In an increasingly urbanized world, the concepts of ecosystem services and nature-based solutions can help tackle grand challenges. However, ambiguity in their definitions and in the relationship... Show moreIn an increasingly urbanized world, the concepts of ecosystem services and nature-based solutions can help tackle grand challenges. However, ambiguity in their definitions and in the relationship between the two concepts complicates comprehensive research efforts as well as their effective application in policy and planning in urban systems. This paper presents a framework to clarify and explicitly relate the two concepts, enhancing their applicability in the management of urban challenges. Within the framework, addressing urban challenges serves as the starting point for the development and implementation of nature-based solutions. Nature-based solutions alter the flows of ecosystem services that are produced by an ecosystem by altering the performance of the ecosystem or by changing how people engage with the ecosystem. This results both in changes in the target ecosystem services, as well as non-targeted ecosystem services, leading to benefits. Using two illustrative case studies, we show how the framework can be applied to two urban challenges that are expected to increase in intensity in cities across the world: stormwater management and urban heat stress. Moreover, we highlight key research topics that will benefit from more integrated use of nature-based solutions and ecosystem services. The framework helps emphasize co-benefits, and can be used to help make co-benefits and multifunctionality explicit in urban decision-making and planning processes. Show less
Shaev, B.; Hackett, S.; Brunnström, P.; Nilsson Mohammadi, R. 2023
The vital role that cities play in the governance of migration is increasingly recognized, yet migration scholars still perceive this ‘local turn’ as a recent phenomenon. This article presents a... Show moreThe vital role that cities play in the governance of migration is increasingly recognized, yet migration scholars still perceive this ‘local turn’ as a recent phenomenon. This article presents a cross-country and cross-city comparative analysis of three mid-size European cities during the post-war period: Bristol, Dortmund and Malmö. It analyses administrative cultures and local policy arenas, exposing the complexity of local migration policy-making and the crucial importance of historical perspectives. It reveals the inherent local variation in policies and practices, and argues that traditional national-level studies do not fully capture how urban actors responded to migration. Show less
In the nineteenth century, tens of thousands of enslaved people escaped slavery in the US South. The bulk of historiography has hitherto focused on those who left the slaveholding states in their... Show moreIn the nineteenth century, tens of thousands of enslaved people escaped slavery in the US South. The bulk of historiography has hitherto focused on those who left the slaveholding states in their endeavors to reach freedom. In reality, however, the majority of slave refugees stayed within the South. Cities of Refuge: Slave Flight and Illegal Freedom in the American Urban South, 1800-1860 is the first study to put permanent southern-internal slave flight centerstage. It investigates how and why urban spaces of freedom arose, and how refugees from slavery navigated them. The freedom these people found was of an illegal nature because it had no basis in law. Based on four major cities as case studies, this dissertation analyzes social, cultural, political, and economic processes that made illegal freedom possible. Drawing from material from Baltimore (Maryland), Richmond (Virginia), Charleston (South Carolina), and New Orleans (Louisiana), the size of the urban free black populations, degrees of urbanization, and work opportunities receive particular attention. In a nutshell, Cities of Refuge paints a nuanced picture of slavery, slave control, and freedom within the changing social geography of the American South. Show less
In October 2019, massive demonstrations took place in the streets of Santiago, Chile. The demands were varied, addressing several aspects of the acute social inequalities that characterise Chilean... Show moreIn October 2019, massive demonstrations took place in the streets of Santiago, Chile. The demands were varied, addressing several aspects of the acute social inequalities that characterise Chilean society. Protests were met with a brutally violent response by the police forces deployed to control them. What was more difficult to regulate was the explosion of graffiti and street art that accompanied the social unrest. These mobilisations speak of the repolitisation of the civil sphere through the occupation of public spaces. In this article, I propose to look at the role public spaces have played in these events not only from the perspective of public spaces as sites of political encounter and counter-hegemonic mobilisations, but mostly as borders. I contend that public spaces act as material and symbolic borders where the struggles over practices of ordering and othering take place. By looking at the history of a square in Santiago’s city center—Plaza de la Dignidad—and a selection of the graffiti in its surroundings, I explore how the square acts as a border and, in doing so, enables an alternative spatial imagination that feeds new possible political and social orders. Show less
Reflection of/on the City: Literature, Space, and Postmodernity is an interdisciplinary study of literary representations of the postmodern city. While the early 20th century was characterized by... Show moreReflection of/on the City: Literature, Space, and Postmodernity is an interdisciplinary study of literary representations of the postmodern city. While the early 20th century was characterized by the metropolis, with a high concentration of people and enterprise, the second half of the 20th century is marked by, on the one hand, a different kind of city – sprawling, flexible, to be understood in different frameworks – and on the other hand a changed usage of existing urban space. This study explores aspects of the postmodern city by looking at American literary works from the 1960s to the end of the century. These aspects are represented in literary works, of course, but my usage of these texts is explicitly geared towards looking beyond literary categories. Literary works do not only offer a reflection of, but importantly also a reflection on the city. My aim is to approach urban issues by using literature as a way of thinking about the city, which can therefore be brought together with theoretical of social scientific ways of thinking. Show less
In deze studie wordt de invloed van instituties en cultuur op het overheidsbeleid onderzocht. Aan de hand van twee case-studies naar het automobiliteitsbeleid in de steden Birmingham en München... Show moreIn deze studie wordt de invloed van instituties en cultuur op het overheidsbeleid onderzocht. Aan de hand van twee case-studies naar het automobiliteitsbeleid in de steden Birmingham en München wordt duidelijk dat lokale beleidsinstituties en culturen voor een grote mate van invloed zijn op de keuze voor het automobiliteitsbeleid. Een link wordt gelegd met de Nederlandse situatie en het thema van bestuurlijke vernieuwing. Show less
