Статті в журналах з теми "Informal Settlements, Urban Informality, Role of Design"

Informal urbanism, ranging from informal settlements to trading and transport, has become integral, but not limited, to the ways in which cities of the global South work. At stake here is the role of the built environment professions in responding to informal urbanism where a poor understanding of the complexities of informality can lead to poor design interventions. Providing a better understanding of how forms of informality work is then a key task for the built environment education, which arguably falls short in this regard. With a particular focus on urban design, we suggest that it is critical to move towards an informal turn in the built environment education to address informality and engage with the dynamics of informal urbanism. We first investigate the scope of urban design and then explore the ways in which urban design education can respond to informal urbanism in its curricula by developing an urban design program on informality as an illustration. The suggested approach can be considered as an initial step towards an informal turn in urban design education. We conclude that while urban design alone cannot solve social and economic problems, including poverty and inequality, its capacity to address the complex challenges of urbanization cannot be overlooked. Urban design education cannot remain isolated from the questions of informality anymore.

The Canadian Arctic, and Nunavut in particular, is one of the fastest-growing regions per capita in the country, raising the question as to what might constitute an emerging Arctic Indigenous urbanism. One of the cultural challenges of urbanizing Canadian North is that for most Indigenous peoples, permanent settlement, and its imposed spatial, temporal, economic, and institutional structures, has been antithetical to traditional ways of life and culture, which are deeply tied to the land and to seasons. For the past seventy-five years, architecture, infrastructure, and settlement form have been imported models serving as spatial tools of cultural colonization that have intentionally erased local culture and ignored geographic specificities. As communities in Nunavut continue to grow at a rapid rate, new planning frameworks are urgently needed. This paper outlines three approaches that could constitute the beginning of more culturally reflexive planning practices for Nunavut: (1) redefining the northern urban vernacular and its role in design; (2) challenging the current top-down masterplan by embracing strategies of informal urbanism; and (3) encouraging planning approaches that embrace territorial strategies and are more responsive to geography, landscape, and seasonality.

Tambora District, which is the most densely populated region in Southeast Asia, is one of the informal sectors in the city of Jakarta. The development of an increasingly capitalist city, so that there are imbalances in the formal and informal sectors, causing social, mental, and other problems. Tambora Retreat Spaces with the Urban Accupunchture architecture approach becomes a forum by creating a new environmental reality for the informal sector to help them strengthen their role in the inner city. This project presents Urban zen garden and biophilic design as a passive media retreat and technology retreat for active media retreats. This place also plays a role in replacing the role of open space and third-places facilities for those who are lost are replaced by residential settlements that are increasingly congested every year. The project also focuses on creating a media for community growth space of all ages and social status in community life, based on the Ville Spatiale concept of Yona Friedman to become a forum for interaction, rehabilitation, and inspirationKeywords: Growth Spaces; Nature; Rehabilitation; Technology AbstrakKecamatan Tambora yang menjadi kawasan dengan tingkat penduduk paling padat se-Asia Tenggara ini, merupakan salah satu area yang didominasi permukiman informal di kota Jakarta. Perkembangan kota yang semakin kapitalis membuat adanya ketimpangan pada sektor formal dan informal, sehingga menimbulkan permasalahan sosial, mental, dan lainnya. Tambora Retreat Spaces dengan pendekatan arsitektur Urban Accupuncture menjadi wadah dengan menciptakan sebuah realita lingkungan baru bagi informalitas untuk membantu mereka memperkuat perannya pada bagian di dalam kota. Proyek ini menghadirkan Urban zen garden dan biophilic design sebagai media retreat pasif dan technology retreatment untuk media retreat aktif. Tempat ini juga berperan dalam menggantikan peran ruang terbuka serta fasilitas ruang ketiga bagi mereka yang hilang digantikan oleh permukiman warga yang semakin padat setiap tahunnya. Proyek ini juga berfokus untuk menciptakan sebuah media ruang tumbuh masyarakat dari segala umur dan status sosialnya dalam kehidupan masyarakat, dengan berlandaskan konsep Ville Spatiale dari Yona Friedman untuk menjadi wadah interaksi, rehabilitasi, dan terinspirasi.

Informal settlements have become integral to the urban imagery of the cities across the global South. Forms of urban informality emerge and grow through some generative processes of self-organisation and incremental adaptations. While formal interventions have often failed to put an end to such a resilient and complex type of urbanism, the desire for eradication and demolishment still prevails. Most of the informal settlements can benefit from incremental upgrading and micro-scale design interventions, which then rely on a sophisticated understanding and analysis of informal morphologies and adaptations. However, forms of urban informality and adaptations of informal settlements are relatively understudied. This paper aims to explore informal morphologies and their incremental adaptations drawing on empirical evidence from the case study of Khlong Toei district in Bangkok (Thailand). Direct observation, visual recording, and urban mapping are the key research methods. Five different forms of informality and adaptations have been identified in this study. One of the findings of this study is that informal morphologies emerge in different forms at multiple scales. Another finding of this study is that informal adaptations are often similar across different informal morphologies. The findings of this paper contribute to the growing body of knowledge in urban morphology and informal urbanism.

Informal settlements are the most common form of urbanization on the planet, accounting for one-third of the total urban form. It is expected that by the mid twenty-first century, up to three billion people will live in informal urban environments. However, we lack a consistent mapping method to pinpoint where that informality is located or how it expands. This paper presents the findings from a collection of standardized measurements of 260 informal settlements across the world. The main research goal is to identify a standard global sample of informal neighborhoods. It then focuses on mapping urban growth with remote sensing and direct mapping tools. The third stage classifies settlements based on how adjacency features such as development, topography, or bodies of water relate to their growth. The survey of growth corroborates the idea of informality as expanding geography, although at different rates than previously cited in the literature. We found peri-urban location to be a suitable estimator of informal settlement growth. This finding validates the comparison of multiple settlements to understand rates of change of urban informality worldwide. The findings here are vital to resolve important questions about the role of informal urban development in the context of accelerated global population growth.

Recent studies have established the role of urban planning policies in feeding the growth of informal settlements in Brazilian cities, through the socio-spatial exclusion of low-income residents. The difficulties of reversing this exclusionary logic are due to several complex factors. A factor less discussed in Brazilian literature, which has began to draw the attention of scholars, is the invisibility of the informal city. This research assumes that it is necessary to regulate the urban form of precarious informal settlements, in order to prevent the deterioration of urban environmental quality. We highlight the importance of compiling data about their urban form and their built environment, in order to contribute to a reality-based regulatory policy for these settlements. After discussing the phenomenon of urban informality in Fortaleza, we applied a methodology that combines Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and City Information Modeling (CIM), to support the redefinition of urban rules for precarious settlements of informal origin. This procedure will reveal not only the extent of the inadequacies of the (past and current) land use and occupation codes, but will also present some potentialities of GIS and CIM to inform its redefinition.

Purpose While a substantial amount of study of informal settlements has been undertaken, they remain largely unstudied in terms of urban form. In this analysis, the purpose of this paper is to set forth a conceptual framework, which considers the context in which informality takes place, the settlement itself, the houses contained therein, the dwellers of those houses and the process through which a settlement is designed and transformed over time. Design/methodology/approach This is a literature review. Findings This framework aims to be sufficiently flexible to be deployed across diverse national settings. Its formulation is important because informal settlements are a permanent fixture of the global urban landscape, and are increasing in scale. Originality/value Any sustainable strategies to improve informal settlements depend on a better understanding of their urban space, as well as of the producers of this space – the residents themselves. Finally, professional designers may be able to learn from this contemporary urban vernacular grammar – perhaps the only one left in the era of sanitized, contrived and prosaic urban design.

This paper engages with how the incremental production of space works in informal settlements. As one of the critical challenges of urbanism in the cities of the global South, informal settlements cannot be simply addressed through ruthless practices of demolition and eviction since they can often be incrementally upgraded on the same site. Such practices of upgrading rely on a sophisticated understanding of how urban morphology and adaptation work in informal settlements. In this paper, I focus on the fluidity of space by drawing on a case study of an informal settlement in Pune, India. The key research methods are observation and visual recording. The results of this study provide a better understanding of how informal settlements work in terms of urban morphologies and adaptations. Such an understanding plays a significant role in exploring how the capacities of informality can be developed in consistency with the incremental upgrading of codes regarding public open space, access network, construction, and functional mix. This paper contributes to the ways in which built environment professions can effectively engage with incremental transformations of informal settlements.

Climate change related events affect informal settlements, or slums, disproportionally more than other areas in a city or country. This article investigates the role of slums in the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) for the Paris Agreement of a selected group of 28 highly urbanized developing countries. Content analysis and descriptive statistics were used to analyze first the general content in these NDCs and second the proposed role, or lack thereof, of slums in these documents. The results show that for most of the analyzed countries, context-based climate policies for slums are not part of the strategies presented in the NDCs. We argue that a lack of policies involving informal settlements might limit the capacity of developing countries to contribute to the main goals of the Paris Agreement, as these settlements are significant portions of their urban populations. One of the hopeful prospects of the NDCs is that they will be reviewed in 2020 for the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26). With this paper, we aim to stimulate discussions about the crucial role that informal settlements should play in the NDCs of developing countries in the background of the synergies required between climate change actions and sustainable development.

Poor living conditions in informal settlements may be attributed mostly, though not exclusively, to the lack of basic services. Informal settlements, which also go by the name of squatter camps, are volatile by nature. Even within relatively fixed settlement boundaries, change in urban fabric continually manifests through altering dwelling configurations. Deemed unstable and unsafe by formal criteria, these environments disclose schizophrenic characteristics: beyond the dirt, grime and smog, exist relatively functional societies capable of survival and self-regulation. Public and private sector investment within informal settlements is restricted as a result of their illegal status. Inhabitants have no incentive to invest their own resources where they have no formal tenure over the land. Due to a rather backward approach to informality in South Africa, innovation in dealing with these settlements has been limited. Despite the fact that the rhetoric has sometimes changed from eradication to upgrading, little has been done with regards to alternative forms of settlement development that has relevance in terms of improving the lives of informal settlement dwellers. With rising anger in poverty-stricken areas and on the peripheries of cities, what is needed is improved service delivery through immediate solutions. This article suggests a service delivery core, an architectural catalyst, rooted to the ‘energy’ of the public realm, stimulating growth of infrastructure networks. This catalyst core aims to instigate the amelioration of the surrounding environment. The concept presented is that of a dynamic service core – universal in principle – while also being contextually-driven by responding to a specific environment and needs of a specific community. A generic architectural solution is thus presented to providing basic services and infrastructure within informal settlements, with focussed consideration for the unique situation of an informal settlement in Mamelodi, Tshwane (Pretoria), South Africa. It is important to realise that there is no final product, but rather an organic architecture that adapts in a process of continuous and progressive change.

This paper addresses the challenges faced by planning and design education programmes when focusing on more sustainable ways of dealing with global changes. While the dominant discourse addresses the fact that planning programmes discuss the Global South through the lens of planning theory and practice from the Global North, the proposal is to shift the debate and recognise that, from a complexity perspective, planning problems are not so different from region to region. The argument is that, although the theory has moved on, when discussing conceptual aspects of planning, spatial planning practice is still focused on objects rather than the relationship between them (be they buildings, streets, neighbourhoods or even cities). Assuming that urban territories are not objects and do not develop in a linear way, but rather evolve, the proposal is to reflect on how planning and design education addresses urban evolution. This paper suggests a revision of planning and design approaches to informality, given the participation in recent years of a joint studio in Bandung, Indonesia. The alternative perspective offered here involves a re-examination of concepts and deconstruction of dichotomies. The main findings rely on the interpretation of formalisation processes (in the Global North) through the lens of complexity theory, which has facilitated understanding of today’s informal settlements (in the Global South). It suggests the deconstruction of dichotomies, such as informal versus formal, thus, positing the need for a major shift on planning and design rules that focus less on objects and more on the relationship between them.

As the towards the end of the homelands in the post-apartheid South Africa, there was a scramble of poverty stricken African black youth to the most severe vulnerable and disaster prone urban areas in search for formal job opportunities. The main purpose of this empirical study is to investigate the extent in which how the biographical profiles (age, gender, marital status, education levels, occupation (males and females), children and tenure) can influence vulnerability and disasters in these informal settlements. A quantitative research design was adopted and a survey method was used, whereby questionnaires were administered by the researcher to a population of 240, whereby, 140 questionnaires were completed generating a response rate of 63.6%. The findings of this study reveals that the majority of the respondents in the Foreman and Kennedy Road informal settlements are black, poverty stricken, unemployed and who are suffered economic difficulties that make them highly vulnerable to disasters. This study will act an advisory role to the decision-makers as the research findings shows that in the foreseeable future in South Africa, informal settlements will be an intergral feature of formal housing, which requires urban planners to include such settlements to housing planning.

Energy-poor households in Africa’s burgeoning urban informal settlements are especially likely to suffer from heatwaves because of thermally inefficient dwellings and lack of affordable cooling options. This study utilised a controlled experiment to assess the effectiveness of passive cooling through specially formulated paints (cool coatings) in standard informal structures. The test structures were built to simulate typical shack dwellings in South Africa’s urban informal settlements. Results showed that the mean daily maximum temperatures of the coated structure were up to 4.3 °C lower than those in the uncoated structure. The same cooling trend was observed for the minimum daily temperatures, which were lower by an average of 2.2 °C. Besides, the annual frequency of maximum temperature exceedances beyond the critical heat stroke value of 40 °C dropped from 19% for the uncoated structure to 1% for the coated structure. These temperature differences were found to be statistically and subjectively significant, implying that cool coatings may be effective in promoting thermal comfort and climate resilience in poor urban communities. It is recommended that governmental authorities and relevant role players invest in the production and assisted application of cool coatings in urban informal settlements. The interventions promise hope of reduced energy burden on poor households and could be implemented in parallel with ongoing efforts focused on the design and implementation of low-cost, durable and thermally comfortable houses for indigent communities. Ultimately, the endeavours could be a potential policy change to assist in expanding poor households’ access to alternative and green energy resources.

Recent policies in China have encouraged rural-urban circular migration and an “amphibious” and flexible status of settlement, reacting against the recent risks of economic fluctuation in cities. Rural land, as a form of insurance and welfare, can handle random hazards, and the new Land Management Law guarantees that rural migrants who settle in the city can maintain their rights to farmland, homesteads, and a collective income distribution. Existing studies have pointed out that homeland tenure can reduce migrants’ urban settlement intentions (which is a self-reported subjective perception of city life). However, little is known about how the rural-urban circularity and rural tenure system (especially for those still holding hometown lands in the countryside) affect rural migrants’ temporary urban settlements (especially for those preferring to stay in informal communities in the host city). The existing studies on the urban villages in China have focused only on the side of the receiving cities, but have rarely mentioned the other side of this process, focusing on migrants’ rural land tenure issues in their hometowns. This study discusses the rationale of informality (the urban village) and attests to whether, and to what extent, rural migrants’ retention of their hometown lands can affect their tenure security choices (urban village or not) in Chinese metropolises such as Beijing. Binary logistic regression was conducted and the data analysis proved that rural migrants who kept their hometown lands, compared to their land-loss counterparts, were more likely to live in a Beijing urban village. This displays the resilience and circularity of rural-urban migration in China, wherein the rural migrant households demonstrate the “micro-family economy”, maintaining tenure security in their hometown and avoiding the dissipation of their family income in their destination. The Discussion and Conclusions sections of this paper refer to some policy implications related to maintaining the rural-urban dual system, protecting rural migrant land rights, and beefing up the “opportunity structure” (including maintaining the low-rent areas in metropolises such as Beijing) in the 14th Five Year Plan period.

The increase in urban population, occasioned by the rural-urban migration of young people has resulted in the expansion of informal settlements to accommodate the large numbers of low-income earners and the unemployed. This trend is replicated all across developing economies and in Kenya, it has resulted in the establishment of informal settlements such as Kangemi, Kawangware, Mathare, Mukuru, Korogocho, and Kibera, which is the largest in the whole continent. One of the negative implications of the growth of the informal settlement is the increase in criminal trends as most residents, particularly the youth resort to criminality as a way of making a living. In response, various strategies have been adopted to mitigate or rather prevent criminal activities in these informal settlements. This study focused on such strategies as used in four slums, which include Kibera, Mukuru, Mathare, and Korogocho. The study adopted the descriptive research design, which involved the collection and analysis of quantitative data using questionnaires. The data was collected from a sample of 659 residents of the four informal settlements who were randomly sampled. The data was input in the Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) and then analysed using the descriptive method whereby the data was presented on tables based on percentages. The study concluded that crime was a big problem for informal settlement residents. However, one of the most prevalent crimes included illicit brew, general robbery, muggings, and burglary. The residents claimed that the government was less concerned about resolving crime. The residents, however, acknowledged the significant role that they can play in solving crime in the slums and that community participation was critical in bringing on board all stakeholders. They have, therefore, organised themselves as communities to tackle crime and insecurity in their neighbourhood. Some of the crime prevention programs adopted include community policing, police patrols, vigilante groups, erecting gates and fences, village security committees, and the employment of night guards. The study recommended increased collaboration between state and non-state actors to combat crime in informal settlements and the enhancement of the existing community policing initiatives.

Purpose Low income urban housing in Kenya is underdeveloped as a result of uninnovative financing, hence the many slums and informal settlements in the country, hence the need for enhanced participation of the private sector through application of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), which has been cited as one of the possible solutions. The purpose of this study was to investigate and make predictions of the need for enhanced role of private sector in developing low income urban housing in Kenya through PPPs. Design/methodology/approach Delphi method of research was used to forecast the enhanced role of private sector through PPPs in the development of low income urban housing in Kenya. Three rounds Delphi iterations using three panels of housing financiers (30 in number), housing developers (28 in number) and housing practitioners (30 in number) were used. Data was collected through questionnaires throughout the three rounds, where the first round was exploratory in nature, the second round built on answers from round one, while round three was based on answers from round two, after which the mean and standard deviation values were calculated to show the level of consensus. Findings Results showed that PPPs is one of the plausible ways through which low income urban housing in Kenya can be developed to address its shortage. Private sector in PPP transaction brings innovative technology, finance and efficiency, while government brings its assets such as land and other regulations long term contracts. Research limitations/implications The research was focussed on the Nairobi city county area in analysing the need for enhanced role of the private parties. It focussed on a panel of Housing practitioners-officers in the State Department for housing and Nairobi city county; housing financiers and housing developers, without interviewing the beneficiaries of the method. Practical implications It was, therefore, found out that PPPs models are applicable in developing low income urban housing because the country has the enabling environment for its effective application going forward. The implication of this study is that low income urban housing can be developed through the model. Social implications The slums and informal settlements will have adequate, affordable and quality housing being introduced within their neighbourhoods, which reduces political and societal animosities. Originality/value This research has benefited from published literature on PPPs and original research on PPPs.

In India, dense historic urban settlements were developed with the intention of provision of spaces for adequate engagement of the people. Public squares and streets became important places of interaction. ‘Historic core,’ especially had public spaces meant for various socioeconomic groups. city is a blend of a harmonious past and a vivacious present. Number of historical and architecturally important buildings were built during Muslim and Moghul rules. One of the first built structures within the walled city is the fort, a citadel founded by sultan Ahmed Shah in 1411 with a huge public square in front, developed for purpose of procession and gathering. This precinct went through various layers of transformation in different eras and now have become vulnerabledue to congestion and encroachment. Though, a need for intervention was felt to bring back the lost vitality of the precinct, it was realized that a comprehensive approach would be the necessity. Conservation and sensitive development approach was taken to tackle this problem through pedestrianization of the precinct, re-routing of traffic and restoration of fort. Larger level traffic and parking issues were also considered beyond the site. Alternative use of fort as tourist information center was considered. Urban design guidelines were proposed for harmonious development in the surrounding area. This proposal was considered for funding under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) and was implemented. Many issues were faced during implementation of project due to contextualization of informal commercial, religious and other cultural activities. Political, social and administrative factors also played immense role in implementation of proposal. Now since Ahmedabad has achieved the status of World Heritage City through UNESCO certification further implementation of this project will be relatively easy due to envisaged strong political and administrative support.

Intended as a contribution to the debate on inclusive cities, this paper proposes that the re-imagination of new city landscapes lies on the integrative sum of its parts. Considering that knowledge about infor- mal systems continues to be a challenge in achieving integrated land- scapes, this study explores how the linking of the fields of urban ecol- ogy and urban informality can lead to systematic approaches towards understanding urban informal ecosystems. In that way, this think- piece theorises on alternatives to approach the socio-natural processes taking place in informal settlements to demonstrate their capacity to adapt to prescribed ecological frameworks and ease their way into ecological scrutiny. Using a mixed-method approach in which the the- oretical framework and the empirical work functioned in a cyclical manner, the city of Caracas, Venezuela, was investigated. The analy- sis led to the discovery of ties and processes that navigate in and out of the informal city, and revealed that informal areas can be scaled, inventoried, and re-imagined from a systems perspective. The paper therefore recommends a rethinking of the two intersections that play a role in most of the new scenarios of change seen in the contemporary urban hybrids of developing countries. Specifically, the intersection that concerns the formal vs informal dichotomy, exploring the spatial and virtual role of the urban informal in the city, and the one concern- ing the city vs nature dichotomy, and the assumption that as part of the city, the informal is also a constituent of a greater urban ecosystem with impacts and evolutionary capacities.

This article considers Harold Johnson’s (Hariwe) 2014–2016 research project on ‘Dark City’, an informal vertical settlement in inner-city Johannesburg, as offering a productive arts-orientated, interdisciplinary study of and proposal for planning and design interventions in informally occupied urban spaces. Hariwe used his architectural skills to ‘reverse design’ the building according to its daily use by residents. Collaborators Jono Wood and Dirk Chalmers followed a similar research process with ‘Dark City’, using their own modalities of photography and film. The three exhibited at the Circa Gallery in Rosebank, Johannesburg in 2016, constructing an immersive simulation of the ‘Dark City’ environment to set their drawings, photographs and films within. This article uses the lenses of performance and performativity to argue for the research and creative processes of The ‘Dark City’ project as slowing down time, layering spaces across time and location and creating a sensual, immersive experience. These three effects serve to bring into view and experience the circumstances of ‘Dark City’, the kinds of inequalities at work in Johannesburg that produce such spaces and to propose design responses for spatial justice.

PurposeThe New Urban Agenda has catalyzed discussion across academia and practice on how to responsibly position ourselves as key players in the making of the future of our cities. With questions such as what is the right to the city? Who has those rights? What is a city? What is formal and who defines informal? These questions may prompt a need for departure from, or at least a reconsideration of the narrative surrounding formal and informal urbanism. This paper presents a pedagogical approach to addressing these and other questions within the framework of the new agenda. It reviews pedagogical approaches to understanding and learning to design within an informal context. It also foregrounds the process with the theoretical framing of Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language and Timeless way of Building as lenses through which to understand and identify common languages and intersections across the global spectrum of representations of informal urbanism. It then outlines the resultant process and products of a one-week intensive master-class and design charette of international scholars and students focusing on the Informal City.Design/methodology/approachIt reviews pedagogical approaches to understanding and learning to design within an informal context. It also foregrounds the process with the theoretical framing of Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language and Timeless way of Building as lenses through which to understand and identify common languages and intersections across the global spectrum of representations of informal urbanism. It then outlines the resultant process and products of a one-week intensive master-class and design charette of international scholars and students focusing on the Informal City.FindingsThe paper conclusively presents new nomenclature for informality that strives to shift the semantic lens from its current negative connotations to more productive, proactive and positive ones. It also presents an Informal City Manifesto, a call to arms of theoretical framing of how we think about the formal informal divide.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper, in part, outlines the results of a single studio with a small student number. Although diverse in its composition the student body is small.Originality/valueThis new framing could potentially allow us to best leverage lessons and mitigate challenges of the informal city condition, as our human settlements continue to urbanize.

While the amount of research on NBS is growing rapidly, there is a lack of evidence on community experiences of NBS design and implementation, particularly from low-income and informal settlements of African cities. This article adds new empirical evidence in this space through grounded analysis of NBS “niche” projects co-developed by intermediary organizations and communities in five sites across three settlements in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Findings are organized around four established NBS knowledge gaps: (1) NBS-society relations; (2) Design; (3) Implementation; (4) Effectiveness. We find that across the five studied sites, residents' perceptions and valuation of urban nature has changed through processes of co-design and co-implementation, enabling community ownership of projects, and hence playing a crucial role in NBS effectiveness over time. The integration of gray components into green infrastructure to create hybrid systems has proven necessary to meet physical constraints and communities' urgent needs such as flood mitigation. However, maintenance responsibilities and cost burdens are persisting issues that highlight the complex reality of NBS development in informal settlements. The cases highlight key considerations for actors involved in NBS development to support the replication, scaling up and institutionalization of NBS. These include the need to: (i) develop forms of engagement that align with co-production values; (ii) capture communities' own valuation of and motivations with NBS development for integration into design; (iii) elaborate technical guidance for hybrid green-gray infrastructure systems that can be constructed with communities; and (iv) help define and establish structures for maintenance responsibilities (especially governmental vs. civil society) that will enhance the environmental stewardship of public spaces.

Purpose In Iran, the frequent occurrence of disasters has always been a major problem. In recent decades, disasters have created considerable challenges, especially in cities. Hence, understanding the levels of urban resilience (UR) and planning for addressing vulnerabilities plays a key role in the era of increasing risks and uncertainties. The present study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of resilience of Iranian cities. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review method was used to determine how resilient Iranian cities are. To find relevant studies, the authors searched Iranian and international databases such as Scopus, ScienceDirect, SID and Magiran. There was no restriction on the inclusion date, meaning that all papers published up until September 16, 2021 were considered for inclusion. The PRISMA framework was used for literature search and selection and, finally, 153 studies focused on 52 cities of Iran were selected for the systematic review. Findings In general, the results showed that the level of resilience was low in Iranian cities. Also, informal settlements, worn-out urban fabrics and the central parts of cities showed lower resilience than other parts. Originality/value The results of the study can be used to inform municipal authorities, urban planners and non-governmental organizations of the actions that need to be taken to enhance the resilience of Iranian cities.

PurposeThe paper aims to elaborate on the potential for regeneration of Bagamoyo (Tanzania) through adaptive reuse of its heritage sites. The town was the most important harbour for ivory and slaves of the East-African mainland during the 19th and early 20th century and the colonial capital of German East-Africa between 1885 and 1890. Today, it has 85,000 inhabitants who mainly live in informal settlements while stone town closer to the coast is largely abandoned with its historical buildings in a poor state of conservation.Design/methodology/approachThe first part of the paper describes the history and heritage of the old stone town Bagamoyo, and how it impacts its identity. Additionally, it summarises the critical reception of the town's role in the application to UNESCO World Heritage for “The Central Slave and Ivory Trade Route”. This, in order to consider the reuse of its heritage sites more as part of a layered regeneration process than of a singular narrative for preservation. The second part presents research-by-design proposals investigating the economic, social and cultural potentialities of three spatial layers: the main street, the coastal strip and the shoreline.FindingsThe identity and therefore also urban regeneration of post-colonial towns such as Bagamoyo is the result of a complex combination of different narratives rather than of a singular one.Originality/valueBagamoyo's heritage has been studied as a driver for international tourism linked to slavery but without successful implementation. This study proposes an alternative perspective by investigating its potential for urban regeneration in line with local needs. Developed in the context of a master studio of architectural design, it presents an innovative didactic approach. Moreover, the methodology of research-by-design can be inspirational for other historical towns.

Abstract Background An essential element in the process of “aging well” is the concept of Active Aging (AA). To propose an operational definition of Active Aging, the present study seeks to develop a new measurement tool through an ecological approach. The aim is to recognize significant indicators that play a role in assessing AA in urban areas. Methods This study was conducted through a two-phase process of consensus-building: 1) identifying a set of indicators that were likely candidates for inclusion based on literature review, and 2) a two-round modified Delphi survey using an international panel of academic experts in environmental sciences and gerontology to achieve consensus on the importance of the extracted indicators and validate the items. The panelists were asked to complete a researcher-developed questionnaire with an 11-point Likert scale based on the indicators derived in phase 1. Finally, the Delphi survey’s valid indicators and criteria were utilized to develop the measurement tool. Results At the outset, a list of 111 indicators of AA was prepared through the desk study. A panel of 22 experts reviewed the extracted items and arrived at a consensus on 99 items in the first round and finalised in the second round. Thematic analysis of the panelists’ open-ended responses revealed new concepts that would be explicitly considered by the consensus group. This developed measurement scale consists of five domains, i.e., individual, spatial, socio-economic, governance, and health-related, which contain 15 criteria and 99 indicators. Conclusions The present researchers have developed the active aging measure for urban settlements (AAMU), which can be used both by policy-makers and as an informal self-reported statement among the elderly. AAM’s results in the elderly’s residential environmental communities can improve policy-making to address urban design to sustain an active, healthy life among older people in urban environments.

IntroductionIn this article, I set out to accomplish two tasks. The first is to map coffee and cafés in Mainland China in different historical periods. The second is to focus on coffee and cafés in the socio-cultural milieu of contemporary China in order to understand the symbolic value of the emerging coffee/café-scape. Cafés, rather than coffee, are at the centre of this current trend in contemporary Chinese cities. With instant coffee dominating as a drink, the Chinese have developed a cultural and social demand for cafés, but have not yet developed coffee palates. Historical Coffee Map In 1901, coffee was served in a restaurant in the city of Tianjin. This restaurant, named Kiessling, was run by a German chef, a former solider who came to China with the eight-nation alliance. At that time, coffee was reserved mostly for foreign politicians and military officials as well as wealthy businessmen—very few ordinary Chinese drank it. (For more history of Kiessling, including pictures and videos, see Kiessling). Another group of coffee consumers were from the cultural elites—the young revolutionary intellectuals and writers with overseas experience. It was almost a fashion among the literary elite to spend time in cafés. However, this was negatively judged as “Western” and “bourgeois.” For example, in 1932, Lu Xun, one of the most important twentieth century Chinese writers, commented on the café fashion during 1920s (133-36), and listed the reasons why he would not visit one. He did not drink coffee because it was “foreigners’ food”, and he was too busy writing for the kind of leisure enjoyed in cafés. Moreover, he did not, he wrote, have the nerve to go to a café, and particularly not the Revolutionary Café that was popular among cultural celebrities at that time. He claimed that the “paradise” of the café was for genius, and for handsome revolutionary writers (who he described as having red lips and white teeth, whereas his teeth were yellow). His final complaint was that even if he went to the Revolutionary Café, he would hesitate going in (Lu Xun 133-36). From Lu Xun’s list, we can recognise his nationalism and resistance to what were identified as Western foods and lifestyles. It is easy to also feel his dissatisfaction with those dilettante revolutionary intellectuals who spent time in cafés, talking and enjoying Western food, rather than working. In contrast to Lu Xun’s resistance to coffee and café culture, another well-known writer, Zhang Ailing, frequented cafés when she lived in Shanghai from the 1920s to 1950s. She wrote about the smell of cakes and bread sold in Kiessling’s branch store located right next to her parents’ house (Yuyue). Born into a wealthy family, exposed to Western culture and food at a very young age, Zhang Ailing liked to spend her social and writing time in cafés, ordering her favourite cakes, hot chocolate, and coffee. When she left Shanghai and immigrated to the USA, coffee was an important part of her writing life: the smell and taste reminding her of old friends and Shanghai (Chunzi). However, during Zhang’s time, it was still a privileged and elite practice to patronise a café when these were located in foreign settlements with foreign chefs, and served mainly foreigners, wealthy businessmen, and cultural celebrities. After 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China, until the late 1970s, there were no coffee shops in Mainland China. It was only when Deng Xiaoping suggested neo-liberalism as a so-called “reform-and-open-up” economic policy that foreign commerce and products were again seen in China. In 1988, ten years after the implementation of Deng Xiaoping’s policy, the Nestlé coffee company made the first inroads into the mainland market, featuring homegrown coffee beans in Yunnan province (China Beverage News; Dong; ITC). Nestlé’s bottled instant coffee found its way into the Chinese market, avoiding a direct challenge to the tea culture. Nestlé packaged its coffee to resemble health food products and marketed it as a holiday gift suitable for friends and relatives. As a symbol of modernity and “the West”, coffee-as-gift meshed with the traditional Chinese cultural custom that values gift giving. It also satisfied a collective desire for foreign products (and contact with foreign cultures) during the economic reform era. Even today, with its competitively low price, instant coffee dominates coffee consumption at home, in the workplace, and on Chinese airlines. While Nestlé aimed their product at native Chinese consumers, the multinational companies who later entered China’s coffee market, such as Sara Lee, mainly targeted international hotels such as IHG, Marriott, and Hyatt. The multinationals also favoured coffee shops like Kommune in Shanghai that offered more sophisticated kinds of coffee to foreign consumers and China’s upper class (Byers). If Nestlé introduced coffee to ordinary Chinese families, it was Starbucks who introduced the coffee-based “third space” to urban life in contemporary China on a signficant scale. Differing from the cafés before 1949, Starbucks stores are accessible to ordinary Chinese citizens. The first in Mainland China opened in Beijing’s China World Trade Center in January 1999, targeting mainly white-collar workers and foreigners. Starbucks coffee shops provide a space for informal business meetings, chatting with friends, and relaxing and, with its 500th store opened in 2011, dominate the field in China. Starbucks are located mainly in the central business districts and airports, and the company plans to have 1,500 sites by 2015 (Starbucks). Despite this massive presence, Starbucks constitutes only part of the café-scape in contemporary Chinese cities. There are two other kinds of cafés. One type is usually located in universities or residential areas and is frequented mainly by students or locals working in cultural professions. A representative of this kind is Sculpting in Time Café. In November 1997, two years before the opening of the first Starbucks in Beijing, two newlywed college graduates opened the first small Sculpting in Time Café near Beijing University’s East Gate. This has been expanded into a chain, and boasts 18 branches on the Mainland. (For more about its history, see Sculpting in Time Café). Interestingly, both Starbucks and Sculpting in Time Café acquired their names from literature, Starbucks from Moby Dick, and Sculpting in Time from the Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s film diary of the same name. For Chinese students of literature and the arts, drinking coffee is less about acquiring more energy to accomplish their work, and more about entering a sensual world, where the aroma of coffee mixes with the sounds from the coffee machine and music, as well as the lighting of the space. More importantly, cafés with this ambience become, in themselves, cultural sites associated with literature, films, and music. Owners of this kind of café are often lovers of foreign literatures, films, and cultures, and their cafés host various cultural events, including forums, book clubs, movie screenings, and music clubs. Generally speaking, coffee served in this kind of café is simpler than in the kind discussed below. This third type of café includes those located in tourist and entertainment sites such as art districts, bar areas, and historical sites, and which are frequented by foreign and native tourists, artists and other cultural workers. If Starbucks cultivates a fast-paced business/professional atmosphere, and Sculpting in Time Cafés an artsy and literary atmosphere, this third kind of café is more like an upscale “bar” with trained baristas serving complicated coffees and emphasising their flavour. These coffee shops are more expensive than the other kinds, with an average price three times that of Starbucks. Currently, cafés of this type are found only in “first-tier” cities and usually located in art districts and tourist areas—such as Beijing’s 798 Art District and Nanluo Guxiang, Shanghai’s Tai Kang Road (a.k.a. “the art street”), and Hangzhou’s Westlake area. While Nestlé and Starbucks use coffee beans grown in Yunnan provinces, these “art cafés” are more inclined to use imported coffee beans from suppliers like Sara Lee. Coffee and Cafés in Contemporary China After just ten years, there are hundreds of cafés in Chinese cities. Why has there been such a demand for coffee or, more accurately, cafés, in such a short period of time? The first reason is the lack of “third space” environments in Mainland China. Before cafés appeared in the late 1990s, stores like KFC (which opened its first store in 1987) and McDonald’s (with its first store opened in 1990) filled this role for urban residents, providing locations where customers could experience Western food, meet friends, work, or read. In fact, KFC and McDonald’s were once very popular with college students looking for a place to study. Both stores had relatively clean food environments and good lighting. They also had air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, which are not provided in most Chinese university dormitories. However, since neither chain was set up to be a café and customers occupying seats for long periods while ordering minimal amounts of food or drink affected profits, staff members began to indirectly ask customers to leave after dining. At the same time, as more people were able to afford to eat at KFC and McDonald’s, their fast foods were also becoming more and more popular, especially among young people. As a consequence, both types of chain restaurant were becoming noisy and crowded and, thus, no longer ideal for reading, studying, or meeting with friends. Although tea has been a traditional drink in Chinese culture, traditional teahouses were expensive places more suitable for business meetings or for the cultural or intellectual elite. Since almost every family owns a tea set and can readily purchase tea, friends and family would usually make and consume tea at home. In recent years, however, new kinds of teahouses have emerged, similar in style to cafés, targeting the younger generation with more affordable prices and a wider range of choices, so the lack of a “third space” does not fully explain the café boom. Another factor affecting the popularity of cafés has been the development and uptake of Internet technology, including the increasing use of laptops and wireless Internet in recent years. The Internet has been available in China since the late 1990s, while computers and then laptops entered ordinary Chinese homes in the early twenty-first century. The IT industry has created not only a new field of research and production, but has also fostered new professions and demands. Particularly, in recent years in Mainland China, a new socially acceptable profession—freelancing in such areas as graphic design, photography, writing, film, music, and the fashion industry—has emerged. Most freelancers’ work is computer- and Internet-based. Cafés provide suitable working space, with wireless service, and the bonus of coffee that is, first of all, somatically stimulating. In addition, the emergence of the creative and cultural industries (which are supported by the Chinese government) has created work for these freelancers and, arguably, an increasing demand for café-based third spaces where such people can meet, talk and work. Furthermore, the flourishing of cafés in first-tier cities is part of the “aesthetic economy” (Lloyd 24) that caters to the making and selling of lifestyle experience. Alongside foreign restaurants, bars, galleries, and design firms, cafés contribute to city branding, and link a city to the global urban network. Cafés, like restaurants, galleries and bars, provide a space for the flow of global commodities, as well as for the human flow of tourists, travelling artists, freelancers, and cultural specialists. Finally, cafés provide a type of service that contributes to friendly owner/waiter-customer relations. During the planned-economy era, most stores and hotels in China were State-owned, staff salaries were not related to individual performance, and indifferent (and even unfriendly) service was common. During the economic reform era, privately owned stores and shops began to replace State-owned ones. At the same time, a large number of people from the countryside flowed into the cities seeking opportunities. Most had little if any professional training and so could only find work in factories or in the service industry. However, most café employees are urban, with better educational backgrounds, and many were already familiar with coffee culture. In addition, café owners, particularly those of places like Sculpting in Time Cafe, often invest in creating a positive, community atmosphere, learning about their customers and sharing personal experiences with their regular clients. This leads to my next point—the generation of the 1980s’ need for a social community. Cafés’ Symbolic Value—Community A demand for a sense of community among the generation of the 1980s is a unique socio-cultural phenomenon in China, which paradoxically co-exists with their desire for individualism. Mao Zedong started the “One Child Policy” in 1979 to slow the rapid population growth in China, and the generations born under this policy are often called “the lonely generations,” with both parents working full-time. At the same time, they are “the generation of me,” labelled as spoiled, self-centred, and obsessed with consumption (de Kloet; Liu; Rofel; Wang). The individuals of this generation, now aged in their 20s and 30s, constitute the primary consumers of coffee in China. Whereas individualism is an important value to them, a sense of community is also desirable in order to compensate for their lack of siblings. Furthermore, the 1980s’ generation has also benefitted from the university expansion policy implemented in 1999. Since then, China has witnessed a surge of university students and graduates who not only received scientific and other course-based knowledge, but also had a better chance to be exposed to foreign cultures through their books, music, and movies. With this interesting tension between individualism and collectivism, the atmosphere provided by cafés has fostered a series of curious temporary communities built on cultural and culinary taste. Interestingly, it has become an aspiration of many young college students and graduates to open a community-space style café in a city. One of the best examples is the new Henduoren’s (Many People’s) Café. This was a project initiated by Wen Erniu, a recent college graduate who wanted to open a café in Beijing but did not have sufficient funds to do so. She posted a message on the Internet, asking people to invest a minimum of US$316 to open a café with her. With 78 investors, the café opened in September 2011 in Beijing (see pictures of Henduoren’s Café). In an interview with the China Daily, Wen Erniu stated that, “To open a cafe was a dream of mine, but I could not afford it […] We thought opening a cafe might be many people’s dream […] and we could get together via the Internet to make it come true” (quoted in Liu 2011). Conclusion: Café Culture and (Instant) Coffee in China There is a Chinese saying that, if you hate someone—just persuade him or her to open a coffee shop. Since cafés provide spaces where one can spend a relatively long time for little financial outlay, owners have to increase prices to cover their expenses. This can result in fewer customers. In retaliation, cafés—particularly those with cultural and literary ambience—host cultural events to attract people, and/or they offer food and wine along with coffee. The high prices, however, remain. In fact, the average price of coffee in China is often higher than in Europe and North America. For example, a medium Starbucks’ caffè latte in China averaged around US$4.40 in 2010, according to the price list of a Starbucks outlet in Shanghai—and the prices has recently increased again (Xinhua 2012). This partially explains why instant coffee is still so popular in China. A bag of instant Nestlé coffee cost only some US$0.25 in a Beijing supermarket in 2010, and requires only hot water, which is accessible free almost everywhere in China, in any restaurant, office building, or household. As an habitual, addictive treat, however, coffee has not yet become a customary, let alone necessary, drink for most Chinese. Moreover, while many, especially those of the older generations, could discern the quality and varieties of tea, very few can judge the quality of the coffee served in cafés. As a result, few Mainland Chinese coffee consumers have a purely somatic demand for coffee—craving its smell or taste—and the highly sweetened and creamed instant coffee offered by companies like Nestlé or Maxwell has largely shaped the current Chinese palate for coffee. Ben Highmore has proposed that “food spaces (shops, restaurants and so on) can be seen, for some social agents, as a potential space where new ‘not-me’ worlds are encountered” (396) He continues to expand that “how these potential spaces are negotiated—the various affective registers of experience (joy, aggression, fear)—reflect the multicultural shapes of a culture (its racism, its openness, its acceptance of difference)” (396). Cafés in contemporary China provide spaces where one encounters and constructs new “not-me” worlds, and more importantly, new “with-me” worlds. While café-going communicates an appreciation and desire for new lifestyles and new selves, it can be hoped that in the near future, coffee will also be appreciated for its smell, taste, and other benefits. Of course, it is also necessary that future Chinese coffee consumers also recognise the rich and complex cultural, political, and social issues behind the coffee economy in the era of globalisation. 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