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2018 Environment and Urbanization ASIA
This article understands, from an empirical perspective, the determinants of carbon emissions, using internationally comparable data, and cross-national regressions for India and China. Next, it explores the relationship between urban land use regulations and carbon emissions in India’s cities.Urbanization has no impact on carbon emissions per capita or per unit of geographical area. Electricity consumption in China and electricity produced from coal in India have a positive effect on carbon emissions. GDP per capita has a positive effect in India and not so in China, but per capita GDP squared has a negative impact on emissions in both the countries.Does this imply that urbanization should be ignored in the two countries? The answer is no, because a city’s urban form, to which policy contributes, is correlated with carbon emissions. More suburbanized cities which sprawl more also emit more carbon. India’s land use regulations relating to building height restrictions are conservative, hence Indian cities sprawl, which lead to carbon emissions. Hence, the focus of urban policy has to be on the development of compact cities. The article concludes with caveats of the data.
Sen, Salil K.; Ongsakul, Viput
2018 Environment and Urbanization ASIA
Issues on competitiveness and sustainability frame the configuration of urbanization in Asia Pacific. The unpredictability and intermittency of extreme climate and weather events exacerbate the economic, societal and environmental sustainability of urban habitats. This exigency configures this article on the need to review the climate-proof finance for disaster-resilient infrastructure. Climate-change-triggered migration is rapidly growing, particularly in Asia. This article uses the complexity and sustainability viable systems model (VSM) to gauge the multiplicity of parameters on vulnerability of disaster-prone infrastructure. The assurance on sustainability while maintaining competitiveness is corroborated with the tenets of VSM utilizing the top-down–bottom-up alignment of disaster-proof financing. Outcomes of this article articulate the equilibrium between competitiveness and sustainability, as economic considerations outweigh the need for disaster-proof financing of infrastructure.
Van Long, Nguyen; Cheng, Yuning
2018 Environment and Urbanization ASIA
Located in the centre of the Mekong Delta (MD), Can Tho City (CTC), with a development history of more than three centuries, has affirmed its strategic position as an interregional centre. The city on Hau river is blessed by nature with the identity of a delta landscape associated with riverine dynamics. First, this article presents the development history of CTC, and the correlation between its urbanization history and the existing characteristics of the urban landscape. Then, this study further analyses challenges in urban development, assessing existing water infrastructure and opportunities of current urban and rural landscapes. Finally, urban landscape design strategies have been discussed to suggest improved resilience of the city with flood management in the context of climate change.
Mehrotra, Surabhi; Bardhan, Ronita; Ramamritham, Krithi
2018 Environment and Urbanization ASIA
Urbanization leads to the densification of built-up areas, and thereby increases surface heat island intensity which is one of the growing concerns in the rapidly urbanizing cities. Another notable aspect of cities like Mumbai is the uncontrolled growth of informal slum housing clusters, which have emerged as a significant urban built form in the landscape of cities. This study presents a case of Mumbai that aims to explore the linkages between slum housing—here referred as ‘slum urban form’ (SUF)—and surface urban heat island (SUHI) supported by spatial-statistical analysis. The magnitude of the impact of urban form on SUHI, measured by land surface temperature (LST), is examined using Cohen’s d index, which measures the effect size for two groups—SUF and ‘formal’ housing—on LST. The results confirm a ‘large’ effect indicating a significant difference in mean LST between the two groups. The spatial analysis reveals a statistically significant spatial clustering of LST and SUF (p-value < 0.05), and bivariate local indicator of spatial association (LISA) confirms that the spatial association of SUF is surrounded by ‘high’ LST (Moran I: 0.49). The exploratory spatial analysis indicates that the contribution of SUF in elevating SUHI intensity is more than the formal housing areas and has increased vulnerability to heat stress. The results were validated on the ground using environmental sensors, which confirms the susceptibility of SUF to heat stress.
Das, Diganta; Safini, Haslindah
2018 Environment and Urbanization ASIA
This research is an attempt to examine the everyday experiences of water insecurity among poor women in urban India. Their everyday living around a limited amount of water was captured visually to exhibit local idioms of struggling. There is empirical evidence that the narratives of becoming a global city often exacerbate the presence of social polarization and inequality in cities of the Global South. This includes unequal access to water, especially among subordinate groups. Drawing from fieldwork conducted in Hyderabad and Bangalore on water insecurity, the findings show that the impacts of water insecurity are highly gendered and contentious. It is in the landscape of gender division of labour that women have to negotiate their everyday lives around water. Deploying photography as the primary method, this article demonstrates the social dimension of water insecurity and the impact on women’s lives who bear the majority of domestic water issues. It is concluded that lack of efforts by the state and its agencies to improve understanding of the lived experience of water insecurity would aggravate the water issues in urban India and leave poorer urban women to be highly water insecure.
2018 Environment and Urbanization ASIA
This article investigates the housing process of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. The study is an attempt to explain how these minority ethnic groups are filtered and trapped in the private rented housing sector in inner city enclaves. Focus group and in-depth interviews are used to study the low-income Pakistani and Nepalese migrants in two districts in Hong Kong. Affordability, discrimination and locational consideration draw the Pakistani and Nepalese families towards the private rented sector in tenement slums. A model of enclave tenement trap is built based on empirical research conducted in Hong Kong. The model and findings provide directions for civil society institutions and housing policy.
Begum, Halima; Heywood, Philip Richard; Susilawati, Connie
2018 Environment and Urbanization ASIA
This research highlights how the strength of a group of mobilized slum dwellers was harnessed to bring in change in their housing condition. The community, with active support from a non-government organization, was able to develop housing for themselves. The article demonstrates that assisted community housing as an approach is capable of offering a sustainable housing development solution in a resource-constrained country like Bangladesh. The article aims at examining the context and the process, and identifying the operational barriers, and it explores future prospect of this approach in a specific context. Through elaborating on the community efforts, the article sheds lights on the difficulties that were encountered by the NGO and the community, making this a shared struggling experience. It identifies that with a few policy-level interventions and changes in operational practices of different government agencies, a supportive environment can be created which will foster NGO’s stewardship to making this approach produce more equitable, efficient, affordable and, above all, sustainable housing development for the urban poor.
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