What is this publication about?In this publication on ‘New urban economies’, we search for answers and insights to a key question: how can cities foster economic development and develop ‘new urban economies’. And, importantly, how can they do that:◗ in concertation with different urban stakeholders, ◗ responding adequately to key challenges and developments beyond their control, ◗ building on the cities’ own identity, industries and competences, ◗ in a sustainable way, ◗ and without compromising weaker groups.
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This paper discusses the potential application of procedural content generation to a game about economical crises, intended to teach a large general audience about how banks function within a market-guided economy, and the financial risks and moral dilemmas that are involved. Procedurally generating content for abstract and complex notions such as inflation, market crashes, and market flux is different from generating spatial maps or physical assets in a game, and poses several design challenges. Instead of generating these kinds of phenomena and other macro-economic effects directly, the designers aim to let them emerge from automatically generated game mechanics. The game mechanics we propose include generic business models that can be parameterized to model the behavior of companies in the game, while the player controls the actions of a bank. What makes generating these game mechanics particularly challenging is the interaction between phenomena at different levels of abstraction. Therefore, relevant economic concepts are discussed in terms of design challenges, and how they could be modeled as emergent properties using generative methods.
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Europe’s urban economies do not look the same as ten years ago. And in ten years from now,they will again be different. The digital revolution is particularly disruptive: entire sectors are being transformed, old playersare losing out, newcomers are taking over, and competition is fiercer than ever. At the same time, citizens are not just workers in companies, but many become independent entrepreneurs, and active producers.Innovation is becoming open, involving interaction between companies, universities and users. Working, living and recreation become intertwined in place and time.
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Supermarkets are essential urban household amenities, providing daily products, and for their social role in communities. Contrary to many other countries, including nearby ones, the Netherlands have a balanced distribution of supermarkets across villages and urban neighbourhoods. However, spatial supermarket patterns, are subject to influential developments. First, due to economies of scale, there is a tendency for supermarkets to increase their catchment areas and to disappear from peripheral villages. Second, supermarkets are now mainly located in residential areas, although the urban periphery appears to be attractive for the retail sector, perhaps including the rise of hypermarkets. Third, today, online grocery shopping is still lagging far behind on other online shopping products, but a breaks through will dilute population support for in-store supermarkets and can lead to dramatic ‘game changer’ shifts with major spatial and social effects. These three important trends will reinforce each other. Consequences are of natural community meeting places at the expense of social cohesion; reduced accessibility for daily products, leading to more travel, often by car; increasing delivery flows; real estate vacancies, and increasing suburban demand increase for retail and logistics. Expected changes in supermarket patterns require understanding, but academic literature on OGS is still scarce, and does hardly address household behaviour in changing spatial constellations. We develop likely spatial supermarket patterns, and model the consequences for travel demand, social cohesion and real estate demand, as well as the distribution between online and in-store grocery shopping, by developing a stated preference experiment, among Dutch households.
The expanding world’s population challenges the way we produce and supply food. The ever-increasing production of food and its subsequent generated biomass forms immense risks to the environment and, eventually, public health. Aside from developing innovative food production methods (hydroponics, non-toxic pesticides, resistant species), the generation of waste biomass remains a challenge. Large volumes of food waste are processed in animal food, biofuel or used as a composting source, while these by-products are valuable sources of bioactive compounds (BACs). The processing of fruits and vegetables generates a variety of biomass such as peels, seeds and pulp that contain high-value compounds such as polyphenols. These BACs are implemented in pharmaceutical products or food supplements for their beneficial influence on human health, such as antioxidant or anti-inflammatory properties. The valorization and extraction of these compounds originating from agricultural waste streams is a key strategy for recycling and reusing food waste and, subsequently, reducing the environmental impact caused by waste streams. Additionally, the ability to further process food waste into valuable compounds can provide an extra source of income for the agricultural sector, supporting local economies. Local pharmaceutical companies are interested in developing methods to extract BACs from local sources since the current market is strongly dependent on the Asian market. Phytopharma finds the production of local food supplements crucial for the local circular economy and their sustainable business. During this project, the consortium partners will investigate sustainable extraction methods of BACs from local waste streams (duurzame chemie: bronnen en grondstoffen). More specifically Zuyd, CHILL and Phytopharma will pursue the “green” extraction of quercetin (BACs) from locally sourced onion waste. The partners will explore various extraction and purification methods needed to evaluate a potentially sustainable business model. Furthermore, the bioavailability of quercetin will be enhanced by encapsulation.
