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This paper investigates the spillover effect of government locations on economic growth by exploring more than 180 relocation events of city governments in China. Empirical results demonstrate that government relocations improve regional economic growth measured by night lights. This positive effect decreases with the distance to city governments' new locations. Government relocations are also found to accelerate urbanization. Potential mechanisms include the changes in land conversion and firm birth patterns in the move-in areas. These results indicate that the relocation of local governments can be an effective place-based policy to improve economic growth and urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the pragmatics of Finnish municipality slogans by focussing on slogans that include a toponym, that is, a place name other than that of the municipality. We approach our data of 51 slogans from the standpoint of translocal chronotopes – imagery of time, place and social life that connects the municipality with another place. We demonstrate that toponyms position the municipalities geographically, culturally, socially, historically, economically, and politically. We also analyse responses that the slogans evoke in public online discourses. We argue that the interpretation of the slogan is affected by the choice of toponym as well as by structural and interdiscursive choices. The findings are discussed from the perspectives of discourse studies, onomastics, and place-branding research. • Municipality slogans construct chronotopic identities. • The use of toponyms in slogans gives rise to translocal chronotopes. • Translocal slogans activate a variety of regional and sociocultural contexts. • Linguistic choices affect the reception and recontextualisation of slogans. • The study of municipality slogans benefits from multidisciplinary approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with the challenges posed by enhancing the performance of national waste management policy, sub-national political authorities in China have engaged with the public and non-state actors, particularly NGOs. Across China's multi-level administrative governance, different levels of government have consequently committed toward working with NGOs in waste management but the degree of actual participation remains questionable. Therefore, this study aims to assess participative relations between NGOs and neighborhood level governments as an indicator of this newfound national commitment to urban participatory governance. Analysis of three Chinese cities is conducted in order to uncover mechanisms for NGO participation in urban waste management. Each case study reveals different levels of participation: although central, provincial and city governments have displayed a welcoming attitude towards NGO engagement, local authorities have proven less open. Moreover, where NGOs are involved in waste governance, they exhibit some autonomy even while remaining under government control. Such findings can be explained by the motivations of local governments within participatory waste governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper rethinks participation in slum upgrading beyond a well-established dichotomy of "top-down" and "bottom-up" processes and instead proposes a relational and strategic approach to urban transformation. Based on qualitative research with a small informal settlement, Barrio Saldías, in Buenos Aires, that fell off the city government's agenda, this paper explores the role of participation in promoting upgrading from the margins. It argues that Saldías differs from instances of community-led upgrading due to the central role of party brokers and political representatives (especially from the local state) alongside residents, all of whom participate together in a political climate dominated by the discourses of citizen participation and slum upgrading. Rather than collapsing these experiences into the logic of clientelism, participation is centred as the articulatory logic based on a shared desire and commitment to transforming urban space, towards multiple political ends. Participatory upgrading in Saldías exceeds the narrow focus of project-centric approaches and draws on a wider trajectory of participation in Buenos Aires. It demonstrates this through an analysis of three moments of participatory upgrading in Saldías. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In post-normal science (PNS), the emergence of extended peer communities (EPCs) is a key process to deal with problems involving high uncertainty, high stakes, disputed values, and urgent decisions. However, the challenges and opportunities related to the emergence of EPCs in contentious territories—such as many across the Global South—are poorly understood. Therefore, we conducted an investigation to address two research questions: (1) Are there any indispensable social, institutional, and/or techno-scientific conditions for the emergence of EPCs coherent with PNS? and (2) How can EPCs in contentious territories of the Global South overcome adverse contextual conditions for their emergence and development? We addressed our first question through interviews with world-renowned experts in post-normal science. To answer our second question, we conducted a case study and analyzed a public consultation process led by the municipal government of Morelia, Mexico, as an alleged effort to democratize decision-making regarding local environmental conservation strategies. Our results show that (1) In PNS, EPCs can emerge as evolving problem-resolution processes despite adverse contextual conditions, though they don't necessarily solve problems or political controversies; and (2) EPCs are bounded by their contextual conditions, which in some contexts of the Global South—like Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America—can include violence, coercion, and large power imbalances. Yet, contextual conditions aren't inherently challenges or opportunities for the emergence of EPCs. Therefore, we argue that in PNS (and related collaborative science approaches) it is crucial to analyze contextual conditions to strengthen EPCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Assesses the effects of illegal armed groups on municipal capital investments and current social spending in Colombia between 2000 and 2023. • Empirical results suggest an apparently differentiated impact on capital investments and current social spending, with an apparently negative impact on investments and apparently positive impact on social spending. • Exploration of causal mechanisms reveals that the apparent impact of illegally armed groups works through these channels: population displacement, physical structure damage, economic activity disruption, and revenue disruption. This study assesses the effects of illegal armed groups on expenditures made by municipal governments in Colombia between 2000 and 2013. Specifically, the study examines how the presence of illegal armed groups seems to affect the level of municipal expenditures, while distinguishing between capital investments and current social spending. Limits on political participation and institutional weaknesses helped to propagate the violence that disrupted Colombia in the 1970s and 1980s. Searching for solutions, Colombia transferred important decision-making responsibilities from the central government to regional and local governments. Paradoxically this decentralization opened an opportunity for illegal armed groups to play meaningful roles in local political and economic life, eventually taking control over local resources in several municipalities. To assess the role of these non-state armed groups in municipal resource allocation, our empirical analysis exploits annual data on municipal expenditures and local armed conflict. Empirical results suggest a differentiated impact on capital investments and social spending. These results are robust to multiple treatment framings and definitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban marginality has long-been a concern of urban studies. The governance of urban marginality is important empirical terrain, particularly in the context of COVID-19, an event that challenged established governance systems globally. This article contributes to our understanding of the governance of urban marginality during the COVID-19 pandemic by examining urban poverty management responses in one Canadian city, Edmonton, Alberta. The article makes two contributions in this regard. First, the paper theorizes urban poverty management as a dispositif, an approach which draws attention to the role of problematization in the configuration of poverty management landscapes and the implications these configurations have for the spatial management of urban poverty in the city. Second, we show that while municipal officials attempted to reconfigure Edmonton's poverty management landscape, their efforts were inflected, and ultimately limited, by three 'problem spaces': forward fiscal liability, risk management, and legal jurisdiction. These problem spaces comprise what we call the 'municipal mentality.' We argue that this municipal mentality is indicative of the fact that municipal government is a conflict-laden site of articulation and that municipal decisions are often shaped by deliberation, deference and jurisdictional struggles which can have implications for the character of urban poverty management. • Urban poverty management is one form that the governance of urban marginality can take, particularly in North America. • Urban poverty management can be theorized as a dispositif and examined on the basis of different problematizations. • Urban poverty management is subject to a municipal mentality that produces a mix of socio-spatial outcomes for the unhoused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An outbreak occurred in Wanhua District of Taipei City. It was traced to a cluster infection originating from a teahouse. To prevent further large-scaled community spread, the Taipei City Government established the first community rapid test screening station. This report describes the station's strategy and performance and key factors that contributed to its operation. The project involves collaboration among various departments of Taipei City Government, including the health, environmental, police, transportation, and fire departments. The station provides rapid screening, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, and immediate isolation and follow-up medical services upon the detection of a positive case. These services are accessible to local residents and are intended to ease hospitals' burdens. In 36 days, a total of 8532 people were tested, and 419 confirmed cases were identified. Over the same period, the weekly number of positive cases in Wanhua District decreased from 356 to 40, and the PCR positive rate decreased from 21.7% to 1.2%. The policy of establishing rapid screening station, contact tracing and mask wearing policy are key strategies for interrupting chains of transmission of COVID-19. This intervention has become a model for preventing the spread of the epidemic and establishing community rapid screening stations in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The club-like nature of the real estate industry shapes planning permission success. • Global actors must find a way to embed themselves in local real estate networks. • Local politics dictates institutional settings within which real estate actors function. In highly internationalised cities, real estate developers must learn to negotiate global-local tensions to territoralise their work and secure planning permission. This paper examines how they do this and positions itself at the meeting point of research on policy mobility and real estate. Developers have been shown to be co-coordinators of development processes, and one of many agents who facilitate the global flow and production of urban spaces and ideas. In these endeavours local knowledge is important, yet developers remain interested in sites beyond their home city. This paper questions what strategies developers utilise to become co-ordinating forces in new cities, a pertinent issue because increasingly urban actors position themselves as 'global' or beyond a geographically circumscribed space. Based on 60 interviews across London's Royal Docks and Johannesburg's Modderfontein, this paper argues that to work in a new location, developers and their consultants must utilise local knowledge, highlighting three specific strategies: (1) on-boarding local political actors; (2) hiring individuals who primarily work in the city and (3) becoming part of 'the club'. These illustrate the ways developers localise themselves, 'learning to play the game', and evidence the consequences for where and how urban politics happens. Ultimately, this paper argues that at the heart of internationalised urban environments there are transnational networks which are becoming sites of urban politics where assemblages of actors are formed that make the global movement of urban ideas possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of the study, the purpose and practical input of which was the analysis and evaluation of municipal governments, including the identification of municipalities best developed in socio-economic terms in conditions of data uncertainty. To this end, factors with a significant impact on the concept of territorial development were identified. For the purpose of the analysis, the variables were adopted that were related to various spheres of municipal development, including the social, economic, infrastructural, environmental and administrative ones. The study used such methods and exploration techniques as: desk research analysis, critical analysis of the literature on the subject, methods of economic analysis and methods of multidimensional comparative analysis. The uncertainty of data was caused, among other things, by the fact that the study did not take into account the effect of barriers hampering development processes and focused exclusively on variables whose highest values indicated the most effective use of development stimulating factors. Moreover, the diversification of the municipalities' endogenous potential was not included in the considerations. The above reasons seem to confirm the study results that found two municipalities: Kołobrzeg and Świnoujście to be the best developed in socio-economic terms. In the period under analysis the values of the diagnostic variables of both municipalities were the most similar to the benchmark municipality. The explanation for the results can be found, among others, in the high endogenic potential of both municipalities, especially in comparison with other coastal municipalities of the West Pomeranian Voivodship. The study contributes to further in-depth research on the best method of selecting variables for analyzing the development of municipalities. Future research in this field should be focused on identifying the best method of selecting diagnostic features where some features are uncertain or imprecise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a noticeable lack of broad coverage of the issue of local government off-budget debt in academic research. The area of local government budget debt and methods of limiting it in order to strengthen the financial stability of local governments are widely discussed and studied, while little is known about the issues of indebtedness of subordinate units of local governments, for which public authorities are responsible due to the nature and scope of the public tasks they perform. The results of the research indicate that the off-budget debt of local governments is growing and constitutes a significant item in the balance sheets of consolidated local governments in Poland, and that changes in its level are correlated with the electoral cycle, indicating the existence of a political business cycle in the local government and municipal enterprises sector. We also demonstrate that off-budget debt is a more important PBC instrument in large municipalities. • The off-budget debt of local governments is growing in several countries. • Off-budget debt is typically not subject to regulatory limits and restrictions. • This form of debt is used as instrument of the political business cycle in elections. • Large municipalities are more likely to increase this debt during election periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Editorial summarizes the papers published in the Special Issue on "People-Environment-Infrastructure Relationship in Future Cities", highlighting the importance of people-environment-infrastructure interactions in future cities. While the topics are wide-ranging, a common theme of all papers is the need for future cities to embrace changes. These changes may come from climatic change, urban decays, human disruptions, technological advancements, human behavioral changes, and rising expectations. All these changes have implications on urban infrastructure, including green infrastructure, blue infrastructure, and grey infrastructure. The ultimate aim is to enhance urban sustainability and resilience. Worldwide, there is an urgent need for municipal governments, industry and individuals to be aware of the changing people-environment-infrastructure interactions. In particular, it is important to consider people's needs and the local contexts when planning future cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to explain the Chinese conception of city branding. Given the intricate and multidisciplinary nature of city branding, the article aims to address a gap in the literature and provide a direction to a deeper understanding of city branding from the Chinese socialism context. Taking a case study approach, the article analyses a significant body of discussion resulting from in-depth interviews with branding experts and government officials in Chongqing, the case study city. The analysis focuses on the role of the government and reveals that city branding in China is influenced, and largely controlled, by the national government. The discussion of the agents of Chinese city branding, city branding as a government tool, and the tendency towards policization, which means that city branding is implemented as part of urban policy, contributes to the theoretical growth of current city branding beyond a neoliberal perspective. • This paper sheds light on the understanding of city branding from the novel angle of government management • Government departments initiate and oversee branding initiatives and facilitate cross-stakeholder cooperation. • How government departments effectively manage city branding by combining it with urban policy was investigated. • The importance of political influence in city branding is highlighted. • A review of city branding within socialist contexts guides city governments to participate in branding endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the influence of tactical urbanism on planning for everyday living, employing 'Parks for Children by Children (PCC)'s street play activities as a case study. Data collection encompassed semi-structured interviews and participatory observation conducted between 2019 and 2023. The assessment concludes: firstly, tactical urbanism can be generated by non-local participation. PCC's advocacy-based approach of participation diverges from the conventional trajectory of tactical urbanism, enables the alliance to build partnerships widely, including political institutions that can facilitate the institutionalization of the alliance's advocacy efforts. Secondly, the close relationship between PCC and the city government raises concerns regarding independence from political influence - not only narrows the scope of actors and actions deemed insurgent but also diminishes the subversive potential of urban informality to challenge established policies. Sustaining participation becomes challenging once the city government implements practical measures in response to the advocacy, even if these measures are incomplete or fall short of full realization. Finally, the Taipei's approach embodies a blend of top-down and bottom-up influences. This amalgamation of participation modes adds complexity to attempts aimed at categorizing the transgressive nature of urban tactics, thereby highlighting the intricate dynamics of urban development within the East Asian context. • PCC presents a tactical urbanism case in East Asia. • Participation is challenging by the implementation of city government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme flooding events have brought severe damages to cities around the world. In order to reduce the possible effects of flooding in urban areas, spatial planning is increasingly considered to be one of the most feasible solutions. In order to assess the effectiveness of land use management strategies in cities, this study develops an integrated modelling framework for capturing dynamic relationships between land-use change and urban flooding. Taking Taipei City as the study area, an agent-based land-use model that represents the interactions among stakeholders during the migration, planning and development processes is developed to gain greater insights into how planning strategies influence the spatial and temporal dynamics of environmental change in urban areas. A two dimensional dynamic inundation model and a flood-risk assessment model is then constructed and applied to quantify the differences resulting from flood-risk reduction across different planning and rainfall future scenarios. Finally, the relative effectiveness of different land-use strategies is evaluated according to the potential reductions in monetary value of damage. The main purpose of this study is to develop a useful tool for planning decision-makers to effectively evaluate land use flood risk reduction strategies proposed by city governments before actually implemented in the planning process. • An integrated modelling framework for evaluating planning strategies on future flood risk reduction • Both climatic and land-use scenarios are considered in the simulating process. • Sophisticated calibration and validation processes based on large number of experiments to ensure credibility • Quantified benefits of individual planning strategy and their interactions are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the tragic death of George Floyd, there was a national debate about "defunding" police departments. The debate was especially intense in several cities as mayors, city councils, and - via direct democracy - voters debated the future direction of how police departments operate. Amidst all of this, Proposition A was placed on the ballot in the City of Austin, TX, which intended to increase police funding as the number of murders in the city peaked to near-record highs. This research will provide a spatial and ecological analysis of the vote on Proposition A that occurred in 2021. Using demographic, political, and socio-economic data of the populations in each precinct; this research will explain who was most and least supportive of Proposition A, and examine the spatial dimension of the vote. This research will provide critical insights into the voting behavior and spatial dynamics in urban areas, specifically in Austin, where Proposition A was a rare electoral victory for the "defund" efforts. • Uses multidisciplinary methods used in electoral geography. • Examines the vote on Proposition A in Austin, TX, which was one of the only electoral victories for "defund" efforts in 2021. • Findings suggest that the vote in Austin, TX, broke along partisan lines which was different from other votes on such measures, particularly in Minneapolis, MN. • Provides and socioeconomic analysis of Austin, TX, which helps to explain who and where supporters and opponents to Proposition A are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Much critical scholarship on highways focuses on negative impacts, but there is growing attention to removal as an opportunity to undo their harms. • The "de-infrastructuring" of urban highways—whether by repurposing or removal— involves contests over both mobility and urban development. • Infrastructural obduracy is shaped by political, economic, and social factors. • Reconfiguring transport infrastructure invokes distributional questions over flow and place that render highways potent sites of urban contestation. • Broadening the scale of highway removal is essential for thinking about post-car urban futures. One of the most visible infrastructural legacies of the 20th century is the urban highway, which underpinned the massive transformations of cities and regions in the postwar period. As concerns grow about the climate impacts of car travel and urban sprawl, however, cities across the world have begun to remove or repurpose sections of urban highways to try and heal the social, economic, and ecological scars of their construction and promote sustainable urban development. These processes speak to key scholarly debates in geography and cognate fields on the relationship between transport infrastructure and processes of urban change. In this paper we explore two cases of what we call the "de-infrastructuring" of automobility: the piecemeal pedestrian appropriation of the Minhocão elevated highway in São Paulo and the ongoing political conflicts over the burial of the A-5 highway in Madrid. In each case, the peopling of highway infrastructure—whether by temporary occupation or permanent removal—is both a popular demand and a potential component of urban redevelopment strategies designed to channel investment back into the spaces that these infrastructures devalued. At the same time, these projects are ongoing, contested, and uncertain, and constitute broadly piecemeal and somewhat ephemeral attempts at repair, rather than more systemic approaches to undoing automobility and its socioecological impacts. Highway restructuring in São Paulo and Madrid therefore raises crucial questions about urban socioecological restructuring and the prospects for a just post-automobile city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Market redevelopment in Ghanaian cities is implemented through six phases. • The governance of market redevelopment in African cities is highly political. • Citizen resistance of urban redevelopment emanates from a politicized urban governance. • Analysis of the nexus between urban regeneration, politics and governance in African cities produces new insights and concepts. Recent studies have argued that most state-led urban regeneration projects around the globe are implemented through the four-stage process of scoping, planning, financing and implementation. This article examines the processes of market infrastructural redevelopment in Ghanaian cities and the politics that characterize each phase of the process. Through case studies of market projects in Cape Coast and Kumasi, I argue that, unlike other urban regeneration projects, the redevelopment process of market infrastructure in African cities is better conceptualized through the six stages of scoping, financing, planning, relocation, construction and allocation. I demonstrate that state-led redevelopment of market infrastructure reflect a highly politicized nature of existing practices of urban governance in Ghana and Africa more broadly. In response, there is increasing activism among market traders to intervene, challenge and change the predominant forms of urban governance. I conclude that we must pay more attention to the politics embedded in the governance of urban (re)development processes in order to understand the contemporary dynamics of citizen resistance and activism in African cities. It is through such an investigation that new insights, meanings and concepts emerge in the fields of urban politics and urban governance in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, valuable big data are generated and collected rapidly from numerous rich data sources. Following the initiatives of open data, many organizations including municipal governments are willing to share their data such as open big data regarding parking violations. While there have been models to preserve privacy of sensitive personal data like patient data for health informatics, privacy of individuals who violated parking regulations should also be protected. Hence, in this article, we present a model for supporting privacy-preserving big data analytics on temporal open big data. This temporally hierarchical privacy-preserving model (THPPM) adapts and extends the traditional temporal hierarchy to generalize spatial data generated within a time interval with an aim to preserve privacy of individuals who violated parking regulations during some time intervals at certain geographic locations. Evaluation on open big data from two North American cities demonstrates the usefulness of our model in supporting privacy-preserving big data analytics on temporal open big data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, valuable big data are generated and collected rapidly from numerous rich data sources. Following the initiatives of open data, many organizations including municipal governments are willing to share their data such as open big data regarding non-emergency city service requests from their residents. Big data analytics on these open big data can be for social good. Hence, in this article, we present a framework for predictive big data analytics for service requests. The framework mines historical open big data to discover patterns about service requests, and predicts the demands for these services in the future. The discovered knowledge and predictions may provide policy makers deeper understanding of their data and requested services so that appropriate actions could take place. Evaluation on open big data from the City of Winnipeg demonstrates the usefulness of our framework for conducting predictive big data analytics for service requests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Does mafia infiltration have a gendered effect on politicians' quality? • We implement a diff-in-diff analysis exploiting local governments dissolution due to mafia infiltration. • Mafia has a stronger negative effect on female mayors' quality than on male ones. • This result is compatible with different mechanisms, like gender difference in risk aversion, mafia influence on voters' culture and parties recruitment policies. Organized crime targets politicians with discretionary power over public resources, increasing the perceived risk of a political career and lowering its expected payoff. Since experimental evidence shows that women are more risk averse than men, organized crime infiltration should prove more effective in discouraging highly qualified women to take part in politics compared to men with the same level of power. The difference-in-differences estimates, which exploit the municipal government dissolution for mafia infiltration as an exogenous shock to the involvement of organized crime in local politics, reveal that organized crime has a stronger negative effect on the quality of female politicians compared to men. However, our results are compatible with alternative mechanisms such as organized crime influence on voters' culture and on parties' recruitment policies. Since our analysis is not conclusive, further research is needed to clearly identify the most likely driver of our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a growing literature on vertical and volumetric urbanism and a recent "subterranean turn" in geography, this paper explores the materiality and material agency of the underground and its entwinement with aboveground planning and development. The paper focuses on urban regeneration and planning in Newcastle, Australia: a city where underground coal mining has been deeply entwined in the establishment, economic prosperity, and geographical spread of the city, leaving the city undermined by multiple mine shafts (voids). Our analysis reveals the interconnectedness of vertical and horizontal capacities of the city and how this has shaped recent urban regeneration initiatives. Positioning the underground as a vital and agentic element of the wider urban assemblage and constitutive of the aboveground, we explore how its material presence (or, in this case, absence) is made visible through mapping techniques, and how its agency shapes the form, function and politics of urban development. Our analysis empirically traces the material agency of the underground at two scales. First, we examine how underground voids affect construction and financial viability at the building level. Second, we unpack how the presence of underground voids across the inner-city shapes precinct and city-scale regeneration initiatives, influencing the form and function of the city. The paper builds our understandings of volumetric urbanism and the subterranean, teasing out empirically the intertwinement of the aboveground and underground, and surfacing the material agency of the underground and its influence on the pathways and politics of aboveground urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Smart cities promote rationalistic and narrow framing of the role of behavioural change. • Such behavioural change approaches restrict visions of urban futures through a technological utopian lens. • Empowering publics to shape visions of urban mobilities is needed to promote long-term human and ecological wellbeing. The smart cities agenda has garnered considerable interest recently as the spread of mobile technologies and notions of 'big data' have opened possibilities for promoting greater efficiencies in urban metabolisms. This has been particularly prominent in the realm of environmental sustainability, where smart technologies have been viewed as a way of reducing traffic congestion and delivering energy efficiencies. Key to these aspirations is the way in which technologies are seen to interact with human behaviour and how digital technologies can promote behavioural change through the provision of 'better' information. However, smart city programmes adopt a particular intellectual and pragmatic framing of behavioural change that we argue is fundamentally narrow and unambitious, raising concerns about how behavioural science is mobilised, by whom and its potential to promote sustainable urban futures. First, we propose that the focus in smart city narratives on quantitative data and insights from 'big data' is methodologically narrow and is representative of a highly individualised, libertarian paternalist perspective that privileges rationalistic and atomised understandings of behaviour. Second, we argue that the logic of smart cities leads city governments towards a focus on superficial change and the language of 'encouraging' shifts in individual behaviour that presents a distraction from the urgent need to reconfigure city infrastructures for low carbon forms of living. Third, we explore how such behavioural change approaches are fundamentally didactic and often lapse into assuming that publics are the passive receivers of 'smarter' information rather than active citizens who can question, campaign and present alternative visions to those of corporate-government interests. In this way, we argue that the suffusing of the smart cities and behavioural change agendas act as a neo-liberal distraction to the ways in which cities can develop to support the priorities of human and ecological wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Efficiency of waste collection in Mexico was estimated with double bootstrap Data Envelopment Analysis. • Private waste collection providers are more efficient than public ones. • Economic variables such as income and tourism are negatively correlated to efficiency. • Separate collection of waste is negatively correlated to efficiency. Since the 1980′s, some Mexican municipalities have subcontracted waste collection services to private companies, with an eye on increasing the efficiency of this service. However, the impact of private management on the Mexican waste sector performance has not been evaluated. In this study, the efficiency of waste collection in Mexico was analyzed to test the hypothesis that private companies are more efficient at waste collection than municipal governments. A two stage double bootstrap Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was applied to a sample of 1,626 municipalities. In the first stage, unbiased efficiency scores were calculated, and in the second stage, these scores were regressed against a set of environmental covariates which were thought to affect efficiency, including a dummy variable to identify the municipalities where waste is collected by a private company. Results suggest that private waste collection companies are more efficient than municipal governments. Other environmental variables such as population density, average household income, and tourism were also found to affect waste collection efficiency. The analysis also indicates that curbside collection is associated with a higher efficiency, while separate collection of waste is negatively correlated to efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Analysis of the impacts of detour and waiting bounds on reservation-based carpooling services. • Systematic quantification of several performance metrics in closed-form formulas. • Results for light- vs. heavy-demand, and pre-determined vs. flexible driver/rider roles. • Analytical predictions are well corroborated by agent-based simulations. • Illustrative use of the formulas to explore business and regulatory strategies. This paper examines many-to-many carpooling services with advance reservations, and constraints on waits and detours. An analytic model yields approximate formulas for the percent of requests matched, the expected vehicle-distance driven, and the passenger-distance traveled in some idealized scenarios. Simulations of these scenarios validate the formulas. In the most favorable cases carpooling reduces the vehicle-kilometers driven by all users by a few percent. The paper also shows how the formulas can be used by service providers to optimize offerings, and by city governments to design regulatory policies that will perform as intended. A simple example illustrates the ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Soft-systems approach identifies place-based peculiarities of urban food systems. • A multi-actor approach supports the development of sustainable urban food strategies. • Local specificities affect food systems' capacity to include sustainable diets. • Food strategies need to engage with multi-scalar processes. • Integrating the views of local actors fosters the democratization of food policies. Urbanization processes have been accompanied by a shift towards diets that have placed increased pressures on the environment and human health. City governments are increasingly striving to address these challenges through a policy focus on "sustainable diets". Using the example of the city of Vienna (Austria), this paper adopts an innovative multi-actor approach to unpack the complexities involved in the implementation of the core principles of sustainable diets. The analysis of data collected through semi-structured interviews and focus groups with key urban food system actors identifies place-based peculiarities and drivers of change that are not yet discussed within debates on urban food. As we conclude, there are important methodological implications emerging from our findings for both policy-makers and researchers interested in the design, implementation and evaluation of urban food strategies that contribute to democratizing the food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how the Pollution Information Transparency Index (PITI), a non-governmental evaluation of local environmental information transparency, has improved the performance of Chinese city governments. Through monitoring, ranking, and publicizing city performance measured by the PITI, NGOs can complement the central government in policy implementation and create a competition among local jurisdictions. Case studies and statistical analyses find that cities respond to such public oversight, with those in more politically competitive provinces experience faster improvement in environmental information transparency. These findings suggest that political incentives and inter-jurisdictional competition may be leveraged by the civil society to improve local governance in China. • Public oversight can complement the central government in policy implementation. • Cities in more politically competitive provinces experience faster improvement. • Inter-jurisdictional political competition may be leveraged by the civil society to improve local governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability assessment frameworks often fall short of elucidating context-specific conflicts inherent in planning practice and its contribution to diverse sustainability priorities. This study explores the integration of priorities and principles associated with sustainability in the spatial planning of the sub-Arctic city of Yakutsk. It also investigates how conflicting priorities manifest in the city's development. The research involves exploratory interviews with planning stakeholders, an analysis of General Plan iterations, and profiling of two expanding residential areas. Contrasting cases of residential growth untangle tensions between environmental, development, and social dimensions, emphasizing the prioritization of specific aspects over others. The study underscores that these tensions are intricately linked to historical, political, planning, and governance contexts and reflect the complexities of urban development politics. Despite planning documents encompassing a range of principles associated with sustainable planning, current practices prioritize specific dimensions but contradict others. A targeted emphasis on specific sustainability aspects may obscure interests in particular development types and equity compromises. This study raises concerns about the effectiveness of normative evaluations of sustainable planning, overlooking conflicting dimensions evident in practice. It calls for a more in-depth examination of how principles are valued, prioritized, and compromised in specific contexts. • The study examines sustainability manifestations and conflicting priorities in local spatial planning and development. • Plans uncover various sustainability-related principles linked to landscapes, spatial form, and built environment features. • Residential development engenders contradictions linked to development trajectories, politics, and inscribed values. • The sustainability contribution of best planning practices should be challenged by examining their contextual implications. • The conflicting nature of planning entails dilemmas associated with clashing sustainability priorities and principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations often use agri-environmental policies and program to promote Best Management Practice (BMPs) adoption, which are meant to mitigate on-farm environmental risks. However, producer preferences for programs and collaborative organizations are often overlooked during the process of policy implementation. Producers are likely to feel more inclined to accept information from, and otherwise engage with, some organizations over others. Overlooking such preferences may have led to inefficient policies that did not engage the intended audience, resulting in minimal BMP uptake. The goal of this paper is to investigate the preferences of Canadian producers for climate-mitigative policy options and partner organizations that impact or encourage BMP adoption, two variables deemed critical to on-farm BMP adoption decisions. We use a survey-based method for assessing individuals' priorities in the form of most and least preferred choices from a set of available options. Our analysis reveals that producers prefer financial support, while certification, extension, carbon offsets and carbon taxation are all significantly less likely to be chosen as the most preferred climate policy. As for organizations producers prefer to work with, the provincial government and county or municipal governments are their first-choice collaborative organizations when it comes to climate-mitigation in agriculture. In contrast, producers in Alberta are more likely to choose environmental NGOs as their least preferred organization. The results also show these preferences are altered when interacted with producer characteristics. Beliefs about climate change significantly alter their policy preferences: those who believe in human-caused (anthropogenic) climate change are more likely to support several climate-mitigative policies, with the notable exception of a tax on carbon and carbon offsets. We also find farm typology and being an avid adopter of BMPs alters producers' policy preferences, but not organization preferences. Given the challenges to changing producers' on-farm decision making, the results of this paper can help guide those who develop and implement climate-mitigative policies and programs by providing an overview of preferred policies that are more likely to be accepted by agricultural producers. This includes helping tailor policy approaches in collaboration with trusted partners and understanding what factors, such as farm typology and climate change beliefs, may influence the acceptance of these climate-mitigative policies. [Display omitted] • Farmers' policy and organization preferences shape adoption of proven climate-mitigative BMPs. • Male and strongly conservative farmers unanimously oppose carbon taxation. • Farmers hold differing views of organizations in the agri-environmental space. Messenger effects matter. • Farmer are largely unwilling to work with environmental organizations on climate BMP adoption. • Farmers stated climate beliefs significantly affect their policy preferences, except for carbon taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are implemented across multiple cities worldwide and feature as promising solutions in local and global agendas. As solutions that can deal with interlinked urban challenges, NBS are being taken up by cities in different geographies and are considered to be mainstreaming. The process, referred to as mainstreaming, and how this can be achieved needs to be better understood, which is identified as a research gap. In this paper, we examine the roles that actors can undertake that contribute to the mainstreaming of NBS in cities. The aim is to understand the roles that urban actors, especially those within local governments, assume in the process of NBS mainstreaming to mobilise and implement novel and innovative strategic solutions for cities. This topic is explored in a case study of the metropolitan Melbourne region in Australia, where urban forest strategies are gaining traction in local governments for addressing urban resilience concerns. We present how the roles different actors assume contribute to the (re)shaping, building, and/or transformation of institutions to attain climate and ecologically resilient cities. The main contribution of this paper is a pathways framework that illustrates how sustainability norms can move through the mainstreaming process, facilitated by the roles that actors undertake – to champion, advocate, and realise transformative discourses and actions within urban politics and urban practices. Our key findings are framed as success factors of mainstreaming agencies and pathways underpinning transformation, which are: commitment longevity, innovative capacity, collaborative mindset, and on-ground delivery. • Policy, practice, and research actors can facilitate NBS mainstreaming in cities. • Role archetypes describe the mainstreaming actions of specific actors. • The configuration of roles is analysed to explain mainstreaming pathways. • Define mainstreaming pathways framework for actors' roles in NBS mainstreaming. • Success factors are commitment, innovation, collaboration, and on-ground delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stormwater green infrastructure (GI) has been applied as a method to address urban flooding for over forty years. However, GI has not yet been widely utilized across the US. Prior studies identified some challenges with technical, engineering, and socioeconomic aspects of GI, but detailed examination of non-scientific papers to identify and analyze real-world barriers that may hinder the implementation of GI has not yet been done. To achieve this goal, we conducted a meta-analysis of 351 public documents from federal, state, and 62 municipalities in Eastern Pennsylvania to systematically review the support of different levels of government for implementing GI. We summarized barriers in three categories: 1) governance and policy: failure to integrate GI into existing stormwater management policies due to unclearly defined responsibility and infrequent policy updates, 2) stormwater fees and credits: inequity in stormwater fee structures and debate of stormwater credits connected to GI, and 3) public education and outreach: most municipal governments provide little or no stormwater and GI-related information to their residents, but some municipalities with higher population density have tried to offer more. These barriers will restrain the original intention and vision of GI implementation and cause difficulties in effectively conveying GI's information from the federal and state levels to municipalities and residents. Our discussion highlights these difficulties of GI implementation at all governmental levels and shed light on potential solutions to address these barriers. • Barriers to Green Infrastructure (GI) adoption in the US context are identified. • Qualitative and quantitative methods are conducted to identify GI barriers. • Three categories of GI barriers are summarized at different levels of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes visible the social network infrastructure of people sustaining the urban food system in the post-industrial city of Buffalo, NY. It does so by probing how networks are launched and sustained over time, who is responsible for the networks, and to what end. The authors employ a survey to collect data on social networks among actors within the city's food system. The findings suggest that Buffalo's urban food system is a constellation of close-knit networks comprised primarily of local grassroots organizations having 'small world' effects— that is, short chains of actors within the network link all actors. These central actors rely on their high levels of trust and shared beliefs and vision to socially reproduce, sustain, and strengthen their urban food system through advocacy and information sharing. In sum, we find that Buffalo's food system story is one of local self-reliance, co-production, and co-dependency among urban growers and other grassroots actors whose day-to-day practices and lived experiences are largely excluded from the municipal government's policies and decisions. • Buffalo's food system mostly comprises a close-knit network of local grassroots organizations • The network has a 'small world' effect showing a short chain of actors linking all actors • Food advocacy, information sharing, and high levels of trust help sustain and reproduce the network • Few actors serve as resource and information hubs and brokers within the network • The network tells a story of local self-reliance and co-production among urban growers and grassroots organizations [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of community expresses a variety of responsibilities that public relations has in building connections, good will, and wellbeing amongst collectives of people. Community also parallels many U.S. expectations of government; however, public relations has few studies that investigate the collaboration between government and citizens or how different government services (e.g., public works, public health, building enforcement, etc.) influence community building. Specifically, parks and recreation has been overlooked in the public relations literature as citizens and government collectively support these lifelines of community wellbeing and social connectedness. Through qualitative analysis of focus groups with city residents and interviews with city parks and recreation personnel, I present thematic findings that explicate how citizens and city staff engage in community building and the specific role that leisure plays in community building processes. Lastly, I offer implications for public relations theory that argue to shift local community and governance theory to be citizen-centered and use the concept of family to explicate the function of community in small municipal contexts. • Argues for community building contexts to incorporate both governments and citizens. • Presents leisure as an integral community building activity for municipalities. • Offers implications for PR theory to center citizens and family in community theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The angle of calculative governmentality is proposed to interpret the role of state. • Local state maintains dominance via calculation in democratized urban redevelopment. • Calculative tactics included vague criteria, redistricting, and differentiation. Recently, the role of the state in urban redevelopment has drawn increasing scholarly attention. However, insufficient efforts have been made to determine how the state intervenes in and legitimizes the processes of urban redevelopment. Existing theoretical angles have also not provided convincing explanations for the democratization of urban redevelopment in some traditionally authoritarian regimes. Hence, this study attempts to narrow these gaps by examining the politics of urban redevelopment in Chengdu, China, from a Foucauldian governmentality perspective. A series of calculative tactics was adopted to promote the processes of reaching an agreement and legitimizing the demolition of old communities. These tactics enabled the local state to maintain its dominance in the participatory politics of urban redevelopment. This study contributes to the literature on urban redevelopment by elaborating the processes and roles of the state and governmentality and clarifying the calculative foundation of democratized urban politics in authoritarian regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although academic scholarship has addressed how city governments have responded to declining housing affordability in the aftermath of crisis, few studies have done so from a comparative perspective. Filling this gap in the literature, this paper studies two distinctive, but nevertheless commonly 'unaffordable' city contexts: Amsterdam and Miami. First, it reconstructs how both cities responded differently to otherwise common housing challenges by prioritizing public interventionist (Amsterdam) and public entrepreneurial (Miami) housing strategies. Second, it unravels how the underlying logics and market outcomes of both approaches have nevertheless become similar. To varying degrees, both cases reveal a (i) progressive shift in social housing provision from lower income groups towards middle-income groups, and (ii) the increased importance of market logics within the affordable housing sector at large. Despite good intentions, the paper concludes that both cities struggle with addressing affordable housing needs in what are, after all, neoliberal housing contexts. In the absence of greater state commitments, local willingness to contest housing financialization runs into the limits of affordable housing governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the number of schools in Norwegian rural municipalities has been reduced substantially, often accompanied by much contestation in the local community. In Norway's decentralized governance system, the municipal-level authorities have autonomy over decisions on school structure. However, municipal school administrations may have considerable indirect influence, inter alia in preparing the cases prior to meetings of the local council. This article examines experiences with, perceptions of and main concerns with school-closure processes among those handling school issues in the municipalities. It builds on an online survey of the local school administrations in Norwegian municipalities with fewer than 15,000 inhabitants, as well as case studies in three municipalities where school closure was or had recently been high on the agenda. Although the municipal school administrations recognize the importance of local schools for the communities, their primary concern is to secure a good learning and social environment for pupils, within the defined budgetary constraints. In contested cases, this usually leads them to side with politicians favoring closure. However, acknowledging the importance of the school for the community and the risks of local tensions, municipal school administrations also stress the importance of transparent and open discussions among those involved, before a decision is made. • Centralization is not a goal but an indirect effect of rural school closures in Norway. • Municipal school administrations tend to support rural school closure. • The multi-level governance model opens for considerable variation in local outcomes. • The transparency and organization of closure processes affect the legitimacy of decisions. • Economic arguments, although downplayed, remain decisive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the impact of 16th and 17th-century developments in micrometry on the methods Antoni van Leeuwenhoek employed to measure the microscopic creatures he discovered in various samples collected from his acquaintances and from local water sources. While other publications have presented Leeuwenhoek's measurement methods, an examination of the context of his techniques is missing. These previous measurement methods, driven by the need to improve navigation, surveying, astronomy, and ballistics, may have had an impact on Leeuwenhoek's methods. Leeuwenhoek was educated principally in the mercantile guild system in Amsterdam and Delft. He rose to positions of responsibility within Delft municipal government. These were the years that led up to his first investigations using the single-lens microscopes he became expert at creating, and that led to his first letter to the Royal Society in 1673. He also took measures to train in surveying and liquid assaying practices existing in his time, disciplines that were influenced by Pedro Nunes, Pierre Vernier, Rene Descartes, and others. While we may never know what inspired Leeuwenhoek's methods, the argument is presented that there were sufficient influences in his life to shape his approach to measuring the invisible. • Antoni van Leeuwenhoek was the first person to see and measure microscopic life. • Starting with Pedro Nunes, measurement systems made advances into micrometry. • Micrometry advanced through many interesting approaches into the 17th C. • Leeuwenhoek used micrometry that estimated the size of microscopic creatures. • Some of Leeuwenhoek's measurements are reasonably accurate using current techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Context: The coordination of the alignment between the lower extremities and cervical spine helps to achieve balance and horizontal gaze during standing and walking. Malalignment in any segment can disturb the global balance, causing compensation in another segment. Knee flexion contracture (KFC) can cause spine inclination with increased C7 tilt or C7 SVA (sagittal vertical axis). Cervical alignment and the posterior muscles are essential for maintaining the horizontal gaze which is closely related to neck tension (NT).Purpose: This study aimed to determine whether KFC can affect cervical alignment and its potential effects on the posterior muscles and NT.Design: A prospective pilot study was carried out in preoperative (pre-op) and postoperative (post-op) phases.Patient Sample: This study included 22 consecutive patients with KFC and 12 control subjects in our department who agreed to participate from between August 1, 2018 and February 28, 2019 in our department.Outcome Measures: Visual analog scale (VAS) and neck disability index (NDI) were used. The sagittal alignment parameters and cervical range of motion (ROM) were measured on radiographic images, and included the C0-C2 lordosis (C0-2L), C2-C7 lordosis (C2-7L), C2 SVA, C7 SVA, T1 slope, thoracic kyphosis, lumbar lordosis (LL), pelvic tilt, sacral slope, and knee flexion angle (KA). Surface electromyography-based flexion-relaxation ratio (FRR) and ultrasound-based shear wave elastography (SWE) were performed.Methods: The control group was matched for age, sex, and body mass index with the KFC group. Patients in the KFC group underwent arthroscopic surgery to correct knee alignment. Comparisons between pre-op and post-op phases were performed using paired sample t tests, comparisons between KFC and control groups were performed using independent samples t tests. The correlation analysis between the parameters was performed using Spearman analysis. Funding for this study was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (60,000 USD), Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals Incubating Program (50,000 USD), and Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals Clinical Medicine Development of Special Funding Support (20,000 USD). There were no conflicts of interest associated with this study.Results: The average follow-up time for this pilot study was 11.4±1.5 days. Pre-op, the KFC group had higher KA, T1S, C7 SVA, C2 SVA, C0-2L, SWE, VAS, and NDI compared with the control group, but all of these parameters were decreased significantly post-op. The LL, FRR of splenius capitis (FRRsc), and ROM of the KFC group pre-op were lower than the control group, and all of these were increased significantly post-op. There were no differences in pelvic tilt, sacral slope, C2-7 L, or TK between the KFC and control groups, or in FRR of splenius capitis (FRRutr) between pre-op and post-op phases. KA had strong correlations with LL (r=-0.83), which correlated well with C7 SVA (r=-0.75). C7 SVA correlated strongly with C2 SVA (r=0.79), which also correlated strongly with C0-2 L (r=0.76). C0-2 L correlated well with FRRsc (r=-0.65) and SWEsc (r=0.72), and both of them correlated well with VAS (r=-0.54, r=0.71) and NDI (r=-0.57, r=0.76). ROM correlated well with FRRsc (r=0.71), SWEsc (r=-0.74), VAS (r=-0.66), and NDI (r=-0.66).Conclusions: KFC may cause spine inclination and craniocervical malalignment, leading to NT and ROM reduction. The results of this pilot study may be helpful in guiding further studies concerning KFC and NT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Highly mobile street vendors are more likely to adopt spatial tactics. • Less mobile vendors rely more on informal relations and networks. • Gender, age, ability to pay for spaces intersect to shape the tactics of vendors. The article examines how street vendors in Abuja, Nigeria are experiencing and responding to the attempts to restrict their access to public space. Modernist planning and the increasing trend in the privatization of public space is limiting the amount and types of public spaces available to street vendors. Drawing largely on primary research, the article reports that street vendors are responding by adopting a range of spatial, relational and temporal tactics. Specifically, it cites the Ready-to-Run tactic, relocating to relatively more secure sites, informal relations and networks and operating at certain times of the day. Access to the street and mobility are key factors that shape the types of tactics adopted. Vendors prioritize proximity to the street in order to maximize access to potential customers. The highly mobile vendors are more likely to adopt spatial and temporal tactics, while the less mobile tend to rely on informal relations and networks. Furthermore, in the absence of formal organizing, individual agency is more prevalent. Where collective agency exists, it is often a response to an immediate challenge. Gender and age influence the experiences of vendors and the tactics adopted. The Abuja case is a notable example of the link between modernist planning, particularly the master plan approach and socio-spatial exclusion. As a city built from scratch, the plan laid the foundation for socio-spatial exclusion by planning the poor out of the city. The plan remains at the centre of contemporary urban politics, notably the relations between the state and informal workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An understanding of urban forest governance from the perspective of municipal managers is limited. • Interview data was collected from urban forest managers in local governments in Melbourne, Australia. • Challenges for managers' decisions: inter-departmental coordination, community views, culture of risk aversion. • Some other challenges varied across urban centres. • Challenges of inner centres: lack of space, public consultation, and new developments • Challenges of outer/regional centres: urban expansion, active use of greenspace, and lack of data. Awareness of the benefits of urban trees has led many cities to develop ambitious targets to increase tree numbers and canopy cover. Policy instruments that guide the planning of cities recognize the need for new governance arrangements to implement this agenda. Urban forests are greatly influenced by the decisions of municipal managers, but there is currently no clear understanding of how municipal managers find support to implement their decisions via new governance arrangements. To fill this knowledge gap, we collected empirical data through interviews with 23 urban forest municipal managers in 12 local governments in Greater Melbourne and regional Victoria, Australia, and analysed these data using qualitative interpretative methods through a governance lens. The goal of this was to understand the issues and challenges, stakeholders, resources, processes, and rules behind the decision-making of municipal managers. Municipal managers said that urban densification and expansion were making it difficult for them to implement their strategies to increase tree numbers and canopy cover. The coordination of stakeholders was more important for managers to find support to implement their decisions than having a bigger budget. The views of the public or wider community and a municipal government culture of risk aversion were also making it difficult for municipal managers to implement their strategies. Decision-making priorities and processes were not the same across urban centres. Lack of space to grow trees in new developments, excessive tree removal, and public consultation, were ideas more frequently raised in inner urban centres, while urban expansion, increased active use of greenspaces, and lack of data/information about tree assets were concerns for outer and regional centres. Nonetheless, inter-departmental coordination was a common theme shared among all cities. Strengthening coordination processes is an important way for local governments to overcome these barriers and effectively implement their urban forest strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To create a sustainable urban transportation environment, transportation authorities often implement incentive strategies to attract new public transportation users. Various studies have shown that increasing bus revenue vehicle-kilometers (BK) is a key factor for increasing bus ridership (BR). In this situation, BK affects BR. However, an increase in BR may lead to an increase in BK. Then, BR affects BK. The existence and directions of causal effects between BK and BR are the research questions addressed in this study. Since 2007, the Taichung City Government has been adding and adjusting bus routes to build a dense bus network. In 2011, it implemented a free fare bus policy. BR grew from ca. 2 million per month in 2007 to 10 million per month in 2015. Moreover, BK increased by ca. 3 times during that same period. This provides an opportunity to understand the causal effects between BK and BR. Extended convergent cross mapping (ECCM) can be used to assess the causal relationship between two variables without modelling. We adopted this method to distinguish the influences of BK and BR. According to the results, increasing BK attracted more public transit passengers during the period 2007 to 2010. However, there was no effect of BR on BK. After implementation of free fare bus policy in 2011, increases in BK led to increases in BR and increases in BR drove incremental growth of BK. The result was a virtuous cycle of mutual influence between BK and BR. In conclusion, increasing BK, such as route length or number of scheduled runs, can promote the usage of public transportation. Moreover, authorities can implement free fare bus policy to attract potential users and force incremental growth of BK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Haifa, a major seaport in the Eastern Mediterranean, is one of Israel's "mixed cities" where Palestinians and Jews live together. Yet, unlike other mixed localities, which witness rising tensions due to relentless settler colonization, Haifa maintains a relative modus vivendi. In this city profile, we seek to explicate the causes and consequences of this outstanding situation and pose the notion of a binational city as a path to urban decolonization. Drawing on historical records, city plans, and interviews with residents, we trace Haifa's binational urbanism from its modern beginnings to the present. We show how Palestinian and Jewish urbanism developed in Haifa from the early 20th century, and how the city was transformed into an ethnically homogenous settler colonial space in the wake of ethnic cleansing. We then explain how the legacies of colonial planning, deindustrialization, and globalization led to Haifa's urban decline in recent decades, thereby making room for indigenous urban revival, and for urban relations based on more egalitarian foundations. Examining contemporary plans and urban developments, we claim Haifa presents hopeful possibilities for binational decolonization. However, realizing this potential requires redistributive efforts and instituting the principle of parity across all domains of urban politics and planning. • Offering a historical account of Haifa's urban planning and development, from the perspective of bi-national urbanization. • Examining Haifa as a potential model for urban decolonization in a settler-colonial situation. • Highlighting unexpected consequences of colonial planning, neoliberal reforms, and capitalist globalization on settler urban decline and indigenous urban resurgence. • Theorizing urban binationalism as the reconciliation of self-determination and shared commitment to urban space and equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand how co-production can become embedded as a collaborative governance practice by which city governments plan, deliver and steward nature-based solutions. To these ends, the paper analyses how policy officers manifest capacities for co-production in three European cities – Genk (Belgium), Glasgow (United Kingdom) and Poznań (Poland) – while experimenting with co-production to develop and scale nature-based solutions. Co-production capacities include conditions and activities to (1) create space for co-production, (2) safeguard inclusive and legitimate co-production, and (3) link co-production processes and results to contexts. The results demonstrate how policy officers in the three cities have mobilised and created resources, skills, institutional support and partnerships to implement diverse processes to co-produce nature-based solutions. While these conditions mark starting changes in urban governance, engaging with and embedding co-production causes tensions between the dynamic and diffuse nature of co-production and existing formal governance settings and processes. Lessons for strengthening the capacities to embed co-production as a collaborative governance practice in nature-based solutions planning, delivery and stewardship are: (1) embedding a tailor-made approach for inclusive co-production to meaningfully engage diverse actors in place-based settings, (2) embedding open-ended co-production with long-term benefits, and (3) embedding new relations and roles to sustain co-production. • Co-production requires investing in new governance capacities. • Diverse co-production processes underpin collaborative NBS governance. • No one-size-fits-all: tailor co-production to contexts, goals, target audiences. • Monitor and evaluate co-production to reveal benefits. • Invest in long-term relations and engagement to sustain co-production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does clientelism perpetuate the weak state capacity that characterizes many young democracies? Prior work explains that clientelistic parties skew public spending to private goods and under-supply public goods. Building on these insights, this article argues that clientelism creates a bureaucratic trap. Governments that rely on clientelism invest in labor-intensive, low-skilled bureaucracies that can design and implement relatively more straightforward distributive policies. Although such bureaucracies are useful to win some elections, they lack the administrative capacity to sustain economic and human development. Empirically, the article examines the wage structure of municipal bureaucracies as a proxy for the personnel's education and skills in Mexico between 2012 and 2018. During this period, turnover in the party in power in municipalities was frequent, a situation that also allows investigating how resilient the bureaucratic trap is to increased competition. The results show that all political parties invest in labor-intensive, low-skilled bureaucracies. However, the bureaucratic trap has a different grip on the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a quintessential clientelistic party, compared to other parties. After an electoral turnover, PRI's bureaucracies have a larger proportion of low-wage personnel compared to the bureaucracies of other parties. Moreover, after an electoral turnover, the PRI allocates more resources to social assistance, subsidies, and internal transfers that are more conducive to clientelism. The overall size of the bureaucracy and the total wage bill are not affected in the same way, suggesting that there is indeed a trade-off between hiring lower and higher skilled employees. While prior work has proposed other clientelism-induced negative equilibria, this article offers a more direct path from clientelism to state capacity. The results help explain why more fiscal resources, political competition, and demand-side strategies to fight vote buying are insufficient and underscore the importance of civil service reform to tame clientelism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the widespread practice of cooperation between governments and universities on smart city and smart government projects, the factors influencing this cooperation are not well known. We explore government-university collaboration to illuminate four potential determinants of success in such projects: output, institutional, relationship, and framework factors. Using mixed methods, including a theoretically informed crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis methodology and thematic analysis of interviews and secondary data, we identify the causal relationships among these determinants and perceived success of government-university collaboration on smart city and smart government projects. We find that for a collaboration to be considered successful, all of these factors must be present and positive. In contrast, a negative assessment of even one of these factors is sufficient to evaluate the collaboration as unsuccessful. • We create a framework for successful government-university collaboration in smart city and smart government projects. • Our study employs a combined approach of using QCA and conducting a thematic analysis of interview data. • Our study reveals both the necessary and sufficient conditions for the success and failure of collaborative efforts. • Our research offers insights into the reasons behind both the success and failure of such projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public sector relocation represents a widely adopted place-based policy by national and local governments globally, serving a range of objectives such as promoting regional balance development and stimulating local growth. At the city level, local governments often anticipate substantial economic growth in the vicinity of the new government site, leading to an increase in residential property values. The new government site not only acts as a catalyst for economic activities, employment, and the concentration of amenities but also directly influences residential property transaction prices due to its impact on the market perception. This study aims to analyze the influence of government relocation on the prices of surrounding residential properties in Hangzhou, China. Hangzhou relocated its city hall from the old city center to a new central business district near the Qiantang River between 2015 and 2016. To understand the patterns of impact on residential property prices across time and space, we employ a combination of the hedonic pricing method, the difference-in-difference approach, and dynamic effect capturing techniques. Concurrent policies and amenities are considered to isolate the specific effect of government relocation. The findings reveal spatially concentrated and temporally transient positive effects. The average treatment effect over the seven-year post-relocation period was positive (4.76%), though it did not reach statistical significance. Particularly noteworthy was the significantly positive effect (12.7%) on transaction prices within a 5 km radius of the new city hall during the first year following relocation; however, this effect diminished rapidly in subsequent years. For transactions within 1 km of the new government site, the significant positive effect persisted for five years. These findings suggest that the arrival of a major public sector entity has limited direct effects on promoting the residential property market. Furthermore, the study highlights the concentrated nature of spillover effects associated with place-based programs, indicating that the positive effects are specific to certain spatial and temporal dimensions. • The government relocated its site to support new CBD development. • The arrival of Hangzhou City Hall positively influenced local property markets. • The positive effects were spatially concentrated and temporally transient. • The impact was strongest within 1 km and vanished beyond 6 km. • Higher priced properties benefited more from proximity to the new city hall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential of urban nature-based solutions (NBS) to provide significant benefits to citizens and to address societal challenges is undervalued, yet the valuation of NBS impacts remains contentious. Further development of monetary and non-monetary valuation of the costs and benefits of urban NBS is required, and effective knowledge exchange on these themes is required at the international level. However, an important gap in research relates to the uptake and application of existing techniques for monetary valuation. This research explored how monetary values of urban NBS are assessed, and how NBS valuation is viewed by city government authorities in particular. Results are presented from a review of peer-reviewed articles reporting urban NBS valuation techniques development and application. Over 200 articles relating specifically to urban NBS interventions were reviewed. The literature indicates that many valuation techniques have been researched, but most studies tend to address just a few indicators of NBS impacts, which are mainly physical-environmental in their focus. To generate deeper insights into perceptions of monetary valuations in NBS impact assessments and their application, focus groups and semi-structured interviews were conducted with local and regional government staff in seven cities in Latin America and Europe. Although a wide range of economic valuation tools exist and can be applied to support NBS development, limited evidence was found for their uptake and application in practice across the contexts examined. We discuss potential reasons for limited uptake, which may include overburdensome data demands, incommensurability with existing decision-making and accounting practices, and limited staffing, financial and technical capacity - even within large cities. Results suggest that successful NBS interventions may portray economic impacts, but NBS propositions should not depend upon monetary valuations alone; social and ecological criteria remain centrally important. Participatory impact assessment methods may support improved business cases and monetary valuations for urban NBS. • Key NBS impact assessment guidance insufficiently addresses valuation of urban interventions. • Co-productive research with cities provides insights into the role and limits of NBS valuation. • A systematic review identifies key valuation methods that have been applied to urban NBS. • City government staff and decision-makers indicate that NBS valuation is novel and challenging. • Monetary valuations of NBS should be accompanied by other forms of impact assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As members of transnational municipal networks (TMNs), city governments increasingly create a landscape of global governance complementary to but largely independent of traditional, nation-state dominated organizations, from climate change governance to peacebuilding. But a growing number of cities now maintain multiple simultaneous memberships in different TMNs, affording a powerful minority of cities greater representation in world affairs, a skewed landscape that has to date received little attention. To examine the forces shaping this landscape of global governance, we analyze a detailed database of the TMN memberships of over 10,000 cities, observing memberships in both all TMNs collectively and specifically environmentally-focused TMNs. We find that this landscape mirrors the highly stratified core-periphery structure of cities in the world economy, where the most economically powerful cities maintain the most simultaneous memberships in TMNs of both sorts, affording them the greatest ability to set agendas and project ideas within global urban governance. In short, the same 4% of cities that connect the world economy together also have the most representation in global governance. This suggests a markedly more centralized landscape of global urban governance than much of the polycentricity literature expects. We also show how national attributes influence city participation. While democracy matters more for city memberships in all TMNs collectively, national action on global environmental governance matters more for city participation in environmental TMNs. Specifically, cities with more memberships in environmental TMNs tend to be in nations that ratify more international environmental treaties, indicating that participation serves a complementary role to national action. Cities with more memberships in all TMNs collectively tend to be in nations with higher civil liberties scores, indicating that cities from democratic regimes tend to be those most represented in this landscape. • A powerful minority of cities have the most representation in global governance through transnational municipal networks (TMNs). • This landscape mirrors the core-periphery structure of cities in the world economy. • City power in global governance is not as polycentric and equal as literature expects, but is highly centralized. • Underrepresentation and unequal distribution of TMN benefits may create challenges for bottom-up global governance systems. • Nations that are more democratic and ratify more environmental treaties house cities with more TMN memberships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers surveyed 501 Black U.S. residents to examine the impact of listening on trust, satisfaction, commitment, and attitude toward participants' hometowns. Results indicate listening plays an important role in organization-public relationship (OPR) outcomes, and that satisfaction mediates the impact of listening on city attitude and likelihood to recommend a city. Qualitative responses reveal a tenuous relationship between Black residents and local government. Listening should be prioritized in future OPR scholarship and city government communicators' practice. • Satisfaction mediates the impact of listening on city attitude and likelihood to recommend a city. • Qualitative responses reveal a tenuous relationship between Black residents and local government. • Listening should be prioritized in future OPR scholarship and city government communicators' practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]