Search

This paper draws together elements of the academic literature on policy mobilities on the one hand, and on the 'digital turn' on the other. It argues that COVID‐19 accelerated the digitalization of everyday life asking we think through how those already existing informational infrastructures supporting the mobility of policies are continuing to evolve, as are the methods available for researching them. This has potential consequences for how cities practice policy comparison exchange, and learning and how these processes are studied. This paper sets out a three‐pronged schema to take seriously the intersection of policy mobilities and the digital. They are policy mobilities through the digital, policy mobilities produced by the digital and policy mobilities of the digital. It concludes by outlining fruitful areas for a future research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been increasing attention to legal and political contention concerning refugees and asylum seekers in cities. However, there are further opportunities to analyze the relationship between civil society litigation and state institutions in Global South cities. In this paper, I analyze civil society litigation to re-open Refugee Reception Offices (RROs) in South Africa. Primarily based on legal research, I argue that civil society litigation to re-open RROs in specific cities represents an advocacy strategy to contextualize national rights and policies within urban spaces. The paper contributes to broader discussions on civil society advocacy and rights and governance in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Mercantile Register data to analyse the location decisions of firms in Catalan municipalities (between 2010 and 2019). Using count data panel estimations, we focus on local sustainability characteristics. The identification of the location patterns and the effects of local environmental policies on firms belonging to different sustainability industries constitute a contribution to the empirical location literature. Our results help in understanding entry processes at the local level and how both citizens' environmental values and local environmental policies shape these. We show that (i) firms locate differently depending on their sustainability profile and (ii) local environmental policies have stronger effects on the location decisions of sustainability‐oriented firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization is occurring at an unprecedented rate in developing countries like Ethiopia, especially with the rapid growth of industrialization. However, this urbanization and industrial development surge puts immense pressure on preparing and implementing city spatial plans. Urban spatial planning plays a crucial role in shaping the development of cities, aiming to create livable and sustainable urban development. The plan-making process and its subsequent implementation often encounter challenges that hinder the realization of planned objectives. Galan and Dukem, cities near Addis Ababa's capital, have seen substantial industrial investment in recent decades. This article explores the challenges associated with urban spatial planning and industrial development while proposing alternative approaches. The paper relies on information gathered from primary and secondary sources, including expert surveys and key informants' interviews. The research highlights that industrial developments have led to significant and uncontrolled changes in urban land use and urbanization in the study areas. Due to the lack of clear planning guidelines and institutional capacity, the study cities are experiencing haphazard development without effective urban spatial plans. Proximity to Addis Ababa has driven the urbanization process through increased investments. The article contends that effective management of urbanization and industrialization can create enjoyable living conditions and foster job growth. Macroeconomic policies, including industrial policies, should pay attention to spatial elements and prevent policy-making processes that are "space-blind". This, however, requires clairvoyance and a high level of expertise, integrating inputs from advocacy planning and community participation to bridge gaps and ensure effective urban spatial plans and industrialization processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper bridges the gap between the literature on the pandemic's effects on mobility and the literature on the impact of low emission zones (LEZ). Using data for large European cities in the period 2018–2021, we examine whether LEZs may explain differences in the recovery patterns of traffic in European cities after the shock of Covid. Controlling for several city attributes, we examine whether LEZ cities are less congested before and after the pandemic in comparison to non-LEZ cities. LEZs may have been more effective in reducing congestion after the pandemic because the fleet renewal process has slowed down or, alternatively, LEZs may be a proxy of unobservable factors related with attitudes of governments and citizens toward a sustainable mobility. Our results validate the traffic-mitigating role of the LEZ after the Covid-19 pandemic, although such result only holds for the pioneering LEZ cities. Hence, the traffic-mitigating role of the LEZ after the Covid-19 pandemic seems to be related to unobservable attributes that influenced the early decision to implement a LEZ. In this regard, we also find that LEZs may have induced a change in local attributes related to sustainable mobility given that we do not find differences between LEZs decided at the local or regional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to propose an innovative and efficient process in urban policy-making that combines a divergent and creative method with a convergent and strategic one. At the same time, the purpose is also to propose a useful innovation to enforce the usability of both methods. On the one hand, mission-oriented policies run the risk of being overly focused on the present and of not being able to develop preparedness in organization. On the other hand, scenario development has the reverse problem it often does not point out how to use scenario narratives to inform and devise short-term strategic actions. Design/methodology/approach: The paper proposes an innovative methodological approach, the mission-oriented scenarios, which hybridizes Mazzucato's mission-oriented public policy framework with Jim Dator's Manoa school four futures method. The proposed methodological innovation emerges from a urban foresight academic-led project carried out in the context of the Metropolitan City of Turin, Italy, where a first application of the mission-oriented scenarios was tested on six different focal issues (from reindustrialization to cultural policies) and the scenario narratives were used as sources for the grounding of 12 missions and 48 strategic actions towards 2030. Findings: Mission-oriented scenarios can contribute to the generation of more sustainable and inclusive urban public policies. This methodological proposal is based on an original mix of knowledge exchange procedures borrowed from methodological approaches with different backgrounds: the mission-oriented and the archetypal scenarios. Their conjunction could support the formulation of ambitious yet pragmatic policies, giving a plurality of actors the opportunity to act and establish fruitful and lasting partnerships. Originality/value: The paper reconstructs one of the first urban foresight projects carried out in a major Italian city by two prestigious universities and exposes a methodological innovation resulting from reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of the project, which opens the door to the development of a new scenario technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libertarian "exit" imaginaries project new social, political, and economic structures separate from existing institutions in which "sovereign individuals" can opt-in to the governing system that fits their ideals. This paper traces libertarian exit imaginaries through a variety of territorial and technological projects. Demonstrating how these imaginaries evolve, it describes a recent proposal to build a semi-autonomous, blockchain-based smart city in Nevada. Reflecting on these projects, the paper highlights (1) their inevitable failure as they confront reality, (2) their role as spectacle, spreading libertarian ideology, and (3) their real-life impacts on distinct places and communities even when they fail or never materialize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The retail sector is experiencing unprecedented change, from ongoing shifts in shopping behaviour to retailer rationalisation and business failure. Internationally, this is impacting the crucial economic and social role of many highly developed city centres. This paper examines how key stakeholders have responded to the challenges of adapting city centres for the future. Empirically, the paper draws on a series of repurposing schemes across five case study cities. Conceptually, theories of assemblage are used as an analytical framework to understand how heterogeneous networks combine to repurpose city centres. The paper makes a distinctive contribution by revealing symbiosis between mixed uses that challenge traditional high street norms, and suggests that harnessing common desires could underpin productive shared governance and support business communities' efforts to bring vibrancy and enhance resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue that urban studies should consider freight logistics as an integral part of ongoing urban transformations. The movement of goods is increasingly shaping cities, and the implications for sustainability, liveability and justice are uncertain. Still, freight logistics has been largely overlooked in urban studies. This paper seeks to remedy this. First, we review current literature on freight logistics in cities, and find that it is broadly characterised by what has been called a 'technical-rational model'. Second, we situate urban logistics in social and political processes of urban change. Finally, we point to key areas for urban scholars to explore at the intersections between urban logistics and urban change to better understand the role of freight logistics in urban sustainability transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on the expansion of urban ecology from a biologically based discipline—ecology in the city—to an increasingly interdisciplinary field—ecology of the city—to a transdisciplinary, knowledge to action endeavor—an ecology for and with the city. We build on this "prepositional journey" by proposing a transformative shift in urban ecology, and we present a framework for how the field may continue this shift. We conceptualize that urban ecology is in a state of flux, and that this shift is needed to transform urban ecology into a more engaged and action based field, and one that includes a diversity of actors willing to participate in the future of their cities. In this transformative shift, these actors will engage, collaborate, and participate in a continuous spiral of knowledge → action → knowledge spiral and back to knowledge loop, with the goal of co producing sustainable and resilient solutions to myriad urban challenges. Our framework for this transformative shift includes three pathways: (1) a repeating knowledge → action → knowledge spiral of ideas, information, and solutions produced by a diverse community of agents of urban change working together in an "urban sandbox"; (2) incorporation of a social–ecological–technological systems framework in this spiral and expanding the spiral temporally to include the "deep future," where future scenarios are based on a visioning of seemingly unimaginable or plausible future states of cities that are sustainable and resilient; and (3) the expansion of the spiral in space, to include rural areas and places that are not yet cities. The three interrelated pathways that define the transformative shift demonstrate the power of an urban ecology that has moved beyond urban systems science and into a realm where collaborations among diverse knowledges and voices are working together to understand cities and what is urban while producing sustainable solutions to contemporary challenges and envisioning futures of socially, ecologically, and technologically resilient cities. We present case study examples of each of the three pathways that make up this transformative shift in urban ecology and discuss both limitations and opportunities for future research and action with this transdisciplinary broadening of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the development of Pitrufquén (located in the Araucanía Region, Chile, and founded in 1897) from a historical, territorial, urban, and architectural point of view. It is proposed that the city’s development is framed in a new moment, where the Chilean State abandons military criteria and assumes economic-territorial factors where the railroad’s presence is a determining factor. The choice of the site, its particular layout, and the development of its architecture are evidence of this change. From the historical point of view, it is analyzed how, in Pitrufquén, the Mapuche society had cattle raising as the main economic activity, as it had pastures to feed the cattle, the land was suitable for crops, and there was a vital ford to cross the Toltén River. This strategic location was maintained and accentuated by the city’s founding and the railroad’s arrival in 1898, turning the town into a railhead for progress towards the south of the country. In the case of the urban layout, its peculiarity was addressed since, together with Lonquimay, these are the only sections in the La Araucanía region organized based on an ellipse, which, in the case of Pitrufquén, also coexists with a checkerboard layout. The study analyzed its squares, diagonal avenues, and the perimeter ring road. At an architectural level, the article explores the three layers or aspects of the city: The first one studies the wooden architecture with works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the second refers to public architecture, represented by buildings such as the municipality, public services, the post office, and others; and a third layer addresses the modern architecture, such as housing and stores from the period between 1940 and 1960. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia has a hidden but growing problem with household food insecurity, revealing the failure of conventional food infrastructures to support human flourishing. Disruptions to employment and livelihoods due to pandemic lockdowns have exacerbated household food insecurity, evincing the uneven geography of food access in countries globally, including Australia. Increasing demand for food relief had been observed prior to the COVID‐19 pandemic and has been met by food relief providers, which we consider as infrastructures of care addressing growing levels of hunger. This paper reveals COVID‐19's many impacts on the food relief sector across Metropolitan Sydney, New South Wales. It analyses both a questionnaire of food relief providers in 2022 and media articles, social media posts, reports, and websites. It provides much‐needed insights into the impacts of pandemic lockdowns on the demand for food, interruptions to food provisioning, changes to food supply, and alterations made to suppliers' ways of operating. Those insights show how infrastructures of care are place‐based, responsive, dynamic, and constrained by caring capacities. Such insights are increasingly important for understanding infrastructural failures, documenting the real extent of household food insecurity, and challenging dominant discourses of Australia as a food‐secure nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban geographers have been pursuing divergent theoretical projects. Some have pushed urban theory to become ageographical, the goal being to search out and explain of a globally omnipotent urbanization process. Others have moved in a different direction, seeking to detail how singular constellations of processes produce only particular urban places. This theoretical divergence has led some to question whether middle-range urban theories continue to have purchase today. This paper seeks to contribute to this attempt to rekindle an interest in middle-range urban theory by examining the relevance of Karl Popper's situational analysis to how we understand contemporary urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel technologies have resulted in the unprecedented and dynamic development of transport systems--one of the most important sectors of the economy. The implementation of smarter commuting solutions, in order to improve the processes of transportation, allows for cost and energy saving, better organization of time, and, as a result, an increase in quality of life. Also, this supports the operationalization of the sustainable development concept, enabling a compact and efficient urban transport system to be developed. The purpose of this paper is to analyze smart urban mobility development prerequisites and challenges, taking Gdynia city public and shared transport users' preferences and transport behavior as a case study. A research hypothesis has been formulated stating that most commuters have sufficient digital competencies and benefit from the available modern technological solutions contributing to smarter and more sustainable urban development. The obtained results prove the importance of the role the digital world plays these days and show how the impact of technology on the transportation sector has helped to develop new opportunities for urban mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water reuse with Advanced Water Treatment (AWT) is increasingly appealing for urban areas seeking water supply reliability. In cities facing water scarcity, how can large-scale reuse support reliability and how do reuse operations affect water quality, energy use, and water conservation? This paper presents a systems analysis of metropolitan-scale water reuse and its effects on water supply and quality. For the case study of Los Angeles County, California, USA, hydroeconomic modeling is used to evaluate reuse as a contributor to water supply given urban water conservation, drought-induced water scarcity, and costs and benefits for supply and demand. Results indicate that AWT can be a viable source of supply especially when coupled with conservation. Across modeled scenarios, reuse provides as much as 30% of regional supplies. New water reuse with AWT becomes viable when imported water availability is 50% or less of historic values. Existing indirect potable reuse operations in the county remain important. Systemwide energy intensity of operations increases with greater reuse in the absence of water conservation. Modeled influent flow rates to wastewater treatment plants resemble historical values, but extreme flow events could pose risks. The paper offers a holistic framework to evaluate water reuse as a component of urban water management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is burgeoning interest in the role of infrastructures as performative socio-technical systems that shape urban life. In this paper, we make visible an often-hidden and diverse infrastructure of care, the Community Food Provisioning Initiative (CFPI) sector. We discuss CFPIs as often hidden, yet vital infrastructures of care. Drawing on research on the CFPI sector in Sydney, Australia, we attend to the diverse ways in which CFPIs are governed, the materialities that constitute them and the diverse economic practices that support them. Our work makes visible the spatial extensiveness of CFPIs across the city, the ways in which caring practice is made possible by 'things', and the diverse enterprises, transactions, labour, property and finance that constitute the diverse economies of CFPIs. We couple our work developing a typology of community food provisioning, GIS mapping and an overview of the diverse economy of CFPIs with empirical examples from three CFPIs. Throughout the paper we highlight how CFPIs are diverse and vital infrastructures of care that contribute to people's ability to survival well in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City leaders around the world are setting ambitious targets for emissions reductions. Yet the pathway to achieving this remains largely unspecified. Starting with this objective, the paper explores the merits of deploying a mission-oriented framework within the context of a 'wicked problem' by looking at a mid-sized city, Glasgow, which has a target for net zero by 2030. Focusing on themes drawn from one high-emitting sector – transport – the paper points to the real-world policy implications that stem from such a mission-oriented approach to suggest aspects of the approach that may be usefully developed further. The latter hinges on a-priori considerations given to: agency, boundaries and inter-temporality, leading to questions about the nature and scope of wickedness and argues that core issues of wickedness – uncertainty, contestation and complexity – can be amplified in local and multi-layered policy making contexts. Key policy insights Many cities are looking to reduce emissions including establishing net zero targets and a mission-oriented framework – 'concrete targets within a challenge that act as frames and stimuli for innovation' (Mazzucato and Dibb, 2019) – has been a popular framing vehicle. Such a framework reveals challenges inherent in such a 'wicked problem' at urban scales, which are interwoven with regional and national issues, institutions and influences. Exploring these for Glasgow, which hosted COP26, we highlight the policy 'problem' and 'solution' space for mid-sized cities more generally. We highlight three dimensions that reflect the nature of the urban decarbonization challenge: agency – the responsibilities of various actors in delivering change; boundaries – the interactions between actions to reduce emissions alongside wider policy ambitions such as a 'Just Transition' and 'green jobs'; and intertemporal issues – including how ambitions for rapid change might interact with the glacial progress of structural policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate adaptation planning in pursuit of resilient and sustainable societies has become a focal point in urban policy. Climate adaptation planning is generally regarded as separate from traditional urban planning practices. Globally and in Europe, however, cities are increasingly integrating climate adaptation planning into their traditional urban planning instruments and processes. Recent research indicates that the scope of such integration is at varying stages. The City of Rotterdam (Netherlands) and the City of Antwerp (Belgium) have been identified as two European cities that face similar climate impacts and risks given their proximity to a large river delta. Both cities aim to integrate climate adaptation into their respective urban planning policies, but the scope of their integration differs. This paper critically analyses the urban planning policies of these two cities to distil key lessons learnt that cities with similar climate impacts and approaches to urban planning may potentially face in integrating climate adaptation planning into urban planning policies. The paper finds that identifying and evaluating the synergies, co-benefits or trade-offs of adaptation measures is a key challenge to integrating climate adaptation into urban planning policy. It is a potential stumbling block for long-term sustainable development and climate resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban climate governance scholarship has paid little attention in Sub-Saharan Africa, where studies of this kind are needed. Using semi-structured interviews with officials from three local governments with populations less than 300,000 inhabitants, this paper explores how centralized climate policies are implemented locally in Ghana. The results show that though the national climate policies are good tools, local government's ability to implement them is quite limited due to a lack of independence and funding to make climate decisions. But with the growing climate crisis, the paper concludes that urban climate governance is likely to improve especially in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines third sector social housing in early post-apartheid South Africa, hence offering important new insights into how institutions in emerging economies shape the implementation and impacts of this approach. Based on qualitative research methods, the paper finds that under conditions of weak formal governance, nascent industry capacity and disaffected communities, third sector social housing resulted in serious project failures and squandered public resources. The study employs an institutional lens to understand how formal and informal institutions shaped the implementation of projects and how key stakeholders acted upon conflicting incentives. It discusses five major factors – inadequate formal policy and regulatory framework, limited government capability and support, limited sector capacity, private finance reluctance and adverse informal arrangements – that caused serious difficulties both at the program and project level. The paper argues that developing robust third sector social housing comes with substantial financial, administrative and political responsibilities for governments, and its success depends on the alignment between the formal policy framework and informal institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper identifies the links between transnational municipal networks and international agreements in the environmental arena. It is taken for granted that transnational municipal networks support global environmental action and the process of sustainable development, in particular giving access to resources, with technical support and knowledge, but to what extent international agreements such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement, or the Convention on Biological Diversity guide the action of these networks? The research resorts to content analysis to examine the goals, mission, and published documents of two networks in particular, ICLEI and Mercosur, in the search for clear connections with the intergovernmental level. The paper contributes to the understanding of the role of transnational municipal networks in environmental governance, identifying through abductive reasoning the diffusion of norm from the international to the local level and underlining the importance of the role of international, national and local actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased demand for secondary materials, particularly scrap metals, in cities due to development activities in both emerging economies and developing countries has increased the demand for recycling materials. It accelerated the growth of the circular economy and climate-smart development. This paper investigated the synergy between sustainable solid waste management and the circular economy in Tanzanian cities by examining the scrap business's categories, quantity, market, and nature and the scrap business's environmental benefits in Arusha. The study found that iron steel, cast iron, and aluminum were the most common scrap metal recovered and traded in Arusha. Offices and institutions, households, and garages were the primary sources of scraps. Over 314 tonnes of scrap metal were traded monthly in the city. The scrap business helped the steel industries save 300 tons of iron ore, 164 tons of coal, and 64 tons of bauxite while lowering their monthly energy consumption by 56%. Scrap metal trade contributes significantly to recycling, climate-smart, circular economy, and improving livelihoods. As a result, we call for a synchronized sustainable development and solid waste management system that connects product design, development manufacturing, and end-of-life products to improve the circular economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the opening decades of the twenty‐first century certain cities around the world emerged as hubs of entrepreneurial innovation. This paper explores this urban economic change phenomenon through in‐depth and comparative qualitative analysis. It focuses on the recent contemporary history of New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Tokyo and Shanghai prior to the global COVID pandemic. Based on an analysis of the drivers, mechanisms and processes of change, it is found that these cities acted as places of possibility for many individuals who previously may have been unlikely to engage in entrepreneurship. The cities were found to have established new development paths through entrepreneurial innovation stemming from co‐creation network dynamics, with key human agents playing pivotal roles. Common elements include the rise of venture capital, the growth of entrepreneurial cultures, and institutional policy changes. Notably, entrepreneurial innovation was found to be closely tied to changes in large corporates. This innovation evolved through the proliferation of new infrastructure such as co‐working spaces and innovation incubators, with each city being utilised as a test‐bed for new ideas. Finally, the emergence of a darker side to entrepreneurial innovation is found in terms of growing urban inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability rating systems for the built environment involve a multitude of indicators that are based on different types of data. This work capitalizes on an existing multicriteria assessment method and supporting decision-making tool at building and neighbourhood scale, to develop an enhanced method and tool at city scale. The main sustainability issues at building and city scales include site and infrastructure, energy and resources consumption, environmental loadings, climate change, environmental quality, water, waste, transportation, services, social aspects, economy and governance. Approximately 300 indicators distributed among the different scales are used to describe and quantify the various facets of sustainability. Specifically, the building scale includes a pool of 80 indicators of which 17 are key performance indicators (KPIs), the neighbourhood scale has 133 indicators of which 14 are KPIs and the city scale has a total of 99 indicators of which 10 are KPIs that were new additions to the existing method. The emphasis in this paper is given on elaborating the key performance indicators for cities and demonstrating their applicability through a case study. The common method and tools provide a flexible assessment system for local authorities and stakeholders to develop and assess sustainability plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to make a small revision of the literature on rural domestic animals and wild ones in Brazilian cities from the perspective of an anthropology of human-animal relations. To this, we add some new ethnographic data, collected individually or together, which aim to cast a light on the idea of a city set apart from the 'natural world', as if there were no entanglements and intersections between humans and the wild fauna in contemporary cities. We want to believe that the animal life is also part of the urban landscapes, and that we build together these landscapes with multiple more-than-humans ecologies in an urban context. In this sense, the cities present themselves as the lace of an oykos of interactions and living with the urban fauna (domesticated, tamed or wild), and also with the flora (also domesticated, tamed and wild), along with other organisms in an ecological context that produces plural environments, instead of cities that onli mean the place of the anthropos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space is a feature of all disasters, and it is through decisions on how space is developed, used, and reproduced that disasters manifest themselves. Critical urban theory sees urban space—cities—as an arena of contestation expressed through the relationship between people, power, and the built environment. Cities allow for an unpacking of this process of contestation through the interpretation of various temporal, spatial, social, and physical elements that together create complex issues and 'wicked problems'. In these urban spaces in all their complexity, disasters reveal both the worst injustices and inequalities present in a society. By drawing on three well‐known cases—Hurricane Katrina in 2010; the Haiti earthquake in 2010; and the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011—this paper not only explores the opportunities that critical urban theory presents for gaining a deeper understanding of disaster risk creation, but also it encourages disaster scholars to engage with it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In all countries, cities and their suburbs are the most densely populated areas. They are also the places visited by the largest number of tourists and one-day visitors, who inevitably run the risk of becoming victims of crime. It is, therefore, important, not only at national but also at the international level, to know the structure of urban crime and identify urban areas that differ in terms of their criminogenic situation. This requires a geographical approach and regionalisation based on the quantitative data that can offer it. This paper presents the results of a study using big data regarding violent crime, property crime and infringements against public order registered by the police in 2020 in the territories of three major Lithuanian cities and their suburbs (n = 149,239). Events in open spaces were separately addressed. A series of experiments were carried out using several spatial clustering methods. The automatic zoning procedure method that gave the best statistical results was then tested with different combinations of parameters. In each city, seven types of areas of urban crime were identified. Maps of crime areas (regions) were created for each city. The results of the regionalisation have been interpreted from a socio-geographical point of view and conform with previous sociological urban studies. Seven types of areas of crime have been identified, which are present in all the cities studied and, according to a preliminary assessment, roughly correspond to the socio-demographic and urban zones of each city. The maps of crime areas can be applied for crime prevention planning and communication, real estate valuation, strategic urban development planning and other purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Haphazard urbanization has resulted in development of unplanned informal settlements, also called slums. Citizens residing in these dense settlements are generally deprived of essential sustainable drivers, i.e., green cover and open spaces (GOS). Such limitations can have an adverse impact on various aspects such as physiological, economical, health, and quality of life. Much research has been done on applying Machine Learning (ML) techniques for identifying slums at the city scale. However, no study explicitly addressed the problem of GOS extraction inside the informal settlements. This paper aims to fill this gap by training three modified Convolution Neural Network (CNN) models, i.e., VGG16-UNet, MobileNetV2-UNet, DeepLabV3 + on manually labeled high-resolution satellite imagery for the city of Mumbai. All three models performed excellently and achieved the state-of-the art overall accuracy of around 95%, for the considered classes. Out of the three models, VGG16-UNet performed the best and hence was applied to the whole city for developing green, open, and green and open indices. The indices were further used to establish a quantitative relation between various built-up typologies and GOS. It was found that informal settlements have significantly less green and open space than other built-up typologies. Stark GOS difference between slums and its neighborhood planned residential was observed, and hence, requires urgent attention of the city managers. The outcome presented in the paper can be used as input to various decision-making systems concerning better informal space planning to better plan the GOS, which eventually can lead to development of sustainable cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and cities and how the relationship between multinational enterprise (MNEs) and local firms facilitates regional cleantech innovation. Design/methodology/approach: Using a combination of social network analysis, regression analysis and interview analysis, the authors map and analyze a cleantech cluster to investigate the relationship between MNEs and local firms and the resulting effects on cleantech innovation. Findings: The findings of the paper indicate that FDI plays a crucial role in cities and their local clusters by acting as a broker between a diverse set of actors: firms, institutions, universities, financial and other intermediaries. Additionally, connectedness to MNEs improves local firms' innovation. Research limitations/implications: This study is not free of limitations, mainly, because of the aspects that the analysis is based on one city and one cleantech hub. Further research could verify whether the findings of this paper hold in other cities and industries. Practical implications: The findings, elucidating the connection between MNEs and local firms, as well as MNEs being important brokers in the local system, and the resulting impact, will help policymakers to take appropriate actions and support the local cleantech innovation. It is important to not only attract high-quality FDI into local clusters, but also to create and support collaborations between foreign firms and local actors, because colocation does not automatically leads to positive spillovers and a lot depends on how MNEs are integrated into the local milieu. Social implications: The present paper argues that FDI plays an important role in local cleantech innovation and it is important to integrate foreign firms in local social networks. Originality/value: The authors analyze FDI patterns in an emerging industry at the city and local cluster level using a unique database containing the information on relationships between MNEs and local firms, as well as interview data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, responsibility for addressing climate change has been placed on cities. However, cities often lack the knowledge and resources to adequately respond. In the U.S., this task can be especially difficult for cities operating in Republican-led states, which are resistant to adopting green energy and job initiatives. Despite this, limited research has examined the strategies that cities working in conservative environments adopt to overcome such challenges. This paper examines the strategies that city leaders employed in Knoxville, Tennessee, between 2007 and 2015 to accelerate a green recovery from the Great Recession. Drawing on fieldwork, interviews, focus group, and document analyses, the paper demonstrates how leaders initially operated outside of public purview and then strategically rolled out programs and messaging that capitalized on industry strengths and resonated with popular politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parks are important urban infrastructures that contribute a broad range of health, environmental, social, and economic benefits. Despite this, UK parks' status as non‐statutory services makes them particularly vulnerable to local authority budget cuts. This paper focuses on parks in English cities as these were particularly affected by severe cuts to local government budgets 2010–2019. This period of austerity affected parks provision in various ways, including service reductions, increased reliance on volunteer labour, and pressure to generate commercial revenue. Combined with a series of other factors, including ongoing neoliberalisation, austerity‐driven changes left a range of physical, social, and institutional legacies. This paper explores these using the notion of de‐municipalisation to frame the discussion. The paper is based on an innovative synthesis of research conducted by the authors 2016–2022 and presented at the RGS‐IBG Annual Conference in 2021. The paper identifies that austerity‐driven changes included an experimental ‘shaking up’ of park governance, away from local authorities and with greater involvement from national‐level NGOs. Changes also involved a ‘breaking down’ of municipal management, with responsibility delegated to dedicated parks trusts but also to community groups and volunteers. Ultimately, austerity 2010–2019 altered parks governance, transforming the stewardship and condition of parks, reducing accountability and accessibility, and exacerbating inequities in parks provision. Rather than representing new directions, these changes perpetuate those instigated in previous austerity eras. The noted trend towards de‐municipalisation also reduces parks' capacity to serve as integrated infrastructures – something that may hinder efforts to make cities more sustainable and resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quest for a theory of cities that could offer a quantitative and systematic approach to managing cities represents a top priority. If such a theory is feasible, then its formulation must be in a mathematical way. As a contribution to organizing the mathematical ideas that deal with such a systematic way of understanding urban phenomena, we review the main theoretical models present in the literature that aim at explaining the origin and emergence of urban scaling. We intend to present the models, identify similarities and connections between them, and find situations in which different models lead to the same output. In addition, we report situations where some ideas initially introduced in a particular model can also be introduced in another one, generating more diversification and increasing the scope of the original works. The models treated in this paper explain urban scaling from different premises, i.e. from gravity ideas, densification and cites' geometry to a hierarchical organization and social network properties. We also investigate scenarios in which these different fundamental ideas could be interpreted as similar — where the similarity is likely but not obvious. Furthermore, concerning the gravity model, we propose a general framework that includes all analyzed models as particular cases. We conclude the paper by discussing perspectives of this field and how future research designs and schools of thought can build on the ideas treated here. • We review the mathematical models which explain the emergence of urban scaling. • We identify similarities and connections between these models. • Models consider different premises, e.g. gravity ideas, cities' geometry, and network properties. • Regarding the gravity idea, we propose a general framework [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing air pollution is a major policy challenge, especially in densely populated urban areas where human exposure to emissions is considerable. This paper develops and examines a series of scenarios for the evolution of transport-related emissions in the area of Santiago, Chile. The study spans a time window up to 2050 and focuses on seven air pollutants and CO2. It compares a reference scenario with policy counterfactual scenarios involving a rapid electrification of public buses, a carbon pricing scheme and a kilometer charge differentiated by vehicle type. The reference scenario predicts a 55–80% reduction in air pollutants emitted by urban transport systems, by 2050. The corresponding reduction of CO2 lies at 6%, highlighting the asymmetric evolution in tailpipe filtering and carbon capture technologies. The analysis suggests that ramping up the efforts to electrify the bus fleet may eliminate 25% of the CO2 and at least 10% of the remaining air pollutant emissions in 2050. These figures increase to 45 and 30%, respectively, if rapid electrification is accompanied by one of the two tax schemes. With a distinct program to recycle the revenue from the tax schemes, the policy reform can be welfare improving for all groups and its environmental objectives can be achieved without adverse distributional consequences. The paper highlights the synergies of policies curbing climate change and tacking air pollution from the viewpoint of urban transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Definition: Residential segregation refers to the disproportionate distribution of population groups across a geographical area. Groups can be segregated on the basis of any characteristic (such as occupation, income, religion, age or ethnicity) and at any geographical scale. In most cases, segregation is, however, measured with regard to residential areas of a city. The extent of the unequal distribution of selected characteristics can be expressed by different statistical measures. Sociologists, economists and demographers have long studied how social groups tend to be differentiated in residential space and developed a broad range of explanations. As a consequence, segregation has been explained by a variety of theories, which are discussed in this paper. The topics examined by empirical research include temporal dynamics, geographical patterns, societal causes and effects on life chances. This entry focuses on major conceptual facts regarding residential segregation and only marginally discusses the methodological issues connected with its measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In cities around the world, skateboarders repair surfaces and objects for the purposes of play using techniques to fill, smooth, and fabricate. Research in social and cultural geography focuses on the ways citizens repair and care for material objects using do‐it‐yourself (DIY) practices. Despite continuities, repair work by skateboarders does not strive to improve neglected, absent, or dysfunctional infrastructure for the common good, as in cases from literature on DIY urbanism, nor to subvert objects, texts, and surfaces to make political statements, as in cases from literature on tactical urbanism. Skateboarders do repair and care work to prepare surfaces for playful damage benefitting other skaters and onlookers enjoying the spectacle. By exploring these widespread but under‐researched acts of repair and care and the circuits of knowledge that reproduce them, this paper makes four arguments. First, skateboarders do repair and care work to generate 'spots' for skateboarding from assemblages of objects and surfaces intended for other purposes. Transforming spots brings otherwise mundane patches of the city to life through thousands of tiny acts of repair and care. Second, repair and care work by skateboarders is most effective when barely visible to people outside the culture. However, repaired surfaces make their way to large audiences, often millions of viewers, through skateboard photography and video, giving some of them an outsized life across time and space. Third, knowledge about techniques of repair and care are considered an important part of skate culture to be learned and shared. Protocols of care shape acceptable degrees of modification to surfaces and objects, and as skateboarding globalises so too do these protocols. Fourth, acts of repair and care have no guarantees of longevity. Hours of labour can be destroyed by direct acts to stop skateboarding and by indirect acts emanating from dynamics of urban change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses high‐frequency nighttime lights data and a variety of empirical methods to analyze the impacts of the Covid‐19 crisis on economic activity during the period January 2020–March 2021 for a global sample of 2841 cities. Particular attention is paid to the role of a city's population density in shaping these impacts. While economic activity in cities is found to be negatively affected by both the spread of the virus and the imposition of nonpharmaceutical interventions, population density is found to amplify the negative impacts of the spread of the virus and attenuate those of nonpharmaceutical interventions. These results are driven by cities in low‐ and middle‐income countries, where overall economic activity is found to have been more strongly hit by the pandemic and the strength of those impacts was stronger for less densely populated cities. The role of population density in shaping the economic impacts of the Covid‐19 crisis across cities is confirmed by an event‐study analysis. Taken together, the findings suggest that the Covid‐19 crisis gave rise to divergent urban economic trajectories, both between high‐ and lower‐income countries and between cities with different population densities in lower‐income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport activities are a significant factor in environmental pollution, especially in cities. Therefore, measures aimed at electrification of public transport are particularly important. The aim of the paper is to present the origins, status and development dynamics of electromobility in Polish cities, especially the second generation of electromobility, i.e. vehicles that do not require continuous connection to the energy source. In practice the second-generation electric vehicles can be identified with battery-powered vehicles, hydrogen and hybrid vehicles. The study was prepared on the basis of an analysis of literature, industry documents or development strategies. In addition, a database of information on zero- and low-emission vehicles in public transport (i.e. electric and hybrid buses) was compiled to analyse the phenomenon. The study shows that the implementation of electromobility in Poland has already emerged from the initial phase. The possibilities for developing battery technology vary in cities of different sizes. In 2021 in Poland, the share of low-emission buses in the public transport fleet was several times higher than that of electric vehicles among passenger vehicles. It is most likely that the Polish road to electromobility leads primarily through public transport. The following factors influencing the development of electromobility were identified: these were primarily EU and Polish legislation and regulations, the presence of manufacturers of rolling stock and electrotechnical equipment, and – at the local scale – organisational, economic and social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights  This special issue explores when, why and how demolition occurs with the aim to understand its environmental, socio-economic and cultural drivers, and consequences in policy and practice alike. Based on previous research, demolition is known to have many adverse effects. The potential for avoiding building replacement (demolition and subsequent new build) and favouring retention is also in this special issue's interest. The papers in the issue contribute insights from different scales, from the level of a building to that of a city. As a whole, the articles touch upon all types of impacts, i.e. environmental, economic and socio-cultural aspects. Eight case studies from various contexts, mainly Europe, but also the US and Australia, contribute novel methods, findings and policy insights. This editorial sets the need and background for research into demolition, classifies the included papers to three categories, explains their contributions to research and practice, and outlines outstanding research gaps and agenda for further research. The papers are categorised as: (1) drivers and policies on demolition versus retention; (2) environmental and social impact assessment at building level; and (3) practical demolition decision-making. The contributions suggest, among other findings, positive environmental impacts from building retention as opposed to demolition, and discuss how policy designs from the city to the building level can either encourage or discourage retention. Due to its implications, many of which remain understudied, demolition and its alternatives should gain importance on research, design, planning, construction and real estate agendas in the years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration and urbanisation are characterised by multiple temporalities: arrival, durations of migration, daily rhythms, migration regulation, aspirations for urban futures and the impacts of changing social, economic or environmental fortunes. In this paper, we address the temporalities of migration and urbanisation by focusing on the post-disaster context of Christchurch, New Zealand, which suffered destructive earthquakes in 2011 and 2012. While the immediate post-quake context was characterised by outward migration, rebuilding has occurred through the migration of thousands of workers and their families, particularly from Asia, Europe and the Pacific. The presence of new migrants has led to unexpected migrant-driven diversification that has potential to reconfigure Christchurch's image as a city that privileges whiteness over Indigenous and non-white settler identities. The migration of rebuild workers, however, also occurs in a national context of increasingly stratified migration management with few opportunities for migrants to settle long-term. Drawing on interviews with stakeholders in central government, local organisations and migrants themselves we examine countervailing aspirations and responses that emerged within the earthquake rebuild: attempts by local organisations to reconfigure Christchurch as a diverse future-oriented city, migrant aspirations and tactics for long-term settlement and family stability and national government efforts to contain aspirations for a diverse future-oriented city that exceed the intent of migration management. Through this analysis our paper examines the discrepant temporalities of migration and urban futures involved in the rebuilding of post-quake Christchurch, as well as the multiple forces that impinge on the very possibility of migrant-led diversification of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the scope for upscaling and transnational transfer of participatory landslide risk management strategies for informal settlements in Latin America. Drawing on lessons from transdisciplinary action-research in three neighbourhoods in Medellín, Colombia, and one in São Paulo, Brazil, the paper discusses how bottom-up approaches were developed to co-produce landslide risk management in both Global South cities, in a way that optimises the collaboration between communities and relevant governmental bodies. The analysis focuses on mitigation and 'agreement-seeking', from the perspectives of scale, power and knowledge, which help understand the parallels between co-production of landslide risk management and co-production of urban services. Two key conclusions are that landslide risk management should be built into neighbourhood upgrading and management, and that both community and the state have stronger roles to play in landslide risk management from their respective capacities. The paper also reflects on the role of academia in enabling co-production of landslide risk management through engaging with local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the response of Athens, Greece, to the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to its un(der)documented immigrant populations. It argues that both the national and local levels of governance exhibited a "paradigmatic pragmatism" in their approach to the crisis. The study employs an interpretivist lens and utilises qualitative in-depth interviews and document reviews. By examining Athens as a case study, the paper highlights the significance of the urban scale in migration policies, emphasising the role of governance models, past migration experiences, and civil society. The development of a parallel vaccination program for un(der)documented immigrants is examined as a notable example of the pragmatism of both governance levels and local citizenship practice. The study aims to contribute to the understanding of local-level immigrant policies and the role of cities in the context of citizenship politics. By drawing lessons from major crises like the pandemic, it aims to inform the development of more inclusive migrant policies and effective governance structures while promoting new perspectives on membership, such as local citizenship. • Analysing Athens' pandemic response for local-level immigrant policy insights. • The vaccination program for the un(der)documented as an exemplification of local citizenship • Athens' case reveals the significance of the urban scale in migration policies. • Governance models, local experiences and civil society shaped Athens' response. • Both national and local levels showcased a 'paradigmatic pragmatist' attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper contends that the covid-19 pandemic has reconfigured how cities manage urban marginality within Zimbabwe. The pandemic enabled cities to push everyday mundane practices away from the centre of the city to the margins of the cities through securitisation and criminalising informal activities within the centre. The paper's methodological underpinnings are hinged on a six month ethnography within Bulawayo (Zimbabwe's second largest city). The paper maintains the view that managing urban marginality in the context of covid-19 must be framed within the binary of two opposing forces – governing institutions (the government and municipality) and the low-income residents. Using covid-19 as a pretext of "curbing the pandemic" governing institutions have pushed informal economic activities from the centre through employing law and force; on the other hand low-income residents have found eclectic means to counteract the measures imposed to constrain their agency. Finally, the paper suggests that covid-19 has reconfigured how cities manage urban marginality through pushing everyday informal practices to the periphery and how the low-income residents deploy their agency to counteract confinement hence managing urban marginality can be understood as a two-way process involving governing institutions and the low-income residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do cities foster political trust among informal workers? This question is particularly salient in Africa's growing cities where local governments must reconcile policy priorities across highly heterogeneous constituencies, including a burgeoning middle-class and a large informal economy. We argue that expectations about reciprocity and procedural justice shape the probability that informal traders trust their local government. In doing so, we analyse a survey of approximately 1000 informal traders in Ghana's three main cities – Accra, Kumasi and Tamale. We find that traders who paid requisite fees to local assemblies and could attribute a benefit from those payments were more likely to trust their local government while those who had experienced harassment by city authorities were less likely to do so. The paper highlights that drivers of trust among diverse urban constituencies deserve greater empirical and comparative attention, especially as countries deepen decentralisation initiatives and cities commit to development goals around inclusivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The network structures that have arisen out of globalisation could provide an alternative means of addressing major global challenges (climate change, mitigation of its effects or the prevention of pandemics). Cities increasingly consider themselves "actors motivated by interests" and they turn to urban diplomacy and interestbased networks to change the conversation - and, ultimately, the power structure - of multinational governance. Starting with a definition of what urban power is, this paper examines the rise of urban networks and their leverage of data to claim a more active role in the face of their nation-states, and on a global scale. Drawing on two brief case studies - the C40 network and Voluntary Local Reviews - it points to possible ways forward for urban influence networks in the near-term future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban green spaces are indispensable for the conservation of biodiversity in Germany. In addition, the availability of green areas often provides citizens with the only opportunity to experience nature. Lichens are an important component of urban environments in terms of both species diversity, and ecosystem functions and services. However, they are rarely the subject of biodiversity education. To bolster awareness on their diversity and appreciation, a transformative biodiversity education in both the formal and informal sectors is necessary. This transformative biodiversity education should not only provide knowledge about species and habitats, but also on all dimensions of biodiversity, viz., the three levels of biodiversity, drivers of biodiversity loss, and ecosystem services. For this reason, the design of biodiversity education may be particularly challenging for educators and teachers. This paper shows how biodiversity education projects on urban lichens can be developed in accordance with the principles of transformative education, supporting nature experience, knowledge transfer (species knowledge in a broad sense and interdisciplinary aspects), participation and cooperation, as well as the use of digital media. Two best-case projects, tested in Germany, are presented as examples for the design and implementation of a transformative lichen education in urban areas. A similar approach can be easily applied in other education systems beyond national boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we build on a long research effort aimed at identifying the specific conditions, functional and structural characteristics of urban areas, that produce different levels of residential segregation across cities. We explore segregation levels in Poland's 87 largest cities, cities with more than 50,000 residents, by measuring indices of dissimilarity relating to socio‐professional status. We then proceed by examining core structural determinants of the revealed segregation levels, including city size, and housing market characteristics. The results suggests that the structural characteristics of urban regions are indeed significant predictors of the level of socio‐spatial disparities in urban Poland. As expected, larger cities are more segregated than the smaller ones; higher shares of public housing also appear to contribute to more pronounced socioeconomic spatial divisions. Intriguingly, the share of new housing stock alone is not related to strong residential segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have long debated whether racial inequality is an unfortunate consequence of political and economic exploitation or a core feature of capitalism. In 1983, Cedric Robinson synthesized these two opposing perspectives, calling the latter racial capitalism and demonstrating its theoretical viability. In recent years, scholars have increasingly employed Robinson's conception of racial capitalism to explain a wide array of phenomena. Yet, urban sociology has not fully explored how racial capitalism changes and reshapes our core theoretical approaches. To begin to fill this gap, this special issue presents original papers that employ racial capitalism to extend, challenge, or refine theories of and methods for understanding cities and communities. In this introduction, we outline urban scholars' historical explanations of racial inequality and provide an overview of the development and definition(s) of racial capitalism. We then summarize the papers included in this special issue and discuss a pathway forward for urban sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaboration is strongly promoted as an effective means for cities to respond to climate change. While collaboration is perceived to offer opportunities to progress climate action in cities, little is known about how collaboration can enable low‐carbon transformation in practice. Furthermore, while collaboration is largely framed as a positive endeavour, there is a need to more carefully explore the challenges and barriers that may arise. This paper explores the aims, processes, and outcomes of collaboration within urban climate governance. Drawing on a policy review and semi‐structured interviews, we present empirical findings from the case study of Hong Kong. This paper identifies three types of collaboration that are structured by regulations, oriented to policy goals, and emerge as everyday practices within the governance of climate change and the energy system. The forms of collaboration challenge the assumptions that collaboration always brings positive outcomes in mobilising action for climate change. While collaboration opens up different modes of governance within cities, the paper highlights significant barriers in terms of the diverse roles of actors, ongoing power imbalances, and shifting governance spaces for intervention. Given the prevailing interest in working together, it is critical to review carefully how collaboration facilitates cities to achieve their climate goals and create momentum for action. The paper explores the opportunities and challenges of collaborative climate governance. It draws on a case study of Hong Kong and identifies three modes of collaborative climate and energy governance: regulatory, consensual, and participatory. The paper challenges the assumption that collaboration brings positive outcomes for action on climate change and offers new insights into potential barriers for climate action in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Happiness has become a high‐profile goal for national governments, city authorities, and technology developers finding new ways to map and measure emotions through happiness economics, urban management, and digital emotion‐sensing. This paper advances critical geographical analysis of the neglected rationales, mechanisms, and implications of promoting the emotion of happiness. Researchers, policy‐makers, and publics alike are intrigued and troubled by how a growing concern with mapping and monitoring human happiness can co‐occur with increasing levels of social inequality, human suffering, anxiety, and sadness. The paper outlines the intersection between three key trajectories (economisation, spatialisation, and technologisation) in order to demonstrate how particular assumptions about space, time, scale, and subjectivity are implied in the framing of happiness as an objective scientific construct to be measured, and as a problem of government. These trajectories combine to create what I term a new spatial science of emotions, which is yet to be defined, empirically documented, and critically analysed. It considers what kind of economic futures and contested knowledge practices are laid out by this new spatial science of emotions. By bringing together insights from critical economic geographies of neuroscientific and behavioural forms of governance, geographies of well‐being, and social theories of embodied technologies, the paper challenges researchers to shift attention from subjective well‐being to public well‐being. Happiness has become a high‐profile goal for national governments, city authorities and technology developers finding new ways to map and measure emotions through happiness economics, urban management and digital emotion sensing. This paper advances critical geographical analysis of the neglected rationales, mechanisms and implications of promoting the emotion of happiness. It challenges researchers to shift attention from subjective wellbeing to public wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally accepted that the cities emerged from the rural communities producing the sufficient amount of food products to increase agricultural production and it saved the craftsmen from working in the agricultural fields. According to that idea the reason of establishing cities is the achievements of farmers to have a surplus of agricultural production. An alternative idea is; cities were found and established by the craftsmen although they survived with the agricultural surplus. Organised and intensive agriculture is the outcome of the well established cities. The Industrial Revolution increased the urban population while the rural population decreased as less people worked in the agriculture and more in industrial complexes and premises. Moreover, the technical improvements of the industrial revolution allowed the extensive cultivation that required less input for a large area of land. Therefore, food supply of the cities became a major issue as the cities were densely populated and agricultural production started to play a key role. The paper analyses the development of the food supply of the cities after the Industrial Revolution and the food provision after the second part of the eighteen century. The analysis will be on the historical perspective of the urban and rural settlements and how they interacted over centuries and the significance of the agricultural surplus. The aim of this paper is to find out how cities fulfilled the food supply requirement within the massive development of urban areas. Number publishes documents are articles are analysed for this purpose together with some reports of some international organisations focusing on food and agriculture policies of various governments. Main findings of the paper are food security, significance of the arable land and sustainability of food safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]