Search results

Over years, the concept of dealing with urban risk has changed. While in 1970s urbanization was equal to industrialization and physical infrastructure development, 1980s focused on sustainable development and urban growth. In 1990s, new concept of eco-city and resilient cities came into practice, and in 2000, urban ecosystem concept became more popular. There are possibly two or three key issues that can be incurred from this evolution process: first, urban issues are becoming complex and urban boundaries extending beyond the traditional city or administrative boundaries. For resources (natural, food, human, energy, water), cities need to depend more on rural areas. Urban–rural linkage issues are getting increasing importance. Second, while dealing with the urban problems, traditional physical and economic approaches have limitations in solving this issue; rather, more ecosystem-based approach or the environment disaster interface needs to be focused. Third, due to climatic changes, urban areas are increasingly becoming more fragile, and the deep impacts are on the poor and vulnerable communities living in the informal settlements.

Departing from an ideal interpretation of the collaborative governance approach, the authors analyse the integrative and collaborative capacities of project-based regional development actions in spatially diverse city regions in Finland. Scrutinizing the relevance of collaborative ideals and their institutional prerequisites becomes all the more salient given the strong emphasis on collaborative approaches to regional diversities throughout Europe. The results show that the integrative potentials are related to specific types of areas. They also call the facilitating capacities of politico-administrative institutions into question. The results are interpreted in terms of an institutional duality that strongly corresponds to the public-private divide.

Globally, rapid urbanisation characterised by increasing demand for housing and infrastructure needs has resulted in sand mining. In Ghana, sand mining can create or destroy the livelihoods of people in urban and rural areas. This paper examines the interaction between sand mining and land-based livelihood security in Awutu Senya District (ASD) and Awutu Senya East Municipality (ASEM).

Based on pragmatism philosophy, the study used a mixed methods approach to collect quantitative data and qualitative data from 431 household heads, ten core staff of the Assemblies, five traditional leaders, two tipper truck drivers' associations and ten farmer groups. Statistical Product and Service Solutions, version 21 and NVivo 12 facilitated quantitative data analysis and qualitative data analysis, respectively.

The study revealed that sand mining had different consequences on land-based livelihood security. Some block makers and truck drivers acknowledged positive effects of sand mining on their livelihoods while the majority of the household respondents and other key informants claimed that sand mining had negative effects on their livelihoods.

This paper focuses on two selected local government areas in Ghana. Therefore, the results may be generalised on the country with caution because local government areas have different characteristics. Further research is needed to contact the customers of sand in Accra.

This study provides new insight into the connections between sand mining and people's livelihood security in two local government areas. It also introduces a novel idea of collaboration among stakeholders to address negative effects associated with unsustainable sand mining.

In the 69 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, especially the 40 years since the reform and opening-up, the relationship between urban and rural areas has undergone profound change. When the deepening reform of the urban-rural relationship is entering a critical period, it is necessary to reassess the evolution of the urban-rural relationship in China and draw a picture for that relationship in the future. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper combs the policies on the urban and rural development since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and analyzes macro data on the industries, population, personal income, and other aspects.

The study found that this urbanism affects individuals’ lives and the choices of society through the will of the state, and then provides feedback at the whole level of social values.

This paper divides the evolution of China’s urban-rural relationship into two major stages – nurturing cities with rural areas and leading rural areas with cities, which are then subdivided into five periods. The features of the relationship between the urban and rural areas in different periods are analyzed, and the future development of urban-rural relations is also considered.

Technological intervention for housing construction in rural areas in India is very low. The purpose of this paper is to understand the mutual influences of the variables influencing technology transfer in the rural housing sector.

Using interpretive structural modeling, the research presents a hierarchy‐based model and the mutual relationships among the variables of innovative and cost‐effective technology transfer.

The outcome of the research is a framework for technology transfer in rural India. The research shows that there exists a group of variables having a high driving power and low dependence requiring maximum attention. Another group consists of those variables which have high dependence and are the resultant actions.

This framework provides a useful tool to understand the mutual relationships among different variables in effective technology transfer.

Presentation of variables in a hierarchy and the classification into driver and dependent categories is unique in the area of technology transfer in the rural housing sector.

This chapter aims to contextualize smart rural development in Slovenia. It does so by presenting the current state of the art, addressing new interdisciplinary approaches in understanding the problems of rural areas, applying new approaches to smart rural development, and introducing a new concept.

We start our chapter by addressing the main problems of Slovenian rural areas and their inhabitants. We have made a review of initiatives and practices elsewhere and therefore here they are only summarized briefly to emphasize the most important achievements/improvements. Further, the chapter describes the state of the art in Slovenia in connection with smart and sustainable rural development, and analyzes the results contextually. It looks at the solutions and practices that local communities found to answer the existing challenges. Three promising examples are presented, related to different sectors: tourism, mobility, and innovation. The last part of the chapter contextualizes our findings and further explains our approach to smart rural development. Finally, the chapter introduces a new concept – that is, Smart Fab Village. The concept of Fab Village is built upon the concept designed for urban areas and then carefully adapted to the needs and specific requirements of rural areas.

The majority of the population in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) lives in urban areas. In the year 2030, the percentage of the rural population is expected to be 14% in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 11% in the United Arab Emirates, 10% in Oman, 9% in Bahrain, 1% in Qatar, and will remain 0% in Kuwait. Like many other countries, however, GCC countries continue to invest efforts and resources toward their national agendas aimed at sustainable development. In this context, smart villages are of special interest as, increasingly, they serve as the crossroads between urban living and rural life embracing history, culture, tradition, spiritual values, and human capital. The objective of this chapter is to explore actions taken toward the development of smart villages in the GCC countries, with a comparative overview on pertaining approaches and strategies; challenges related to the implementation of these actions are identified. It is demonstrated that despite GCCs’ tremendous efforts toward developing infrastructure in urban centers, more infrastructure investment is needed with regard to key issues related to developing remote areas – including their smart networks, digital facilities, and e-governance. It is also highlighted that more research is needed, especially on issues related to the transformation of villages into smart villages, including the need for holistic approaches, policies, and strategies toward smart villages.

Cities are both at risk and the cause of risk. The interconnectedness of urban features and systems increases the likelihood of complex disasters and a cascade or “domino” effect from related impacts. However, the lack of research means that our knowledge of urban risk is both scarce and fragmented. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to examine the unique dynamics of risk in urban settings.

Based on literal reading, grounded theory and systems analysis, this conceptual paper presents a framework for understanding and addressing urban risk. It conceptualizes how interdependent, interconnected risk is shaped by urban characteristics and exemplifies its particularities with data and analysis of specific cases. From this, it identifies improvements both in the content and the indicators of the successor to the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA2) that will be adopted in 2015.

While it is common to see disasters as “causes”, and the destruction of the built environment as “effects”, this paper highlights that the intricate links between cities and disasters cannot be described by a unidirectional cause-and-effect relationship. The city–disasters nexus is a bidirectional relationship, which constantly shapes, and is shaped by, other processes (such as climate change).

This paper argues that in-depth knowledge of the links between cities’ characteristic features, related systems and disasters is indispensable for addressing root causes and mainstreaming risk reduction into urban sector work. It enables city authorities and other urban actors to improve and adapt their work without negatively influencing the interconnectedness of urban risk.

This paper presents a framework for understanding and addressing urban risk and further demonstrates how the characteristics of the urban fabric (physical/spatial, environmental, social, economic and political/institutional) and related systems increase risk by: intensifying hazards or creating new ones, exacerbating vulnerabilities and negatively affecting existing response and recovery mechanisms.

This study reveals that despite the negative effects of migration, the Tanzanian government has not done enough to address migration-related health issues. This is owing to inadequate data or information about effects of migration in the country. Dodoma region, the focus of this study, is selected for its migration-inducing factors as they relate to the declining health status of its inhabitants. Harsh climatic conditions causing irregular and inadequate rainfall and prolonged drought have led to a severe decline of the health of the poor. The region is entirely dependent on subsistence agriculture and livestock production. The small-scale production is locally practiced at household level. Extreme poverty motivates rural people to migrate to cities with the main migrant groups being middle school (about 13 to 15 years old) and high school dropouts (15 to 18 years old), and youth including young parents (18 to 35 years old). The rural-urban migration conjoined with harsh climatic conditions significantly downsizes local population, available agricultural labor force, and further endangers food security. More importantly, however, due to exposure to HIV in the cities, most migrants who are unable to find city jobs return home terminally ill with HIV/AIDS, which further adds to impoverishment of rural families and to downsizing of rural population.

This chapter investigates diverse policy experiences of smart village strategy in Korea. The Korean approach has been highly influenced by the European Union (EU) experience emphasizing the importance of a bottom-up territorial development. The Korean government acknowledges agriculture is not the only driver of rural jobs and wealth creation. Rather it understands that diversified non-farm activities in rural areas are essential to revitalize the rural economy. The major policies relevant to the development of rural smart village are first, establishing regional innovation system fitted for depressed regions, second, inducing agriculture to become value-added industries, third, diversifying rural economic activities and integrating industrial support, fourth, improving the welfare of rural residents by improving settlement conditions, and finally, encouraging rural–urban interaction. Since the campaign of smart rural village as a rural development strategy is closely related with the discussion of rural tourism in Korea, this study investigates past and recent streams of rural tourism strategies pursued by the central government in Korea. Along with introducing the historical development strategy in Korea, this study presents the current and possible future characteristics of rural development strategies in Korea. This study investigates the perceived role of tourism as well as recent streams of rural development policies such as 6th industrialization and smart farming in the rural development strategies. Presenting success and failure stories, this study also considers why development of rural tourism has been slow in rural areas in Korea, reviewing restraints, reservations, and problems identified during the last few decades in Korea.