GSD Scholarly Articles

The effects of metro system development and urban form on housing prices are highly depend on the spatial temporal conditions of the urban neighborhoods. However, scholars have not yet comprehensively examined these interactions at a neighborhood-scale. This study assesses metro access, urban form, and property value at both district- and neighborhood-levels. The study area is Pudong, Shanghai where metro system development has coincided with rapid urban growth. Two hundred and seventy-nine neighborhoods from 13 districts of Shanghai are randomly selected for the district-level investigation and 31 neighborhoods from Pudong are selected for neighborhood-level investigation. The analysis of variance shows that metro access is more positively correlated to property price in Pudong than other districts. The Pearson correlation, principle component, and ordinary least square regression analyses show that while accessibility attributes have positive influence on housing prices, neighborhood characteristics also exhibit pronounced impact on property price change over time. The present study extends our knowledge on how metro system development interacts with land use efficiency and discusses planning policies that correspond to different stages of development.

This study used latent class analysis to classify adolescent home neighborhoods (n=344) according to built environment characteristics, and tested how adolescent physical activity, sedentary behavior, and screen time differ by neighborhood type/class. Four distinct neighborhood classes emerged: (1) low-density retail/transit, low walkability index (WI), further from recreation; (2) high-density retail/transit, high WI, closer to recreation; (3) moderate–high-density retail/transit, moderate WI, further from recreation; and (4) moderate–low-density retail/transit, low WI, closer to recreation. We found no difference in adolescent activity by neighborhood class. These results highlight the difficulty of disentangling the potential effects of the built environment on adolescent physical activity.

During the pandemic, many older adults faced social isolation and disruptions in access to food, medical care, and supportive services. In response, organizations that support older people improvised solutions to address these challenges. This report, co-authored with The Hastings Center, examines how these responses, most of which were intended to be temporary, might improve housing and supports for older adults and address longstanding inequities.

The effectiveness of urban master plans in limiting development in a disaster-prone area of China was empirically investigated by measuring cities’ land-cover changes against their master plans. If a master plan serves as guidance for urban polices that reduce property loss from earthquakes, floods, landslides,land subsidence, and rises in sea level, it will substantially limit urban development in areas at risk from environmental hazards. An environmental risk map weighted toward valuable forms of land cover was generated using geospatial databases of China’s Yangtze River Delta region. Based on this data, the effects of five master plan measures—ring-road patterns, block size, the area of urban built-up lands, the locations of industrial sites, and preservation zoning—were tested using the multiple regression method. Cities showing a high degree of compliance, in particular with preservation zoning, had a smaller amountof urban land located in high-risk zones, on average, by 14 km2. Among the top ten cities exposed to disproportionately high risks, eight were towns and only two were cities like Huzhou and Kunshan.

Climate change may increase the frequency and intensity of ozone episodes in future summers in the United States. However, only recently have models become available that can assess the impact of climate change on O3 concentrations and health effects at regional and local scales that are relevant to adaptive planning. We developed and applied an integrated modeling framework to assess potential O3-related health impacts in future decades under a changing climate. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Goddard Institute for Space Studies global climate model at 4 degrees x 5 degrees resolution was linked to the Penn State/National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model 5 and the Community Multiscale Air Quality atmospheric chemistry model at 36 km horizontal grid resolution to simulate hourly regional meteorology and O3 in five summers of the 2050s decade across the 31-county New York metropolitan region. We assessed changes in O3-related impacts on summer mortality resulting from climate change alone and with climate change superimposed on changes in O3 precursor emissions and population growth. Considering climate change alone, there was a median 4.5% increase in O3-related acute mortality across the 31 counties. Incorporating O3 precursor emission increases along with climate change yielded similar results. When population growth was factored into the projections, absolute impacts increased substantially. Counties with the highest percent increases in projected O3 mortality spread beyond the urban core into less densely populated suburban counties. This modeling framework provides a potentially useful new tool for assessing the health risks of climate change.

Landscape Architecture and Planning have long used visual simulations for design ideation and communication, but the complex demands of the twenty-first century will require more than simply visual simulations; dynamic simulations across a spectrum of scientific, social and perceptual issues will be key to effective design in the future. The new science and art of ‘geodesign’ promises to harness digital and computational technologies, from Geographic Information Sciences (GIS) and remote sensing to software engineering and algorithmic design, in the service of imagining, designing, simulating, implementing, and evaluating better environments, worldwide, enabling collaborative design informed by scientific knowledge. Landscape ecology, engineering, and other disciplines have contributed non-visual, and sometimes non-static, analyses to the repertoire of impact assessment in natural systems management, transportation, energy, and urbanization projects, etc., but these additions are mostly still of limited scope and complexity. The interrelated nature of natural systems at all scales is still only becoming apparent to us and to the scientific community, as the recent interest in ‘biocomplexity’ and ‘systems thinking’ demonstrates (e.g. NSF Biocomplexity initiative). Increasingly, geodesign projects will need to incorporate systems thinking across all aspects of the process, be informed by the findings of biocomplexity research, and make maximum use of multi-scale dynamic simulations in the process of evaluating impacts of proposed designs

Woody plants and evidence of browsing were measured on eight reclaimed strip mines in Maryland and West Virginia to see whether revegetation patterns differed adjacent to concave, straight, and convex forest boundaries. Two clonal species predom- inated (Rubus allegheniensis and Robinia pseudoacacia), followed in abundance by three wind-dispersed species (Fraxinus americana, Acer rubrum, Betula lenta), and a variety of animal-dispersed species. Mine transects adjacent to concave forest boundaries had 2.5 times as many colonizing stems as those next to convex boundaries. Stems of colonizing species extended > 61 m from concave boundaries, but rarely > 13 m from convex bound- aries. Stem density of all the common animal-dispersed species was correlated with their abundance in the adjacent forest edge, whereas no relationship existed for Robinia or the wind-dispersed species. Evidence of browsing was greater adjacent to concave boundaries than opposite convex boundaries. These strikingly different colonization patterns appear to be primarily the result of the immigration process interacting directly with shape as a spatial characteristic. Through time, a "concave-convex reversal" in boundary form is evident. This results from a "cove concentration effect" where the greatest boundary ex- pansion rate is in coves being colonized. Almost all patterns next to straight boundaries were intermediate between those opposite concave and convex boundaries. We conclude that boundary form may exert a powerful control over adjacent ecosystems in a landscape. This presents significant opportunities for planning and managing surface mines and other colonizing areas.

This study demonstrates how to design pores in building materials so that incoming fresh air can be efficiently tempered with low-grade heat while conduction losses are kept to a minimum. Any base material can be used in principle, so long as it can be manufactured with millimeter-scale air channels. The channel-pores are optimized according to the thermal conductivity of the base material, the dimensions of the panel, and the suction pressure sustained by a given fan or a chimney. A water circuit is integrated at the interior surface to ensure direct thermal contact and prevent radiant discomfort. Correlations from the thermal sciences literature were used to optimize the size and distribution of channel-pores in wood, glass, and concrete test panels. The measurements showed good agreement with theory and were presented in a general form so that designers can predict the steady-state performance of any optimal design in sensible heat-transfer mode. Schlieren imaging was used to characterize the different regimes of mixed convection at the interior and exterior surface. The data explain the discrepancy between prediction and measurement in the dynamic insulation literature, and how the integrated water circuit overcomes these problems. Surface heat-flux measurements were correlated in a general form so that designers can account for convection at the interior and exterior surface.

For more than a century the idea of building new towns has captured the imagination of urban planners. Britain has been a centre of both theory and practice, particularly in the early years of the planned-town idea and in the golden period of new-town development from the Second World War to the middle of the 1970s (Forsyth and Peiser, 2020; Wakeman, 2016). While in the last decades of the twentieth century such developments became less common globally, a recent resurgence of activity in Asia, and increasingly elsewhere, has brought new attention to the type. Even the UK has announced a new round of garden-style developments (UK Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government, 2018; National Health Service England, 2018).

Objectives: This article explores how the building-scale built environment is associated with self-rated health, examining differences in this association among younger, middle-aged, and older age groups. Features examined included building type, building condition, and sidewalk presence in front of dwellings.

Background: Understanding how the relationships between built environments and health vary across age groups helps to build a healthy environment for all. However, most studies have concentrated on the neighborhood or indoor environment, rather than whole buildings, and few have compared age groups.

Methods: This study analyzed survey data from 1,019 adults living in 40 neighborhoods in Chengdu, China, recruited through a clustered random sampling approach. It used a Bayesian logistic mixed-effects model with interaction terms between age-group indicators and other variables.

Results: Significant differences exist in the relationships of self-rated health with some environmental and other indicators among age groups. For older people, living in multi-floor buildings, having a household smoker, and undertaking fewer hours of weekly exercise were associated with lower odds of reporting good, very good, or excellent health. These relationships were not identified among middle-aged and younger people. More education was associated with higher odds of reporting better health among older and middle-aged groups.

Conclusions: Older people experience more health-related challenges compared to middle-aged and younger people. However, among the examined built environment factors, building type was the only significant factor related to self-rated health among older people. To promote health among older people, this study recommends adding elevators in the multi-floor buildings.

How do older people’s living environments influence their vulnerabilities to climate change? Much has been written about the physiological consequences of climate change for older individuals, particularly the dangers of increased incidence of severe heat. Less is known about how older people’s residential settings moderate their exposure to climate stressors, their particular sensitivities to the effects of climate change, or their capacities to respond to extreme events or adapt to long-term environmental changes. Drawing on literature in English, with a focus on work relevant to the United States, we examine how the housing, neighborhood, and urban or rural contexts in which older people live shape their experiences of climate change, moderating their exposure to risks related to climate change, sensitivity to those events and trends, and their capacities to adapt and recover. Older people face multiple life changes, making prioritizing climate readiness more challenging. They are also diverse, with different vulnerabilities and perceptions of risks and the ability to manage them. This paper lays out an agenda where additional research can inform policy and planning efforts aimed at reducing older individuals’ risk and building the capacity to adapt to climate change. The agenda includes understanding specific vulnerabilities and how older people and their housing providers are already responding.

We investigated how climate change could affect ambient ozone concentrations and the subsequent human health impacts. Hourly concentrations were estimated for 50 eastern US cities for five representative summers each in the 1990s and 2050s, reflecting current and projected future climates, respectively. Estimates of future concentrations were based on the IPCC A2 scenario using global climate, regional climate, and regional air quality models. This work does not explore the effects of future changes in anthropogenic emissions, but isolates the impact of altered climate on ozone and health. The cities’ ozone levels are estimated to increase under predicted future climatic conditions, with the largest increases in cities with present-day high pollution. On average across the 50 cities, the summertime daily 1-h maximum increased 4.8 ppb, with the largest increase at 9.6 ppb. The average number of days/summer exceeding the 8-h regulatory standard increased 68%. Elevated ozone levels correspond to approximately a 0.11% to 0.27% increase in daily total mortality. While actual future ozone concentrations depend on climate and other influences such as changes in emissions of anthropogenic precursors, the results presented here indicate that with other factors constant, climate change could detrimentally affect air quality and thereby harm human health.