Zoekresultaten

The Different Faces Of The Urban Digital Economy

What will a shopping street look like in 2025, when online shopping continues to show double-digit growth? And what will 3D printing do to factories and logistic companies, when we can ‘print’ more and more products at home or around the corner?The digital economy is one of the most pervasive game changers in cities. It creates and destroys, and affects the way cities function in many ways. But what is exactly the digital economy about? How big is it? Which types of transformation is it provoking in urban economies? And, importantly, what can local governments do to cope with the digital transition and foster sustainable urban development?

Utilising urban or street culture to develop future-proof cities: a practice approach.

Utilising urban or street culture to develop future-proof cities: a practice approach.

Social street work: An substantiated explanation model of methodic acting

Background and purposeWithin Northwest European Welfare states, there is a growing need for all social work professions to substantiate their work with research. The earliest notions of social street work origins from the end of the18th century by the British Salavation Army (Mikkonen et al., 2007). In the Netherlands it’s introduced from the United States (1960s), as a response to individuals and groups hanging around. Social street work is a low threshold and professional form of being there, performed in surroundings and situations where the target group is. It focusses on contact-making and staying in contact with individuals and marginalised groups, who otherwise are hard to reach, have lost their connection with society and have multiple problems. It’s a high appreciated practice, but it lacks a method that is substantiated with research (Morse et all, 1996; Kirkpatrick, 2000). In this paper we will present conceptual model of the method of social street work, that’s substantiated with experiences from professionals and the target group.MethodThis paper is based on a combination of literature review, document analysis, Delphi Method and an online questionnaire among the target group. The research is conducted at Streetcornerwork in Amsterdam. Streetcornerwork is the only organization in the Netherlands that provides social street work, since WWII. They employ 175 professional social street workers and has 43 years of experience in social street work.First, a theoretical model of social street work is developed bases on literature review, analyses of documents of the establishment (1970-1990)of social street work (Netherlands) and different attempts to describe the method (1991-2017). Second, the explanation model is strengthened with data from the online questionnaire among 1600 clients of Streetcornerwork. Third, the Delphi Method is used to validate the model with the tacit knowledge of 24 professionals.ResultsThe result is a conceptual model of the method of social street work that is substantiated with experiences from professionals and the target group. Characteristic is that it’s an open approach in contact with the target group which is highly dependent on context and has unpredictable character (Metz, 2016 , Andersson, 2011).The method social street work consists of 14 methodic principles,. Social street work contributesto the development of self-insight and general life skills, the restoration of the social network and the improvement of living conditions and the well-being of the target group. We also gain insight in the experienced contribution of social street work from persons in the environment of the target group (client system, neighborhood and institutional environment). This experienced contribution of social street work at theenvironment is divided into the direct contribution and the implicated contribution through the target group.Conclusions and implicationsThis conceptual model of the method of social street work contributes to a body of knowledge. We made tacit knowledge explicit and we can legitimize the profession of social street work. Because research is done in close collaboration with street workers, it also contributes to the development of their work.

Understanding and predicting the occurrence of void street interfaces.

Void street interfaces (VSIs) – building plinths with restricted visual interaction, accessibility, and public use – constitute an urban feature often associated with undermining the public domain, limiting free access and preventing interaction between social groups. Moreover, VSIs have been described as products of inequality designed to segregate and hinder integration between public and private urban spaces. This study assesses VSIs across six cities in Brazil, a country notable for its profound inequality and sociospatial fragmentation. The main aims of this research are: (i) to develop and test a predictive model for VSIs using socioeconomic indicators drawn from open-source ground-truth data; (ii) to identify the variance of VSI within selected case studies. In the development phase of the predictive model, data from the city of Recife are used to build the model. The testing phase involves the analysis of VSIs in the cities of Fortaleza, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba and Porto Alegre. The model can potentially assist urban planners in better understanding and locating VSIs and mitigating undesirable outcomes.

The Environment in the Lead:

Currently, there is no method available that can systematically score the available ecosystem services in streets or street segments in suburban districts. In this study, different climate adaptation measures and their ecosystem services were categorized into green, blue, and grey categories and weight was given to each category based on their impact on the microclimate. This study took place in the Hillesluis district in the city of Rotterdam and the Paddepoel district in the city of Groningen. In Rotterdam, 21 streets, composed of 42 street segments, were assessed. In Groningen, 17 streets, composed of 45 street segments, were assessed. The available ecosystem services of each street segment were scored from 0–100. The scorecard method that was developed and tested during this study provided insight in the variation of available ecosystem services of streets and street segments. Individual street scores were very low in the city of Rotterdam and ranged between 3 and 50, with the average score for the street segments of 29. In Groningen, the scores were considerably higher with a range between 23 and 70, with an average score of 47 per street segment. The presence of larger green trees, front yards, and façade gardens in the green category are the most distinctive variable, while adaptation measures in the blue category were absent in both cities. The scorecard proved to be very useful in the adaptation labeling of street segments and entire streets. After assessing a neighborhood, the least adaptive streets can be identified relatively easy. Based on the score a label can be given between A+++ and G. The scorecard informs residents and decision makers about which streets are most adaptive and which streets have an adaptation potential. The method can easily be duplicated and used by local governments and community groups to have better insight in the level of climate adaptation of their street. Labels for entire streets can be used to create awareness and encourage residents to take action and expand the number of climate adaptation measures in their street.