• Title/Summary/Keyword: Cities and Communities

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Sustainable Buildings - or Sustainable Cities?

  • Schwettmann, Mark
    • International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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    • v.4 no.2
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    • pp.103-107
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    • 2015
  • China's rapidly growing cities offer a unique opportunity to create highly sustainable communities. Architects and their clients, typically real estate developers, are highly focused on strategies that are effective at reducing energy and water usage at the scale of the individual building or within a master plan of multiple related buildings. However, a closer look at energy consumption reveals that transportation uses more energy worldwide than residential and commercial buildings combined. In light of this, it is appropriate that China is making massive investments in transportation infrastructure like heavy rail rapid transit and grade separated expressways, but the end result of these investments to date has been to enable people to live further from where they work and shop rather than closer - while simultaneously not creating walkable communities. Using positive and negative examples from Asia and the rest of the world, this article will investigate the specific urban design policies such as height limits, setbacks, land use restrictions, parking ratios, and parcel size which might change to enable the creation of truly sustainable communities for China's 21st century.

Social Determinants of COVID-19 in Massachusetts, United States: An Ecological Study

  • Hawkins, Devan
    • Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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    • v.53 no.4
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    • pp.220-227
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    • 2020
  • Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess how different social determinants of health (SDoH) may be related to variability in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) rates in cities and towns in Massachusetts (MA). Methods: Data about the total number of cases, tests, and rates of COVID-19 as of June 10, 2020 were obtained for cities and towns in MA. The data on COVID-19 were matched with data on various SDoH variables at the city and town level from the American Community Survey. These variables included information about income, poverty, employment, renting, and insurance coverage. We compared COVID-19 rates according to these SDoH variables. Results: There were clear gradients in the rates of COVID-19 according to SDoH variables. Communities with more poverty, lower income, lower insurance coverage, more unemployment, and a higher percentage of the workforce employed in essential services, including healthcare, had higher rates of COVID-19. Most of these differences were not accounted for by different rates of testing in these cities and towns. Conclusions: SDoH variables may explain some of the variability in the risk of COVID-19 across cities and towns in MA. Data about SDoH should be part of the standard surveillance for COVID-19. Efforts should be made to address social factors that may be putting communities at an elevated risk.

Children and Adolescents' Assessments of Child Friendly Cities (아동 친화적인 도시에 대한 아동.청소년의 인식)

  • Hong, Seung-Ae;Lee, Jae-Yeon
    • Korean Journal of Child Studies
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    • v.32 no.2
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    • pp.53-70
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    • 2011
  • Child Friendly Cities (CFC) is a framework for action with the aim of implementing the UN CRC led by local government in an urban context. A number of surveys with 755 children and adolescents were conducted in order to assess the community's child-friendliness level of Seoul. The results of this study were as follows : 1) Comprehensive assessment of the city's child-friendliness was overall seen to be negative. 2) In regards to the city's child-friendliness, the assessments of Children were more positive than those of the adolescents. 3) Boys assessed the city's child-friendliness more positively than girls. 4) The children and adolescents living in more wealthy communities assessed the city's child-friendliness more positively than those living in poorer areas. This study suggested that a local action plan for the Child Friendly Cities must be implemented to fulfill the CFC standards.

Study on an Integrated System using an ER Diagram for Chungcheong Rural Communities

  • Jang, Hyeon Seok;Park, Hyung keun
    • International conference on construction engineering and project management
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    • 2015.10a
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    • pp.693-694
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    • 2015
  • While urban regeneration projects are currently under active execution in several old cities in Korea, there are few projects to improve the quality of life of rural communities. Considering the decline of the SOC system, deterioration of housing, and degeneration of economic feasibility, the purpose of this study is to provide solutions to realize an improved economic and social environment of rural communities through an integrated management system for traffic safety and water management systems. Therefore, this research used an Entity-Relationship Diagram to construct an integrated system for traffic safety and water management systems for Chungcheong rural communities. The ERD is prepared by depicting 7 relationships for 13 entities, including traffic accidents and agricultural products, and 26 attributes, including soil moisture and underflow storage. Consequently, it will be possible to set up a decision-making support system that can analyze and evaluate the regeneration index, technology, and management of the systems for Chungcheong rural communities, based on supplier and user perspectives

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Perception of Community Family-Friendliness among Parents with Young Children in Urban and Rural Areas (도시화 규모에 따른 미취학자녀 부모의 지역사회 가족친화성 인식 : 대도시, 중소도시, 농어촌의 비교)

  • Yoo, Jae-Eon;Chin, Meejung
    • Journal of Families and Better Life
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    • v.30 no.6
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    • pp.39-51
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    • 2012
  • This study aims to find the association between community scales and perceived community family-friendliness among parents with young children. Communities were identified into three groups: metropolitan, small and medium-sized cities and rural, according to the degree of urbanization. The data were drawn from a sample of 1,038 parents who had at least one pre-school child. The data were analyzed by frequencies, means, GIS, ANOVA, and multiple regressions. This study compared the level of community family-friendliness both at the 'dong' and 'si' levels after controlling for the individual and household characteristics of the respondents. The findings of this study are as follows. First, after controlling for individual and household factors, the level of perceived community family-friendliness differed by the community scales. The parents in the small and medium-sized cities had higher scores on community family-friendliness than their counterparts in metropolitan communities. And parents in rural communities received had lower scores in community family-friendliness than those in metropolitan communities. The results also showed similar patterns for the 'dong' and 'si' models. While job and housing type were associated with the perceived family-friendliness of the community, other characteristics such as sex, age, educational level, monthly household income and home ownership were not.

Defining the Patterns and Factors of Urban Crime in Korean Cities Based on the Analysis of Social Statistical Data

  • Chang, Dong-Kuk;Shim, Jae-Choon;Park, Joo-Hee
    • Architectural research
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    • v.14 no.2
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    • pp.45-56
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    • 2012
  • The high rate of urban crime is a main issue that needs to be dealt with in this high-tech society. With the rapid increase of urban crime, research has mainly focused on topics either on a global or a local scale, such as cities or communities and houses or buildings, without reliable observational data. This study makes the best use of the nationwide surveys carried out by Korean government agencies for the analysis of urban crime patterns and factors in major Korean cities. The aims of this research are threefold: understanding the relationship between urban crime patterns and socio-economic differences in cities, determining the effect of residence types on the urban crime patterns; and uncovering potential influential factors of a crime victim's individual characteristics. The statistical methods used for the analysis of social statistical data are as follows: simple regression, logistic regression, one-way ANOVA and post-hoc test. This research found that the patterns of urban crime rate in cities have a certain tendency toward the cities' socio-economic and geographical differences. The residence type is an influential factor showing a close relation to the crime rate. Personal issues, such as the types of occupation, education, marriage, etc., are directly relevant to victims of crime.

A Study on the Planning of Agropolis Framework (농업혁신도시의 표준 프레임워크 도출에 관한 연구)

  • Choi, Soo-Myung;Kim, Young-Joo
    • Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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    • v.11 no.4 s.29
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    • pp.17-24
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    • 2005
  • The sustainable development of local communities is faced with limitation due to poor infrastructure and lack of cooperation among stake-holders. To overcome such circumstances and thus to ensure balanced development of the local communities, the central government is driving construction of innovative cities mainly through transfer of public institutions to local cities. In this study, to contribute to the development of plans for the future agropolis' associated with the transfer of public institutions, efficient organization mechanisms of the agropolis such as basic structure and spatial allocation was examined through analyses of advanced cases(Sophia Antipolis, St. Hyacinthe Science Part Food Valley, Stoneleigh Park) of foreign countries. The analyses showed that the organization of agropolis were consisted of three main components; 1) agricultural and food industry complex conducting R&D, 2) service facilities(information, trade, consulting and advertisement) supporting agricultural and food industries and rural enterprise center in charge of a variety of events including exhibition, rural experience, education, and contest, 3) silver facilities such as hospital and town providing medical service and residence. Based on the results, inventories of facilities which are necessary in 'the future agropolis' and their spatial allocation were suggested.

A Comparative Study on the Case of Wide-area Autonomous Communities's Special Accounts Operation for Distressed Region Development (낙후지역 발전을 위한 광역자치단체 특별회계 운영 사례 비교연구)

  • Lee, Sung Jae;Kim, Hyeong O
    • Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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    • v.19 no.3
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    • pp.649-672
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    • 2012
  • The government established Special Accounts for Balanced National Development in 2005, and the Metropolitan Council has enacted and executed ordinance relevant to special accounts to relieve regional unbalanced growth and to promote regional balanced growth. This study derived a political implication through the comparison analysis of the background of establishment and its purpose, the selection criteria of support target, finance scale and tax revenue finance, appropriation target and finance distribution, etc. on the basis of Chungcheongnam-do Special Accounts for Balanced Development and Jeollabuk-do Eastern part Special Accounts among the special accounts implemented in metropolitan council. The major conclusions of this study are as follows. First, the transition from the concept of balanced development to specialized development is necessary for the development of distressed region. Second, the pure wastefulness ratio of the local government's tax revenue finance of special accounts designed concentrating upon special accounts for Wide-area Autonomous Communities development should be gradually expanded. Third, Special Accounting budget should be supported to promote specialized development through the selection and concentration centering around comparatively advantageous resource within the region. Fourth, the strategic special accounts budget application system of cities and counties to utilize the projects of the government and the province to achieve the goal of cities and counties should be prepared.

Plans to Strengthen Children's Rights for the Creation of Child Friendly Cities by Local Governments: The Conversion of Child Welfare Paradigms into Universal Welfare (지방정부의 아동친화 도시 조성을 위한 아동권리 강화 방안 : 보편적 복지로서의 아동복지패러다임의 변환)

  • Choi, sun-kyung
    • The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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    • v.5 no.2
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    • pp.313-319
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    • 2019
  • Recently, policies of metropolitan councils and primary local governments are diversely developing for the creation of child friendly cities. This study attempts to deal with implications that discussions on child friendly cities, which are recently becoming issues of local communities, have as a form of universal welfare on dimensions of child welfare along with discussions of the direction to which those implications can be applied. For this, this study was conducted largely in three parts. First, it observes the contents of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which is the spirit and basic foundation of child friendly cities and through this, it examines child welfare paradigms as a universal form of welfare and second, it observes the historical origin of child friendly cities that have modern significance along with the main characteristics of child friendly cities, and third, it explores methods with which to apply locality based community resource connections that currently exist to policies of child friendly cities.

An Analytical Study on Reading Behavior of School Children (아동의 독서실태조사)

  • Kim Byong Ju
    • Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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    • v.8
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    • pp.157-182
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    • 1981
  • The purpose of present study is to investigate children's attitude toward reading, reading method, reading environment, reading volume, and then to compare the results obtained by sex, area and grade. The tool used in this survey was a questionaire designed specially by the investigator. The questionaire was distributed to 1339 children selected at the descretion of the investigator with due consideration of sex, area(large city, medium city and rural community) and grade (from 2nd grade of primary school to 2nd year of middle school). The results of this study are summerized as follows : 1) Regional difference was observed in respect of the followiug : Awareness on reading, motivation for reading, reading method, activity after reading, number of books collected, reading guidance, how to obtain books to read, monthly reading volume, and reading tendency. 2) Also difference by grade was observed in respcet of the following ; Activity after reading, reading guidance, monthly reading volume and reading tendency. The following conclusions have been made based on the results of the survey: 1) The children's attitude toward reading and reading method may be considered favorable while reading environment is not satisfactory yet. Especially, reading environment of school children in medium cities and rural communities is worse than that of large cities. 2) No difference by sex was observed in respect of attitudes toward reading, reading method, reading environment and reading volume while difference by sex was observed in respect of reading tendency. The followings are recommended based on the results of survey: 1) To establish and carry out a comprehensive program for the improvement of reading environment of the school children in medium cities and rural communities. 2) To improve and substantiate school library facilities and design a proper guidance program to have children utilize school library to the maximum extent. 3) To contemplate on the consolidated measures for reading behavior survey.

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