The global homogenization of urban form. An assessment of 194 cities across time

Lemoine-Rodríguez, Richard; Inostroza, Luis; Zepp, Harald

doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.103949

Cited by 85 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Kampala is one of the most populated cities in GLR region, and is growing in a fragmented-complex way [ 126 ], with urban expansion partly accompanied with densification [ 127 ]. Fast urbanisation and climate change accompany complex and changing land-lake-atmosphere interactions, requiring city planners and policy makers to carefully determine the direction of their urban growth strategies and consider the cooling effect provided by greenspace and bluespace.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How urbanisation alters the intensity of the urban heat island in a tropical African city

2021

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Due to the combined effects of urban growth and climate change, rapid urbanisation is particularly challenging in African cities. Areas that will house a large proportion of the urban population in the future coincide with where natural hazards are expected to occur, and where hazard risk management institutions, knowledge, and capacity are often lacking. One of the challenges posed by rapid urbanisation is the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, whereby urban areas are warmer than the surrounding rural areas. This study investigates urbanisation patterns and alterations in surface UHI (SUHI) intensity for the Kampala urban cluster, Uganda. Analyses show that between 1995 and 2017, Kampala underwent extensive changes to its urban built-up area. From the centre of the city to adjoining non-built up areas in all directions, the urban land cover increased from 12,133 ha in 1995 to 25,389 ha in 2016. The area of SUHI intensity in Kampala expanded significantly over the 15-year period of study, expanding from 22,910 ha in 2003 to 27,900 ha in 2016, while the annual daytime SUHI of 2.2°C in 2003 had decreased to 1.9°C by 2017. Although SUHI intensity decreased in some parts of the city, elsewhere it increased, suggesting that urbanisation does not always lead to a deterioration of environmental conditions. We postulate that urban development may therefore not necessarily create an undesirable impact on local climate if it is properly managed. Rapidly growing cities in Africa and elsewhere should ensure that the dynamics of their development are directed towards mitigating potentially harmful environmental impacts, such as UHI effect through careful planning that considers both bluespaces and greenspaces.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How urbanisation alters the intensity of the urban heat island in a tropical African city

2021

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“…Urban densification, i.e., the increase in the ratio of dwelling units or people per land area [11] to accommodate population growth, is therefore a major component of compact city policies. Several environmental, economic, and social benefits are claimed to result from urban densification, including decreasing car dependency, more efficient public transport systems, lower energy use and lower environmental impact on surrounding ecosystems [12,13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Going Green and Going Dense: A Systematic Review of Compatibilities and Conflicts in Urban Research

Madureira

Monteiro

2021

Sustainability

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The dilemma of simultaneously promoting the advantages of urban densification and urban liveability, namely the environmental and social benefits of urban green spaces, has been widely acknowledged in the research literature. This paper aims to provide an overview of the current state of evidence on benefits, conflicts and challenges emerging from fostering both urban densification and urban greening aims. A systematic review following the PRISMA guidelines was conducted. Searches for peer-reviewed papers were conducted in Scopus and Web of Science. Our search yielded an initial 357 papers, which were then further sorted and screened to the 117 manuscripts retained and included in this review. The authors systematized the multiple perspectives in which the interactions between urban densification and urban greening have been explored. Moreover, the results revealed a lack of clear agreement about the existence or not of conflicts emerging from fostering both urban densification and urban greening aims, suggesting that the positive or negative interactions are not absolute but depend on the scale or the context on which the studies are conducted. Further research should explore multiple potential mediating variables (e.g., the mediator effect of scale and context) to deepen our understanding of interactions between density and greening.

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“…Yet despite this focus on cities as a critical scale for climate change management, we know very little about most cities on the planet (Creutzig et al, 2019;Demuzere et al, 2020a).The right data at the right scale are an essential prerequisite for developing fit-for-purpose urban planning policies (Georgescu et al, 2015). In addition, identifying the evolution of urban systems in time and space is crucial towards sustainable urban development (Lemoine-Rodríguez et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent years, the global urban extent and urban growth has been mapped at finer and finer detail (e.g. Pesaresi et al, 2013;Esch et al, 2017;Gong et al, 2020), but these efforts need to be complemented by a wider range of information-rich intra-urban classes that describe different types of urban land covers and land uses (Demuzere et al, 2020a;Lemoine-Rodríguez et al, 2020). The Local Climate Zone (LCZ) typology is a good example of such classification scheme (Stewart and Oke, 2012;Ching et al, 2018;Reba and Seto, 2020), providing a landscape approach that can distinguish urban surfaces on a holistic basis, accounting for the typical combination of micro-scale land-covers and associated physical properties (Demuzere et al, 2020a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-temporal LCZ maps for Canadian functional urban areas

Demuzere¹,

Mihara²,

Redivo³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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This study explores the multi-temporal Local Climate Zone mapping of large functional urban areas in Canada (Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg), for seven census years between 1986-2016. While this has been done before by a few others, none of these studies go back that far in time, nor apply the approach on as many urban functional areas and intermediate years.

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The global homogenization of urban form. An assessment of 194 cities across time

Cited by 85 publications

References 46 publications

How urbanisation alters the intensity of the urban heat island in a tropical African city

How urbanisation alters the intensity of the urban heat island in a tropical African city

Going Green and Going Dense: A Systematic Review of Compatibilities and Conflicts in Urban Research

Multi-temporal LCZ maps for Canadian functional urban areas

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