The annual Esri Young Scholars Award is for local college students to research topics of their choice using a geographic information system (GIS). Both individual and group category champions this year are from the Department of Geography and Resource Management, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), while the University of Hong Kong (HKU) won seven awards, the most among all institutions. The research topics are quite varied with four excellent books on urban planning.

The group category champion composed of four CUHK students: Bao Wen Wei, Li Wen Yu, Luo Hao Wen, Zeng Bin Cheng Joyce worked on the project Redevelop Our Brownfield Sites: Evaluation of planning scenarios for development modern logististic industry on brownfield sites in the New Territories.

The logistics industry is one of Hong Kong’s four traditional pillars. It is scattered mainly in the New Territories, but the lack of land has limited its development. At the same time, the northern metropolitan area has been identified as the new development area. Students study how to make the most of space to promote and modernize the logistics industry. They assessed 11 existing and potential land use categories, such as cold chain storage, dangerous goods storage, etc., from seven angles such as economic value and environmental impact, and formulated recommendations based on land use and characteristics.

According to the students, GIS integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into the urban planning process can make informed decisions. Planners can not only adjust assessment variables such as geographic and socio-economic factors, but also specific weightings for each objective with reference to the needs of their plans. For example, the team identified the spatial characteristics of different types of logistics land use in their analysis: the cold chain for fresh produce and pharmaceuticals should be close to highways; dangerous goods must be kept away from residential areas; and port logistics must be closer to the coast and the ports. The model also benefits future brownfields and other land development. Not surprisingly, some judges praised the work “truly an excellent, innovative, topical, important and well-executed study with significant results that can guide the Northern Metro project.”

The other three excellent works on land use are all from the Planning and Design Department of HKU. They are:

• Smart Redevelopment: Adequacy of Public Amenity Supply for Private Redevelopment Projects, 1st Runner Up in Individual Category by Chu Chit Hei, Sebastian. He suggests that the government recognize and promote the importance of private development in providing planning gains, in addition to increasing the supply of housing and improving the living environment.

• Mong Kok Urban Renewal: Based on the analysis of urban dynamics, the 1st runner-up in the group category by a team of six HKU students: Cai Zhongyu, Chen Boran, Hui Chun Yin, Lu Zhi Mao, Ng Chun Hin and Peng Jingyi. Referring to examples from other cities as well as an analysis of spatial characteristics, the group proposes a citizen and public participatory approach to perfect the Urban Renewal Authority’s redevelopment proposal.

• The development of Smart Environment in Hong Kong by Chan Yi Man in the individual category won the Best StoryMap Design award. The project explores solutions to improve green buildings.

The subjects of three other award-winning works are:

• Analysis of the relationship between MTR travel record and COVID disease by Huang Hanting, Hsu Ya-cheng, Yan Junchen of HKU;

• How BIM and GIS technologies can be integrated and applied in construction facility management by Fok Chun Fung of the Department of Construction and Surveying, Faculty of Construction and Engineering, Vocational Education Council;

• Coastal Defense and Taxation: Military Qing and Hong Kong Checkpoint in the 19th Century by Chan Hoi Yuet, Chiu Sin Him, Fung Kai Leung, Ngai Ching Yy and Sze Kuen Yung from the History Department of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Hong Kong Baptist University. This subject is quite unique, the book presents several maps of Hong Kong 200 to 300 years ago, it is very interesting.

Finally, I would like to warmly thank the judges for their hard work. The 17 members include 11 professors from seven universities and colleges, directors of three professional bodies and three public organisations. The strong team of judges makes the results more representative.

— Contact us at [email protected]

Dr Winnie Tang

Adjunct Professor, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering; Department of Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences; and Faculty of Architecture, University of Hong Kong

The theme of the World Cities Summit 2022 is “Livable and Sustainable Cities: Emerge Stronger”. It will be a four-day event from July 31 to August 3, 2022.

The Covid epidemic had practically shut down the Cities of the world, to such an extent that a huge population was not only incarcerated out of legitimate fear, but that economic and social life became untenable. Millions have lost their livelihoods. Billions of dollars have been eroded by businesses, especially airlines and those totally dependent on tourism like Sri Lanka. Somehow, saving his life was the priority.
Out of this scenario, leaving behind a bad dream but not the thought and will to face such an eventuality again, today Sunday will see the congregation of a large, focused group of business leaders, mayors, governments and delegates from various regions of the world, at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Singapore, to attend the 8th edition of the World Cities Summit (WCS). It will be a four-day event from July 31 to August 3, 2022.

The theme for WCS 2022 is “Livable and Sustainable Cities: Emerge Stronger”.
Summiteers will discuss issues relating to livable and sustainable cities, exchange integrated urban solutions, present case studies and also create new partnerships, as well as the first-ever WCS Smart Cities workshop. This is a global biennial conference hosted by Singapore and co-hosted by the Center for Livable Cities Singapore and the Urban Redevelopment Authority. Strategic partners include the World Bank and several United Nations agencies, including ESCAP.
Corroborated by the World Health Organization, almost 91% of the world’s population lives in areas where the air quality exceeds recommended standards, which has a negative effect on human health and the environment. One solution is a new generation of bus shelters with foam-covered roofs, which helps improve air quality for passengers and provide a natural cooling system and has become an effective solution to urban heat islands in many regions of the world.
Likewise, smart data-driven traffic management solutions have not only become essential tools for transport authorities, they are also essential for reducing congestion and reshaping the ways in which safer cities are planned and developed.
Over the next few decades, the number of buildings in the world is expected to double. Urban experts and opinion leaders are concerned about the massive construction boom and its environmental impact. It remains to be debated how accurate carbon data will reduce environmental effects and balance with sustainability.
June 5 was World Environment Day, June 8 was World Ocean Day. From raising awareness and encouraging action on the climate crisis to revitalizing the ocean and managing human activities sustainably, the idea will be discussed during the plenary session titled “Livable and Sustainable Cities: Combating the climate crisis”.
The previous virtual summit in October 2021 brought similar interactions as an evolving process of redefining priorities and agendas, to make cities more livable and hospitable to residents.
Thus, while discussing that global cities need equity, climate action and a focus on citizens.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham had stressed that the vulnerabilities of low-income people should matter to everyone “Inequality mattered before the pandemic, but I think the pandemic has made it clear why it really matters. It is clearly difficult for people without secure employment to protect their own health. But it also affects everyone else’s health.
Mr. Ngatcha Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of International Affairs and La Francophonie remarked “Cities are strong when they learn from each other and guarantee good practices”. He cited examples of Paris’ actions towards a green recovery, which was the construction of hundreds of new cycle links, the planting of 170,000 trees and the renovation of 5,000 homes to reduce poverty and improve access to cleaner heating solutions.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, invited by the hosts to attend the summit, was expected to present the case for the capital and its improved school education system, which means a lot to its huge population.
Pak Sandiaga Uno, Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Indonesia believes that “tourists in the post-pandemic era will have much higher expectations in terms of cleanliness, health, safety and environmental sustainability. Many millennials traveling to Bali want to engage in tourism activities that offset the carbon they used to travel to Bali. According to him, tourist destinations will have to respond to the growing ecological demands of the public and prioritize the well-being of their tourists and citizens.
Mayor Burnham also observed that the average workweek now looks different given the mix of remote and in-person work, necessitating a rethink of the space. One of the lessons of the Covid pandemic is the pressing question of how to build cities that not only help residents live, but help engage as healthy, happy individuals. City and industry leaders are therefore likely to express confidence in prioritizing flexible, people-centred, nature-based interdisciplinary approaches to city planning.
Regarding the happiness quotient and not forgetting Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan, Professor Lam Khee Poh, Dean of the NUS School of Design and Environment in Singapore, said: “Happy people tend to be healthier because of their lifestyle choices. A healthy city must therefore create inspiring and conducive physical and social environments to support such choices. Thus, the focus must be on the people that cities are built to accommodate and serve.
Brian Yang, partner and architect at Bjarke Ingels Group of New York and Copenhagen, believes we need to reconsider how social bonds are formed and strengthened in times of disruption. During Copenhagen’s lockdown, bakeries, squares and parks became important spaces that allowed residents to always feel connected to one another. It supports the importance of community-centered design, highlighting Maison 8, an experiment aimed at extending street life into buildings, while creating a “unique sense of community and intimacy, but with the density and programming of an urban perimeter block”. .
Professor Lam Khee Poh (Dean School of Design & Environment National University of Singapore) believes he asks his students to navigate Singapore’s housing blocks with wheelchairs, as part of his experiential learning pedagogy: “Once they’ve done that, they never forget!”
When thinking about livable cities, the idea also comes from encouraging flexible and cross-cutting approaches to development. Limited resources can thus be maximized and old infrastructure can be reallocated. Cities must ultimately be resilient to climate change.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday called for the decentralization of urban planning saying it should be done at state level while stressing the need to focus on satellite towns to ease the pressure on big cities.

“Urbanization will occur and populations in cities will increase. Mayors must ensure that their cities have economic opportunities. The Union budget has focused on urban planning. It is important to ensure that planning is decentralized. Not everything can be done from Delhi,” he said in his virtual address to a gathering of Bharatiya Janata Party mayors and deputy mayors in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

He called for the creation of economic opportunities in tier two and three cities to make them centers of economic activity to ease the pressure on big cities and for an urban development roadmap for the 25 coming years to set the tone for sustainable development.

He cited his experience in developing satellite towns when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat and said transport services were provided in the 40-50 km zone around Ahmedabad to develop smaller towns.

Modi spoke about the potential of small towns as economic hubs. “In addition to satellite cities, we need to focus on tier two and tier three cities, as they can also be centers of economic activity. Most start-ups are now created in tier two and tier three cities… This will ease the pressure on big cities and economic opportunities in these places will be created. We should also increase industrial clusters in these places and understand what opportunities there are to explore.

Modi called for standardization of urban planning and capacity building and an end to occasional and ad hoc planning. “If you plan well, you will get good results. We need to be transparent in decision-making and focus on how urban local bodies can become self-sufficient. »

Modi, who has lobbied for public participation in campaigns for cleanliness and resource conservation since becoming prime minister in 2014, asked mayors to focus on raising awareness of infrastructure spending. He said school students in particular should be made aware of public infrastructure spending to create a sense of responsibility.

Modi called for the need to draft policies for street vendors. “Small roadside vendors serve the city the most and drive the economy. Do we have a plan for them?

He asked mayors to encourage vendors to use PM SVANidhi, which seeks to facilitate unsecured working capital loans. Modi called for the need to change habits and bring about behavioral changes.

“…some people clean their houses and leave rubbish in front of other people’s houses; it must change. We must teach them to save electricity, water, pay taxes on time and undertake cleanliness campaigns. It will take a lot of hard work, but mayors can do it easily,” he said. He added that not everything requires money and most of the work can be done through public participation.

Modi asked mayors to focus on solid waste management and come up with science-based solutions to global warming. He called for competitions to be held to judge the beautification of cities and said there should be city museums documenting history.

“If we had been political about the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav [celebrating 75 years of India’s independence] we would have created a pillar or a victory monument or a gate to commemorate Independence… But what we have done is create bodies of water because it will serve humanity. This is how we will commemorate our independence and also create things for the future.

SINGAPORE – By 2028, Austria’s capital, Vienna, will have a campus that will house different religious communities, where interreligious dialogues will be held.

The campus is part of Aspern Seestadt, a new urban development area that was among the city’s initiatives that helped it land the 2020 Lee Kuan Yew World City Award.

“Vienna aims to provide the best possible conditions for mutual understanding and cooperation between religious communities,” the city’s mayor, Dr. Michael Ludwig, said Monday (August 1) at the World Cities Summit, where he spoke about the ongoing initiatives to make Vienna more livable, dynamic and sustainable.

Vienna’s victory was announced in March and Dr Ludwig will receive the award on Monday evening from President Halimah Yacob at the Istana during a banquet dinner.

The jury’s citation for the award – jointly organized by the Urban Redevelopment Authority and Singapore’s Center for Liveable Cities and sponsored by Keppel Corporation – commended Vienna for “reinventing itself to succeed in the 21st century without losing its distinctive identity as a capital of culture, music and history”.

The jury cited Aspern Seestadt as a recent example of Vienna’s commitment to affordable housing, which began in the mid-19th century.

Dr. Ludwig said Monday that about 62% of city residents live in city-owned or city-subsidized apartments, which has helped keep prices within reach. Green spaces are also close at hand – the town aims to have all residents within 250m of one in the future.

He added that in addition to planning for the future, the city is actively trying to address two current challenges: climate change and energy shortages.

Vienna aims to be carbon neutral by 2040, he said. To achieve this, it is investing €1.2 billion (S$1.7 billion) in solar panels and also has a geothermal energy project.

Dr Ludwig said residents are also involved in decision-making and their input is sought on climate issues.

“Local residents were invited to submit their own ideas for climate projects,” he said. “They are the experts in their own neighborhood and know best what to do.”

By Marie Wong, Ph.D.

The Chinatown-International District (CID) faces one of the most potentially (and probably) most devastating urban planning disasters with the four light rail alignments that are proposed with the expansion of Sound Transit 3 (ST3) . At a July 28 Sound Transit meeting, their announcement of a preferred lineup was temporarily delayed until early 2023 pending further study and to “fully understand [the] community concerns. This is not a decision that can be made as a simple land use equation of how each of these alignments can be technically constructed, nor should it be. The decision affects a neighborhood of people whose lives, generational family histories and livelihoods are deeply rooted and invested in the buildings and geography of this part of the city that is their “home”. CID is NOT just a Seattle neighborhood. It is what remains of a once much larger pan-Asian and multi-ethnic core of downtown south.

For more than 160 years, Seattle’s Asian American community has been coerced, evicted, forced to relocate, and have had their land holdings reduced by political decisions that have combined the interests of economic development with environmental racism. The history of projects that have been built on land occupied by Asian Americans shows us that the neighborhood has suffered and been diminished by the effects of redevelopment and transportation projects. Living in the CID is not a matter of ethnic resilience on the part of business owners and residents, as has been romantically touted in popular literature, but rather it is a real and ongoing struggle with considerable effort to maneuver through a gauntlet of years of collateral damage from planning decisions.

This list of damaging projects for Seattle’s Asian American core is extensive and condensed in this commentary, but includes the construction of the NP Railroad Tunnel (1904, which leveled much of the early location of Chinese and Japanese homes and businesses) , the construction of Union Station (1910-11, which removed Chinese and Japanese homes and businesses in a building now occupied by Sound Transit), the Jackson/12th/Dearborn Street re-levellings (1907-09, which moved or removed Chinese and Japanese homes, churches, and businesses), the extension of 2nd Avenue (1926-28, which devastated what remained of early Chinatown buildings), construction of the first Yesler Terrace (1939- 41, which removed the homes of 127 Japanese families, five Chinese families and 20 married and single Filipino residents as part of the 22-acre redevelopment), selection of the route of the I-5 (1957-63, which created a wide chasm of land dividing the neighborhood and removing hotels/homes and businesses), building the Kingdome (1972-76, which threatened businesses and disrupted traffic and parking in the CID), the Ozark Hotel Ordinance (1970-77, which closed the majority of hotel residences and, in combination with the I-5 project, resulted in the loss of over 3,000 public housing units in the CID), the reclassification of Japantown (2011, which increased the value of land for redevelopment), construction of the First Hill Streetcar (2008-16, two years late in opening with Jackson Street businesses losing 30-50% of revenue, and organizations service providers losing 70% of clients needing their services), and HALA and the Mandatory Housing Affordability Act (2014-17, as a tandem adoption that improved the majority of neighborhoods outside of the historically designated core neighborhood).

Redevelopment and relocation is underway, with much higher market rate rents creating an impetus for gentrification. The aforementioned events were all local decisions and do not begin to address the federal government’s blatant discriminatory actions and policies against Asian Americans, such as a series of Chinese Exclusion Acts (1882, 1884, 1892 , 1902), the Immigration Act of 1924, the illegality of the incarceration of Japanese Americans by Executive Order 9066 during World War II (1942-1945), and the Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934) which reclassified American Filipinos from U.S. nationals to foreigners.

One need only investigate the ramifications of each of these historic actions to see the damage that has been done to the residents of the neighborhood. Each of these projects took much longer than any of their respective estimates scheduled for completion and the swath of destruction was much larger than expected. In all of these historic actions, and with the ST3 proposal now, we are presented with the fallacy that businesses or community residents will return after the project is completed. It didn’t happen and it won’t happen, especially when you’re talking about a projected absence of 10 years. Common sense tells us that these displaced businesses will not stay in a decade of uncertainty waiting for a return to be “somewhere” in the neighborhood. The DEIS includes residential units that will be closed to occupancy during construction, but not those that will be “assigned”. The story should, at a minimum, include the 349 rental housing units in the CID that are adjacent to the alignments, and the families that will experience dust and noise pollution and construction disruptions. Residents are unlikely to endure this voluntarily for more than a decade.

What is most shocking and ironic is that some of the landmark projects took place after the city adopted the Racial Equity Toolkit (RET) in 2009, which aimed to bring about social justice and to elevate the voices of neighborhoods that historically have not received fair representation in urban decisions. Sound Transit is responsible for including this element in the DEIS, and they acknowledged it, but there is no evidence that RET was included in a thoughtful and careful application in route selection. Holding meetings to tell the community what is going to happen is a far cry from listening and working with community input. By the 1960s, activists and planners had already embraced the importance of “self-determination”, which meant that the community was a full active participant in making decisions about its own future. Contemporary urban planning must recognize and act with this as a starting premise, because it is a fact that no one knows a neighborhood as well as the people who live and work there.

A new apartment building under construction in 2017 near the Chinatown Gate in Portland. (Photo by Marie Wong)

Across the United States, Chinatowns are the neighborhoods experiencing the most gentrification, redevelopment, and the largest percentage increase in rising rents in American cities. These Asian American communities are also losing the quality of what it is to be a “living” neighborhood of residents and businesses that are integrally woven with the Asian American heritage of the community, and with social service agencies supports that act as a welcoming place for new immigrants. . Seattle still has some, and it’s worth taking a stand to keep them rather than risk losing the whole neighborhood, as happened in Portland’s historic downtown Old Town/Chinatown district of Portland, Oregon.

Festival Market Street Chinese palm trees with Louie’s house in the left foreground and the Oregon CCBA building in the middle of the block. (Photo by Marie Wong)

With Chinese-American businesses that were once scattered over more than 70 city blocks in the largest geographic Chinatown in the United States, Portland’s central Chinatown has been plagued by a relentless wave of redevelopment projects. One of these projects was a streetscape plan which was approved in 2001, the construction of which began in March 2005 and was completed at the end of September 2006. It was a corridor project improved transportation to help connect the downtown business district and was a major investment that would help revitalize the neighborhood. Sound familiar? The revitalization plan included a festival market street with Chinese windmill palms and 125 new street trees in what was already a badly diminished and damaged 10-block Chinatown with a few Asian American urban remnants scattered around. Conversational blogs noted that the rescue of Chinatown was happening, but unfortunately at the expense of the Chinese. As the project progressed, businesses closed due to pedestrian and vehicular access issues, the sluggish redevelopment period, and loss of footfall.

Sign for the Hung Far Low restaurant which has been restored and hung up at 4th and Couch in Portland. The restaurant moved to the Pearl District but eventually closed in 2015 due to high rents. (Photo by Marie Wong)

In 2017, newspaper accounts noted that most of Portland’s Chinese businesses had moved to the new “Jade District” about seven miles from downtown. The Hung Far Low restaurant had moved there in 2005 after being in Chinatown for 77 years, citing urban renewal and construction disruption as reasons for leaving. In January 2018, the House of Louie restaurant in Portland’s historic Chinatown closed after 30 years in business. It was the last remaining dim sum restaurant in the tiny Chinatown that was once home to a dozen Chinese restaurants. Potential developers have expressed interest in prime real estate and a few small businesses have moved into the historic Japantown/Chinatown area. Remnants of Portland’s Chinatown include the Oregon Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association Building (1911), the Lan Su Chinese Garden (2000), and the Chinese Museum (2018). The Gateway to Chinatown (1986) marks the entrance to these and the ghosts of what was once a vibrant community of Asian American businesses, homes, and social organizations.

After this redevelopment project was completed, 20 bronze plaques were placed on the newly poured sidewalks, each displaying different Chinese plants and historical information about what once stood in the Portland Chinatown neighborhood. Each plaque is a beautiful piece of urban art. But the markers also serve as ominous reminders of the community cost being paid for decades of poor planning decisions, as these plaques lie like headstones in a cemetery.

Marie Wong is Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning and Asian American Community Development at the University of Seattle.

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