Browsing by Subject "Urbanization"

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Amity Restoration Assessment: Water quality, fish, bugs, people
(University of Minnesota Duluth, 2013) Axler, Richard P; Brady, Valerie; Ruzycki, Elaine; Henneck, Jerald; Will, Norman; Crouse, A; Dumke, Josh; Hell, Robert V
This project is also a new contribution from the Weber Stream Restoration Initiative (WSRI) that began in 2005 via private endowments to create a Partnership of university scientists and extension educators, and local, state and federal agency staff to restore and protect Lake Superior Basin trout streams (www.lakesuperiorstreams.org/weber/index.html). The WSRI features a demonstration project targeting the turbidity and sediment impaired Amity Creek watershed for multiple restoration activities. It was awarded an Environmental Stewardship Award from the Lake Superior Binational Forum in 2010 and was honored state-wide by the [Minnesota] Environmental Initiative in May 2013 by being awarded the “Partnership of the Year” for its activities, key elements being: (1) its website for local community education about watershed and water resource issues; (2) creation of interactive, on-line animations of real-time water quality with interpretive information from a site near Amity’s discharge into the Lester River just above its discharge into Lake Superior (within the St. Louis River AOC); (3) development of a multi-agency/organization partnership to pursue trout stream restoration and conservation activities throughout the western Lake Superior basin; (4) designing and carrying out two major Amity restoration projects in 2009 with the City of Duluth and South St. Louis SWCD; (5) mapping landscape stressors for highlighting areas of higher risk for environmental impacts as well as conducting a detailed reconnaissance of riparian zone sediment sources for priority remediation (SSL SWCD, 2009); and (6) developing a successful EPA Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) project to fund additional restoration related activities from 2010-2014 (MPCA, NRRI-UMD, SSL SWCD partnership, 2010, $843,616).
Beyond Urbanization: (Un)sustainable Geographies and Young People's Literature
(2021-05) Kleese, Nick
The Anthropocene is an epoch of ecological destruction. It is also a conceptual apparatus that denotes the various systems that entail this destruction (Clifford, 2013). Of these systems, urbanization—as both a social system and cultural value—retains popular and scholarly focus as a welcomed geographical expression of a sustainable, global human society (Heldke, 2006). This attention masks the environmental and social extraction that occurs in rural geographies (Ching and Creed, 1997; Cervone, 2017), as well this destruction’s inequitable impacts within and across these geographies (Bullard, 2005; Martinez-Aller, 2014). Drawing on methodologies of Marxist cultural analysis (Williams, 1963), I explore the relationship between urbanization processes and the ways rural ecologies are represented in literature for young people. I supplement literary analysis with interview data with young rural readers, sociological data, and environmental data. With insights offered by Marxist ecology (Marx, 1894; Foster, 2000), postcolonial ecology (Guha, 2013; Whyte, 2017) and critical geography (Soja, 2010; Brenner, 2019), I argue that fictionalized representations of rurality in young people’s literature inadvertently distance readers from the ecological realities playing out in the geographies they purport to depict. Still, more recent works of literature for young people that depict rural characters engaging in ecological activism and solidarity may suggest an emergent, critical, geographically-attuned sensibility. Inspired by these works, I suggest that careful reflection on the geographical valences of the Anthropocene reveals possibilities for more plural, inclusive, and ecologically-attuned societies featuring youth immersion in and attention to rural places as sites worthy of their labor and joy.
Breeding Bird Communities Across an Upland Disturbance Gradient in the Western Lake Superior Region
(2007) Miller, Christina; Niemi, Gerald J; Hanowski, JoAnn M; Regal, Ronald R
The coastal region of western Lake Superior to examine relationships to human land use. Eighty-four species were detected and 50 were abundant enough to be included in data analysis. Monotonic quadratic regression models were constructed for these 50 species by using species counts as the dependent variable and the proportion of human conversion of the landscape (residential, agriculture, and commercial/industrial land uses) within each study area as the independent variable. Twenty-seven bird species had significant regressions (P < 0.05), 18 of which generally avoided areas developed by humans and 9 of which were attracted to development. De-trended correspondence analysis using counts of these 27 bird species was used to investigate multivariate, community responses to development. The first DCA axis was interpreted as a gradient from urban avoiding to urban exploiting bird species and was strongly correlated with land cover variables related to human development. Our results advance the idea that breeding bird communities can be used as indicators of ecological condition and can diagnose potential causes for changes in these conditions. Further, our study points out the usefulness of bird monitoring data in regional planning efforts that incorporate goals for maintaining native biological diversity.
The Danger and Power of Being In-Between: Rural-Urban Inbetweener Identity in Contemporary China
(2019-07) Zhang, Chen
In 2015, United Nation Habitat estimated that 1.5 million people globally were moving from the countryside to the city every week. They are often regarded as living in a seemingly “transient” or “liminal” status. Their ambiguous status of identity and place has long been taken for granted as temporary, exceptional, unstable, undesirable, vulnerable, or dangerous in both state-dominant political discourse and critical urbanists’ scholarly examinations. However, my research finds that a community of Chinese rural-to-urban migrants challenge this assertion and pursue a right to permanently inhabit this seemingly undesirable status between rural and urban. They identify themselves as rural-urban “inbetweeners,” build “in-between” informal settlements on the rural-urban periphery and mobilize themselves to sustain an inbetweener identity as a permanent and positive identity. Inbetweeners’ pursuit of the right to permanently inhabit a seemingly transient, ambiguous, and marginal status poses a puzzling question: Why do migrants pursue an in-between social status which has been widely viewed as dangerous and disadvantageous? To solve this puzzle, my dissertation explores two research questions: 1) Why do migrants decide to become inbetweeners? 2) What do migrants do with this inbetweener identity in their everyday life practices and collective resistance? Drawing on data from my in-depth interviews with two inbetweener communities and my observations of their anti-formalization and anti-eviction movements in two Chinese cities — Chengdu and Beijing — from 2016 to 2018, this dissertation reveals a nested set of logics behind migrants’ decision to construct, preserve, and deploy an inbetweener identity. I found that migrants’ decision to identify themselves as inbetweeners was born from their resistance to be identified by the dominant discourse as an inferior group — the floating population (in Chinese, liudong renkou). To replace this floating people identity, migrants created this inbetweener identity. By identifying themselves as inbetweeners, migrants don’t say a simple “no” to their social and spatial status between rural and urban; instead, they find potential in this seemingly disadvantageous rural-urban in-between status. Inbetweeners deploy their identity to achieve material benefits, escape the gaze of state power, and create an alternative social belonging beyond a rural-urban category. This inbetweener identity signals both danger and opportunities for migrants in their everyday life. These findings enrich scholarship on critical urban theory, modernist and postmodern planning theory, and interpretative methods in urban studies. First, these findings challenge critical urbanists’ etic assertion about migrants’ general desire to move from a “liminal” status between rural and urban to a more stable and permanent urban status. Instead, I found that a rural-urban in-between status signals both danger and power from migrants’ emic perspective. It can be simultaneously exclusive and empowering. By constructing and deploying this inbetweener identity, migrants are able to strategically and flexibly respond to and resist the multifaceted repercussions produced by a rapid urbanization process. Second, this dissertation criticizes a modernist planning mode that overly relies on a series of spatial and non-spatial oppositions, including rural/urban, inclusion/exclusion, and past/future, to index and explain social differences. Drawing from the danger and power experienced by rural-to-urban migrants who live and straddle between rural and urban societies, I argue that planners should treat a rapidly urbanizing society as a contradictory whirlpool in which marginalization, exclusion, and exploitation paradoxically coexist with material opportunities, liberating potentials, and new modes of social belonging. Third, this study demonstrates another way in which interpretative method is a promising approach for investigating previously neglected dimensions of urbanization in people’s everyday life practices and their meaning-making processes.
Data for Discovery and Decision-Making: LakeSuperiorStreams.org
(University of Minnesota Duluth, 2010) Axler, Richard P; Will, Norman; Henneck, Jerald; Carlson, Todd; Ruzycki, Elaine; Host, George E; Sjerven, Gerald; Schomberg, Jesse; Kleist, Chris; Hagley, Cynthia
An estimated 720 perennial and 127 intermittent streams flow into L. Superior, including 309 trout streams and their tributaries (>2100 miles) along the North Shore and St. Louis River Estuary alone. Bedrock escarpments create a high density of stream corridors in forested watersheds with steep gradients, thin erodible soils, typically low productivity, and “flashy” hydrology. These high-quality trout streams are sensitive to urbanization and rural development by factors raising water temperature and increasing water and sediment runoff, e.g. openings in riparian cover/canopy, impervious surfaces, road crossings, construction runoff, and the warming and increased frequency of severe storms predicted by climate change models (Wuebbles & Hayhoe 2003). Tributary streams are increasingly threatened by development as urbanization and rural development place increased pressure on the Lake Superior region’s coastal communities. Between 1992 and 2001, a 33% increase in low-intensity development occurred within the basin with an alarming transition from agricultural lands to urban/suburban sprawl (Wolter et al. 2007). In the early 1990s, over 50 new lodging establishments were constructed along the Superior North Shore, and from 1990-1996 Cook County, MN experienced a 24% population increase (MPCA 2000). Stream fish, amphibians, and the invertebrates that sustain them are being adversely impacted by increased temperature, excessive peak flows, turbidity and suspended solids, road salts, organic matter, and nutrients from increased development (Anderson et al. 2003). This conclusion is supported by the fact that 11 of 27 major Minnesota North Shore trout streams have been listed as Impaired (2010) since the 1990s and remain on the State 303(d) list - primarily for turbidity, temperature, and fish tissue-Hg. The integrity of these watersheds is also critical to the condition of the coastal and offshore waters of Lake Superior. The streams discharge directly into the nutrient and sediment sensitive coastal zone of ultra-oligotrophic L. Superior, or indirectly into the lake via the St. Louis River Estuary, itself an IJC designated Area of Concern and a zero discharge (of persistent organic pollutants (IJC 1999; MPCA 2000), in part because of its levels of phosphorus and suspended sediment. This is particularly important because the lake’s nearshore zone is the source of much of its biological productivity and recreational use, but is nutrient deficient and therefore, very sensitive to excess inputs of nutrients, suspended solids, turbidity and organic matter (e.g. Sterner et al. 2004; Rose and Axler 1998). Therefore, despite the fact that Lake Superior and its tributaries are among the most pristine waters in Minnesota and in the entire Great Lakes Basin, some of these resources are already stressed by increased urbanization and tourism. This creates the unusual challenge of how to inform the public, businesses, and local units of government (LGUs) that these resources need protection when few problems are obvious to the untrained eye. This project has built on the foundation established by the award-winning project www.LakeSuperiorStreams.org (LSS) that was created in 2002 via an EPA grant to a Partnership of the City of Duluth Stormwater Utility, the University of Minnesota –Duluth (Natural Resources Research Institute, Minnesota Sea Grant, and Department of Education), the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (Duluth Office), the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District, the Great Lakes Aquarium, and the Lake Superior Zoo (Axler et al. 2006, 2003; Lonsdale et al. 2006). The original partnership has remained substantially intact since 2002. The ultimate goal continues to be to improve environmental decision-making by: (1) Enhancing public understanding of the connections between weather, hydrology, land use and the condition of water resources in urban and rural watersheds, and (2) Providing easy access to tools for accomplishing the protection of un-impaired resource and cost-effective restoration of degraded sites.
Development of rail infrastructure and its impact on urbanization in the Randstad, the Netherlands
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2016) Kasraian, Dena; Maat, Kees; van Wee, Bert
Long-term, large-scale empirical studies on the simultaneous development of transport infrastructure and the built environment are scarce. This paper provides a long-term study of the development of the railway network and its impact on the built-up area—and vice versa—using the case study of the Randstad in the Netherlands between 1850 and 2010. The analysis is both qualitative and quantitative. We describe the shares of the built-up area in concentric buffers of 1-kilometer intervals from railway stations and estimate binomial logit models to predict the likelihood of new stations being built based on the amount of the preceding and subsequent built-up area and the likelihood that a new station might have encouraged further growth. Results show that during the early days stations followed existing urbanization patterns. But as time went by, new stations were more likely to be located in undeveloped areas and less likely to be located within the established built-up areas, which were already serviced by existing stations. Moreover, they prompted further growth, increasing the likelihood of more urbanization in their vicinity.
The effect of urbanization on the stopover ecology of neotropical migrant songbirds
(2015-04) Condon, Elisabeth Lee
I conducted spring migration point counts and vegetation surveys at 29 forest patches in the Chicago, IL metropolitan area in 2012 and 2013. The forest patch selection was designed to test the effects of patch size, distance from the Lake Michigan shoreline and degree of urbanization. I conducted exploratory analysis to search for potential relationships. Vegetation structure variables, especially understory and subcanopy composition, were important factors for many models. Bird species determined to be area sensitive in previous studies were associated with large patches during migration. While path size, distance from the shoreline and urbanization were not frequently selected for models of the entire avian community, they were important in most models of individual species. No single combination benefitted all species, indicating that maintaining a variety of conditions in the region will support a diverse avifauna.
Funding China's Urban Infrastructure: Revenue Structure and Financing Approaches
(Center for Transportation Studies, 2011-05) Zhirong, Zhao; Chengxin, Cao
With the rapid increase in the need for urban infrastructure, the issue of infrastructure funding has become more and more essential. This paper focuses on the following three issues: first, it clarifies the trend and regional pattern of infrastructure funding. Second, this paper further discusses funding mechanisms from the perspective of government and market. Third, this paper will evaluate current trend and pattern based on the five theoretical dimensions. Concerning the trends of infrastructure funding, the growth of market financing is faster than fiscal revenue; therefore, the importance of fiscal revenue has decreased. Regionally, the east has the highest reliance on fiscal revenue, which is largely due to its high land transfer fee. Municipality has the highest proportion of market financing. From the perspective of government and market, the importance of government-leading mode has decreased, while UDIC-leading and private sector involvement play a more and more essential role.
Heterogeneous links between urban form and mobility: A comparison of São Paulo, Istanbul and Mumbai
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2018) Kandt, Jens
This paper presents determinants of travel demand in three important cities in emerging economies: São Paulo, Istanbul and Mumbai. By comparison, similarities and differences of travel demand among the cities are identified and discussed with regard to their geographical, institutional and spatio-physical conditions. Special attention is paid to the hitherto understudied impact of the built environment on travel in emerging economy cities. Drawing on identical household surveys carried out in each city, the study reveals that gender, social status, car ownership and geographical location are consistently associated with mode choice. Yet, the relative importance of those characteristics differs in each city in line with their distinct socio-cultural realities. Trip duration appears to be more affected by built-environment characteristics, once mode choice is taken into account. But, again, potential influences of the built environment operate in different ways in São Paulo, Istanbul and Mumbai. In particular, there appears to be a closer relationship between transport and land-use in Mumbai. The variation-finding, comparative design reveals plural associations of life situation, the built environment and travel, and thus evinces specific interactions that require contextual policy attention to achieve sustainable and inclusive urban mobility.
The influence of transport infrastructures on land-use conversion decisions within municipal plans
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2014) Padeiro, Miguel
Transit-oriented development (TOD) is one of the most popular means of public intervention in the field of spatial planning, which aims at reducing land consumption caused by urban sprawl. In this paper, a logit model is computed to assess whether the Municipal Master Plans approved during the 1990s in the Lisbon region (Portugal), currently in force, contemplated public transit stations as a relevant requirement for the location of the planned urban expansion areas and, more specifically, for the conversion of non-urban areas to artificialized areas. It is shown that TOD was not taken as a preferential approach, suggesting that there may be at the outset an inherent resistance to public injunctions on limiting land-use conversion, regardless of other obstacles frequently mentioned.
Riparian bird communities along an urban gradient: effects of local vegetation, landscape biophysical heterogeneity, and spatial scale
(2008-12) Pennington, Derric Neville
Urbanization is an important driver of ecosystem change that can have deleterious effects on regional native biodiversity. Yet we know little about the potential value of urbanizing areas for maintaining local and regional species diversity. Few studies have explicitly examined how the spatial arrangement and composition of biophysical elements within a metropolitan area contribute to the structure and composition of urban biodiversity. This thesis focuses on avian community responses and uses observational studies that consider local vegetation and landscape factors in order to further understanding of the ecological and conservation implications of urbanization across multiple temporal and spatial scales. A synthesis of three urban systems demonstrates the usefulness of gradient analysis approach for understanding fine-and coarse-scale processes influencing urban bird distributions. Results illustrate differences between two urban-to-rural gradient paradigms and the importance of conducting investigations at multiple spatial, temporal and biological scales. Recommendations are provided to improve our understanding of urban bird communities using gradient analyses and emphasize the future need to derive a common framework that incorporates the biophysical and social heterogeneity of urban systems. An urban gradient study of riparian bird communities within metropolitan Cincinnati, Ohio during spring migration found that bird species responses varied based on migratory strategies and across spatial scales. Long-distance Neotropical migrant species density, richness, and evenness responded most strongly to landscape and vegetation measures and were positively correlated with areas of wide riparian forests and less development within 250 m. Resident Neotropical migrants density, richness, and evenness increased with wider riparian forests (> 500 m) without buildings, while en-route migrants utilized areas having a wide buffer of tree cover (250 to 500 m) regardless of buildings; both resident and en-route landbirds were positively associated with native vegetation composition and mature trees. To better understand the relative importance of proximate versus landscape features and the influential spatial scales of these landscape features, I focused on breeding riparian bird species and the influences of two biophysical features of the urban environment - vegetation and built elements - within 1 km for the same riparian study area. At the proximate scale, native tree and understory stem frequency were the most important vegetation variables; native tree frequency had a positive influence on 35 species and a negative influence on 13 of the 48 species and native understory frequency had a positive influence on 27 species and a negative influence on 21 species. At the landscape scale, the vegetative features (both tree cover and grass cover) were most important variables included in competitive models across all species; tree cover positively influenced 15 species and negatively influenced 5 species and grass cover positively influenced 22 species and negatively influenced 5 species. Building density was an important variable for 13 species, and positively influenced 6 species and negatively influenced 7 species. In a comparison of multiple scales, models with only landscape variables were adequate for some species, but models combining local vegetation and landscape information were best or competitive for 42 of the 44 species. Local-vegetation-only models were rarely competitive. Combined models at small spatial scales (≤ 500 m) were best for 36 species of the 44 species and these models commonly included tree cover and building density. Only eight species had best models at larger scales (> 500 m); grass cover was most the important variable at larger scales. In conclusion, understanding the processes that create repeatable patterns in urban bird distributions is a challenge that requires investigation at multiple spatial, temporal, and biological scales. These findings provide managers and land-use planners with species-specific information and emphasize the importance of acknowledging both proximate and landscape influences in habitat modeling.
Understanding jobs-housing imbalance in urban China: A case study of Shanghai
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2021) Xiao, Weiye; Wei, Yehua Dennis; Li, Han
Shanghai has experienced a rapid process of urbanization and urban expansion, which increases travel costs and limits job accessibility for the economically disadvantaged population. This paper investigates the jobs-housing imbalance problem in Shanghai at the subdistrict-level (census-level) and reaches the following conclusions. First, the jobs-housing imbalance shows a ring pattern and is evident mainly in the suburban areas and periphery of the Shanghai metropolitan area because job opportunities are highly concentrated while residential areas are sprawling. Second, structural factors such as high housing prices and sprawling development significantly contribute to the jobs-housing imbalance. Third, regional planning policies such as development zones contribute to jobs-housing imbalance due to the specialized industrial structure and limited availability of housing. However, geographically weighted regression reveals the development zones in the traditional Pudong district are exceptional insofar as government policy has created spatial heterogeneity there. In addition, the multilevel model used in this study suggests regions with jobs-housing imbalance usually have well-connected streets, and this represents the local government’s efforts to reduce excessive commuting times created by jobs-housing imbalance.

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