The links between urban planning and health are many and varied. Environmental, social and economic conditions in cities can have both positive and negative influences on human health and centre. Urban planning and related professions play an important role in shaping those conditions. Healthy Cities and the City Planning process is a background paper supporting the developmental work of the WH...

Ecosystem services (ES) in cities and surrounding suburban areas are one of the major factors which guarantee quality of life. Most studies directly referring to urban ecosystem services are conducted on a local scale or for selected cities. There are few studies which focus on temporal changes of the provision of ecosystem services across a large number of cities. This paper analyzes selected ...

A LONG-STANDING BELIEF in development studies holds that, on the whole, living conditions in developing countries are superior for residents of large cities than for persons living in smaller cities, towns, and villages. The concept of big cities as " islands of privilege " (Harrison 1982: 145) is fundamental to otherwise discrepant theories of modernization, dependency, world systems of cities...

Introduction: Framing the Analysis This chapter is concerned with the long-term sustainability of cities. My starting premise is that because of accelerating global ecological change, cities everywhere are facing unprecedented challenges to their functional integrity and even survival. Unprecedented challenges require unprecedented solutions. In keeping with this reality, I depart from most urb...

Among the adaptive-grid methods, redistribution and embedding techniques have been the focus of more attention by researchers. Simultaneous or combined adaptive techniques have also been used. This paper describes a combination of adaptive-grid embedding and redistribution methods on semi-structured grids for two-dimensional invisid flows. Since the grid is semi-structured, it is possible to us...

In this study an attempt has been made to assess the potential of land as a municipal financing tool in four Indian cities, to enable better public service delivery and attainment of the MDGs. The institutional arrangements for land use are fragmented in India’s cities between the urban development authorities, which are state agencies, and the cities. To determine whether or not transfer of re...

This paper investigates whether Japanese banks followed herd behavior in lending in local financial markets during 1980—1999. By using loan data from Japanese banks, arranged by geographical area, we find leader-follower relationships between lending behavior of different types of banks. Specifically, herding is mostly caused by local banks. Local banks follow major banks in urban cities, while...

By leveraging advancements in information and communications technology (ICT), Smart Cities offer many potential benefits like improved energy efficiency, management and personal security. However, this dependence on ICT also makes smart cities prone to cyber attacks. In this paper, we investigate the topic of cybersecurity for smart cities. We show how the specific characteristics of smart cit...

BACKGROUND Hypertension has been recognized as a health concern for developing countries. However, there are no current nationwide surveys on the prevalence of hypertension in China (the latest nationwide survey was ten years ago). The goal of this study was to estimate the pooled prevalence of hypertension in Chinese cities. METHODS We systematically reviewed published epidemiologic studies ...

With the trend toward greater urbanization and the rapid emergence of mega-cities continuing unabated, many policy makers ask themselves whether some cities are becoming too large, and whether policies should be aimed at stimulating the growth of intermediate-sized cities. In this chapter we use a simple model of a system of cities, together with some basic urban and aggregate data, to answer s...