analysis incorporating both subjective and objective aspects of neighbourhood character relevant in implementing compact city strategies

A review of housing provision and the challenges of sustainable housing delivery in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, Nigeria

Housing, despite being one of the essential elements in the sustainability of human existence, remains a challenge particularly in the global south. Nigeria, the most populous country in west Africa has a gross housing deficit of seventeen million houses. This deficit keeps increasing due to high rate of urbanization and population growth thereby resulting in high rent, overcrowding and poor living conditions. Numerous research studies predominantly focused on investigating the challenges of housing delivery on the basis of quantity and quality perspectives. However, there is a dearth of evidence-based studies regarding the challenges militating against sustainable housing provision. This paper attempts to fill this gap by presenting an overview of the housing provision and the challenges militating against sustainable housing provision in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, Nigeria. The article indicated that despite concerted efforts involving the adoption of both public sector “provider” and “enabler” approaches, challenges still exit towards sustainable housing delivery particularly to the low-income group. The paper recommends that housing policies and programs in the country should be designed to address the multi benefit objectives of social, economic and environmental dimensions of housing so as to achieve sustainable housing delivery in the country

A conceptual framework for development of public health oriented environment planning and design measures with focus on childhood obesity

There is a worldwide concern about increasing non-communicable diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, asthma and depression related to obesity in urban population. The built environment has an important role to support human health. Characteristics of the built environment can be modified to influence and facilitate or hinder public health. The rapid development of major towns and cities in developing countries producing urban sprawl, lower densities, environmental pollution, inconvenience and unsafe public spaces as well as transportation infrastructure that encourages car ridership over active transportation has altered the built environment in ways which effect health negatively. Urbanization in developing and less developed countries, therefore, is linked to rising obesity and incidence of metabolic syndrome. For instance the Malaysian Ministry of Health states that just over a quarter of Malaysian school children were obese and overweight and have the tendency to become obese adults. This research will outline and identify the significant variables concerning the built environment and childhood obesity by examining previous literature studies. There are three major aspects where urban planning and design can most effectively influence childhood obesity, namely, physical activity, community interaction and healthy eating. These three aspects address the principle risk factors for contemporary non-communicable diseases. Hence, the current research will focus on the three mentioned aspects as the keywords to extract the relative factors and indicators associated to built environment and childhood obesity. As the final outcome this research will construct a conceptual framework to serve as a basis for developing a public health-oriented built environment with focus on childhood obesity

Comparison of spatial auto correlation analysis methods for investigating the distribution pattern of diabetes type II patients in Iskandar Malaysia

Spatial statistics have been widely used in epidemiology studies in order to investigate and monitor the outbreak in endemic area. However, there is less application of spatial statistics in the study on built environment and diseases outbreak. It is significant to conduct such a study since non-communicable diseases have been rising over past four decades and have a strong positive relation to the built environment, particularly in the rapid urbanizing area. Therefore, this study aims to measure the geographical distribution and determine the pattern of the patients in urbanizing area. Two methods of Moran’s I and Getis-Ord G Statistics, that have been used extensively in the epidemiology are compared on diabetes type II patients data both in global and local scales. A total of 496 patients diagnosed with diabetes type II in 154 neighbourhoods of Iskandar Malaysia (IM) have been evaluated. This study compares the results of two methods based on built environment criteria. The study evaluates their applicability is such a study to identify the best method and scale to be considered in study on built environment-related epidemiology