/pdf/research-design-qualitative-quantitative-and-mixed-methods-1m92m1x5gg.pdf

Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches

As the term “smart city” gains wider and wider currency, there is still confusion about what a smart city is, especially since several similar terms are often used interchangeably. This paper aims to clarify the meaning of the word “smart” in the context of cities through an approach based on an in-depth literature review of relevant studies as well as official documents of international institutions. It also identifies the main dimensions and elements characterizing a smart city. The different metrics of urban smartness are reviewed to show the need for a shared definition of what constitutes a smart city, what are its features, and how it performs in comparison to traditional cities. Furthermore, performance measures and initiatives in a few smart cities are identified.

Smart Cities: Definitions, Dimensions, Performance, and Initiatives

Models that depict innovation as a smooth, well-behaved linear process badly misspecify the nature and direction of the causal factors at work. Innovation is complex, uncertain, somewhat disorderly, and subject to changes of many sorts. Innovation is also difficult to measure and demands close coordination of adequate technical knowledge and excellent market judgment in order to satisfy economic, technological, and other types of constraints—all simultaneously. The process of innovation must be viewed as a series of changes in a complete system not only of hardware, but also of market environment, production facilities and knowledge, and the social contexts of the innovation organization.

An Overview of Innovation

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Comparison of adjuvant gemcitabine and capecitabine with gemcitabine monotherapy in patients with resected pancreatic cancer (ESPAC-4): a multicentre, open-label, randomised, phase 3 trial

A toolkit for assessment

Recent studies of urban morphology, suggest the design, layout and texture of district centres, neighbourhoods and buildings have as much a bearing on levels of energy consumption and rates of carbon emission as either buildings or their occupation. They suggest urban morphology matters and both the design, layout and texture of district centres, neighbourhoods and buildings are as significant in setting levels of energy consumption and rates of carbon emission as the occupation and use of such structures. This paper aims to reiterate this message and demonstrate how urban morphology does matter. Not only with respect to the geometry (i.e. surface and volume of the building design typologies), construction systems, or occupational behaviours, that such studies drawn particular attention to, but with regards to a matter which they have hitherto overlooked. That is with regards to the potential which the planning, (re)development, design and layout of district centres and their neighbourhoods as context-specific transformations have, to not only lower levels of energy consumption and rates carbon emission, but mitigate the climate change associated with the occupation and use of buildings. In meeting this aim and demonstrating how urban morphology does matter, the paper shall draw upon the experiences of a transformation taking place in the London Borough of Sutton known as the Hackbridge project: a mass retrofit proposal designed as a sustainable suburb with distinct centres, neighbourhoods and buildings, laid out and contextualised as an energy efficient-low carbon zone.

/pdf/demonstrating-how-urban-morphology-matters-reaching-beyond-1lzopp2qbo.pdf

Demonstrating How Urban Morphology Matters: Reaching Beyond the Geometry of Building Design, Construction Systems and Occupational Behaviours and Towards Broader Context-Specific Transformations

The bibliometric analyses and extensive literature review presented in the previous chapters demonstrate the presence of a deep-rooted division in the research on smart cities, which surfaces as a set of dichotomies questioning whether smart city development should be based on a (1) technology-led or holistic strategy, (2) double- or quadruple-helix model of collaboration, (3) top-down or bottom-up approach, and (4) monodimensional or integrated intervention logic. These dichotomies suggest divergent hypotheses on what principles need to be considered when implementing strategies for enabling smart city development. This generates a critical knowledge gap that this chapter starts filling by reporting on the findings of a multiple case study analysis that is conducted into European best practices. The validity of the hypotheses emerging from each dichotomy is tested by analyzing four European cities considered to be leaders in the field of smart city development. The results of this best practice analysis offer critical insight into what strategic principles drive smart city development in Europe and generate scientific knowledge that helps to start overcoming the dichotomous nature of smart city research.

Smart city development in Europe

The directory of environmental Assessment methods

1. Introduction Ron Vreeker, Mark Deakin, Stephen Curwell Part 1: The Toolkit 2. The Toolkit for Assessment Andy Hamilton, Steve Curwell, Gordon Mitchell and Philip James Part 2: Assessment 3. Scenario analysis in spatial impact assessment Francesca Torrieri and Peter Nijkamp 4. Multi-criteria evaluation and planning support: choosing among alternative scenarios Andrea de Montis and Sabrina Lai 5. Mixed and compact land use assessments Ron Vreeker 6. SMARTNET: a system for multi-criteria appraisal of road transport networks Gordon Mitchell and Anil Namdeo 7. The NAR model of land use and buildings Mark Deakin 8. The building passport assessment Andreas Blum 9. The European HQE^2R sustainable neighbourhood assessment Andreas Blum, Marcus Grant, Antonella Grossi 10. The REGEN Assessment of the Porta Nuova District's Central Railway Station Patrizia Lombardi 11. Assessment methods underlying the planning and development of Modena City's CSR Patrizia Lombardi and Stefano Stanghellini Part 3: Evaluating the Sustainability of Urban Development 12. The search for sustainable communities: ecological integrity, equity and the question of participation Mark Deakin 13. Governing the Sustainable of Urban Development Krassimira Paskaleva-Shapira 14. Conclusions Ron Vreeker, Mark Deakin, Stephen Curwell

Mark Deakin

Papers

A toolkit for assessment

Demonstrating How Urban Morphology Matters: Reaching Beyond the Geometry of Building Design, Construction Systems and Occupational Behaviours and Towards Broader Context-Specific Transformations

Smart city development in Europe

The directory of environmental Assessment methods

The toolkit for assessment