From global scaling to the dynamics of individual cities.

Scaling has been proposed as a powerful tool to analyze the properties of complex systems and in particular for cities where it describes how various properties change with population. The empirical study of scaling on a wide range of urban datasets displays apparent nonlinear behaviors whose statistical validity and meaning were recently the focus of many debates. We discuss here another aspect, which is the implication of such scaling forms on individual cities and how they can be used for predicting the behavior of a city when its population changes. We illustrate this discussion in the case of delay due to traffic congestion with a dataset of 101 US cities in the years 1982-2014. We show that the scaling form obtained by agglomerating all of the available data for different cities and for different years does display a nonlinear behavior, but which appears to be unrelated to the dynamics of individual cities when their population grows. In other words, the congestion-induced delay in a given city does not depend on its population only, but also on its previous history. This strong path dependency prohibits the existence of a simple scaling form valid for all cities and shows that we cannot always agglomerate the data for many different systems. More generally, these results also challenge the use of transversal data for understanding longitudinal series for cities.

Cleveland Versus the Clinic: The 1960s Riots and Community Health Reform.

During the 1960s, cities across the United States erupted with rioting. Subsequent inquiries into its sources revealed long-simmering discontent with systemic deprivation and exploitation in the country's most racially segregated and resource-scarce neighborhoods. Urban medical centers were not exempt from this anger. They were standing symbols of maldistribution, cordoned off to those without sufficient economic means of access. In this article, I examine the travails of the world-famous and prestigious Cleveland Clinic after the 1966 riot in the Hough neighborhood on the East Side of Cleveland, Ohio. After years of unbridled expansion, fueled by federal urban renewal efforts, the riots caught the Clinic's leadership off guard, forcing it to rethink the long-standing insularity between itself and its neighbors. The riots were central to the Clinic's programmatic reorientation, but the concessions only went so far, especially as the political foment from the riots dissipated in the years afterward. The Cleveland experience is part of a larger-and still ongoing-debate on social obligations of medical centers, "town-gown" relations between research institutions and their neighbors, and the role of protest in catalyzing community health reform.

Temporal Dynamics of the Driving Factors of Urban Landscape Change of Addis Ababa During the Past Three Decades.

Mapping and quantifying urban landscape dynamics and the underlying driving factors are crucial for devising appropriate policies, especially in cities of developing countries where the change is rapid. This study analyzed three decades (1984-2014) of land use land cover change of Addis Ababa using Landsat imagery and examined the underlying factors and their temporal dynamics through expert interview using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Classification results revealed that urban area increased by 50%, while agricultural land and forest decreased by 34 and 16%, respectively. The driving factors operated differently during the pre and post-1991 period. The year 1991 was chosen because it marked government change in the country resulting in policy change. Policy had the highest influence during the pre-1991 period. Land use change in this period was associated with the housing sector as policies and institutional setups were permissive to this sector. Population growth and in-migration were also important factors. Economic factors played significant role in the post-1991 period. The fact that urban land has a market value, the growth of private investment, and the speculated property market were among the economic factors. Policy reforms since 2003 were also influential to the change. Others such as accessibility, demography, and neighborhood factors were a response to economic factors. All the above-mentioned factors had vital role in shaping the urban pattern of the city. These findings can help planners and policymakers to better understand the dynamic relationship of urban land use and the driving factors to better manage the city.

"Honey, Milk and Bile": a social history of Hillbrow, 1894-2016.

This commentary constructs a social history of Hillbrow, an inner-city suburb in Johannesburg, South Africa, based on a review of relevant published historical, anthropological and sociological texts. We highlight the significant continuities in the social structure of the suburb, despite the radical transformations that have occurred over the last 120 years.Originally envisaged as a healthy residential area, distinct from the industrial activity of early Johannesburg, Hillbrow was a prime location for health infrastructure to serve the city. By the late 1960s, the suburb had been transformed by the rapid construction of high rise office and apartment buildings, providing temporary low cost accommodation for young people, migrants and immigrants. In the 1980s, Hillbrow defied the apartheid state policy of racial separation of residential areas, and earned the reputation of a liberated zone of tolerance and inclusion. By the 1990s, affected by inner-city decay and the collapse of services for many apartment buildings, the suburb became associated with crime, sex work, and ungovernability. More recently, the revitalisation of the Hillbrow Health Precinct has created a more optimistic narrative of the suburb as a site for research and interventions that has the potential to have a positive impact on the health of its residents.The concentration of innovative public health interventions in Hillbrow today, particularly in the high quality health services and multidisciplinary research of the Hillbrow Health Precinct, creates the possibility for renewal of this troubled inner-city suburb.

Why Europe has never been united (not even in the afterworld): The fall and rise of cremation in cities (1876-1939).

An intriguing paradox emerges in the history of disposal of the dead in Europe: the countries (Italy, Germany, England, and Scotland) where, in the last quarter of the 19th century, cremation was introduced first, were the last ones to see the diffusion of cremation as a mass phenomenon. The contrary was true where-for instance, in Switzerland and in Denmark-the start of cremation was initially delayed. Here the growth was very fast. To explain this puzzling enigma, I propose to abandon the usual nation-level approach and take cities as appropriate units of analysis. So, a database on presence or absence of crematoria and on trends in "annual cremation by death ratios" in the European cities with more than 5,000 inhabitants before 1939 was completed for an analysis of patterns of the early emergence of cremation and change of cremation rate at a local level.

Large-Scale Urban Riots and Residential Segregation: A Case Study of the 1960s U.S. Riots.

Despite a well-established literature investigating race-related predictors of riot incidence, the racial aftermath of riots remains unexamined. In this study, I use the 1960s U.S. race riots to investigate trends in black residential segregation levels following large-scale riot activity in seven major U.S. cities. I use a novel approach--namely, synthetic control matching--to select a group of cities against which segregation trends can be compared. I find that levels of black segregation rose in 1970 for four of the seven cities, but these increases disappeared in 1980 and 1990 except in Detroit. These results mask differential trends at lower geographic levels: suburban neighborhoods in affected areas experienced larger and longer-term increases in segregation, particularly in traditionally hypersegregated cities in the Midwest and Northeast.

Archaeology as a social science.

Because of advances in methods and theory, archaeology now addresses issues central to debates in the social sciences in a far more sophisticated manner than ever before. Coupled with methodological innovations, multiscalar archaeological studies around the world have produced a wealth of new data that provide a unique perspective on long-term changes in human societies, as they document variation in human behavior and institutions before the modern era. We illustrate these points with three examples: changes in human settlements, the roles of markets and states in deep history, and changes in standards of living. Alternative pathways toward complexity suggest how common processes may operate under contrasting ecologies, populations, and economic integration.

[THE IMPROVEMENT OF CITIES AND SANITARY CONTROL IN RUSSIA IN LATE XIX--EARLY XX CENTURIES].

The article considers activity of municipal self-governments of Russia concerning support of sanitary epidemiological well-being of cities in the late XIX--early XX centuries. The acuteness of problem of sanitary conditions of urban settlements particularly became visible in post-reform period due to increasing of number of urban population, alteration of setup and rhythm of life in cities, appearance of new forms of worker's daily chores. Al this, against the background of underdevelopment of communal sphere aggravated epidemiological situation in cities. The impulse to improvement and development of sanitary control was made by the city regulations of 1870 presenting to town authorities the right to deal with sanitary issues. The significant input into improvement of cities was made first of all at the expense of construction of water supplies and sewerage and support of sanitary control of these spheres of municipal economy. Under town councils of many cities the sanitary commissions were organized to support permanent sanitary control in town. The development of town sanitation followed the way of specialization. The housing and communal, trade and food, school and sanitary and sanitary and veterinary control were organized.

Enlightenment from ancient Chinese urban and rural stormwater management practices.

Hundreds of years ago, the ancient Chinese implemented several outstanding projects to cope with the changing climate and violent floods. Some of these projects are still in use today. These projects evolved from the experience and knowledge accumulated through the long coexistence of people with nature. The concepts behind these ancient stormwater management practices, such as low-impact development and sustainable drainage systems, are similar to the technology applied in modern stormwater management. This paper presents the cases of the Hani Terrace in Yunnan and the Fushou drainage system of Ganzhou in Jiangxi. The ancient Chinese knowledge behind these cases is seen in the design concepts and the features of these projects. These features help us to understand better their applications in the contemporary environment. In today's more complex environment, integrating traditional and advanced philosophy with modern technologies is extremely useful in building urban and rural stormwater management systems in China.

The Abbé d'Aubignac's Homer and the Culture of the Street in Seventeenth-Century Paris.

This article interprets the abbé d'Aubignac's 1715 Conjectures académiques, ou, Dissertation sur l'Iliade-the first text to posit the non-existence of Homer-in light of the Parisian literary underground of the mid-seventeenth century. It shows that the city's nascent street culture influenced regimes of authorship and, ultimately, classical scholarship on Homer. In general, it argues for a history of scholarship in dialogue with the architecture of the cities where it took place.

Tbilisi's climatic-landscape peculiarities and their dynamics.

The current condition and development tendencies of natural environment of capital of Georgia - Tbilisi are directly connected with the anthropogenesis. Analyze of changing of environment peculiarities of rapid expansion of Tbilisi city and according to it revealing its landscape-climatic changes is the aim of the research paper. The diverse landscape of Tbilisi suburbs is represented by forests, forest-steppes, steppes, shrubs, etc. The variety can be attributed to complex reliefs geological structure, diversity of climate, flora and fauna, and to the location between two different geostructural areas - the mountain system (Trialeti, Saguramo-Ialno) and intermountain valleys (Mameuli and Gardabani lowlands). Natural landscapes have been partly preserved in the city suburbs, but even they are gradually being replaced by new anthropogenic landscapes: new roads and residential and industrial zones. According to the data prior to 2007, the city territory totaled 372 km2, while presently, under the modified municipal decree, it is 504 km2. Transformation of natural landscape of territory of Tbilisi into the anthropogenic one, has changed the physical condition of underlying surface. Especially, heat balance of the city was changed, which was followed by increase in air mean temperature (0.4-0.5 degrees C) and precipitation and reduction of wind speed.

Regulating public space on the beachfronts of Rio de Janeiro.

Despite the fortification of buildings, streets, and public squares, Rio de Janeiro's beaches remain widely regarded as democratic spaces of social diversity and accessibility. Our study revisits the question of Rio's "democratic" beachfronts, based on local interviews, field observations, official reports, and newspaper accounts. We focus on historical and contemporary perceptions of planning, privatization, and public-order programs on the city's southern seaside. Institutional discourses have justified increasing regulation to combat threats of disorder and insecurity. While residents value the relative openness of beachfronts, they also acknowledge issues of safety, social segmentation, and subtle forms of bias. The public generally applauds recent "Shock of Order" policing and commercial revitalization, although critics lament the loss of traditional freedoms for informal beach vendors and casual sports. These paradoxes highlight enduring tensions between social order and hierarchy on one hand, and democratic rights and equality on the other.

"I have seen the future": selling the unsustainable city.

Seventy years ago, General Motors' Highways and Horizons exhibit at the World's Fair, designed by Norman Bel Geddes and Eero Saarinen, promoted demand for cars and federal highways without any concern for environmental sustainability, the theme of our 2010 conference. The main exhibit included a sequence of four parts (entrance ramps, map lobby, Futurama ride, and "intersection of 1960") where the viewer's perception of spatial scale was manipulated. Setha M. Low's theory of "embodied space" helps decode why movement through these diverse spaces influenced millions of Americans' views of transportation and urban form, a promotional success yet to be equaled by advocates of environmental sustainability.

Providing local color?: "cape coloreds," "cockneys," and Cape Town's identity from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s.

Jim Dyos, founding-father of British urban history, argued that cities have commonly acknowledged "individual characteristics" that distinguish them. Such distinctive characteristics, though usually based on material realities, are promoted through literary and visual representations. This article argues that those who seek to convey a city's distinctiveness will do so not only through describing its particular topography, architecture, history or functions but also by describing its "local colour": the supposedly unique customs, manner of speech, dress, or other special features of its inhabitants. In colonial cities this process involved white racial stereotyping of "others". In Cape Town, depictions of "Coloured" inhabitants as unique "city types" became part of the city's "destination branding". The article analyses change and continuity in such representations. To this end it draws on the insights of Gareth Stedman Jones into changing depictions of London's "Cockneys" and the insights of Stephen Ward into historical "place-selling".

Serial forced displacement in American cities, 1916-2010.

Serial forced displacement has been defined as the repetitive, coercive upheaval of groups. In this essay, we examine the history of serial forced displacement in American cities due to federal, state, and local government policies. We propose that serial forced displacement sets up a dynamic process that includes an increase in interpersonal and structural violence, an inability to react in a timely fashion to patterns of threat or opportunity, and a cycle of fragmentation as a result of the first two. We present the history of the policies as they affected one urban neighborhood, Pittsburgh's Hill District. We conclude by examining ways in which this problematic process might be addressed.

[Town physician or physician in a town? Three early modern physicians and their understanding of their municipal function]. / Stadtarzt oder Arzt in der Stadt? Drei Arzte der Frühen Neuzeit und ihr Verständnis des städtischen Amtes.

The institution of the town physician has been up to now discussed mostly on the limited scale of regional studies. In this article three early modern period town physicians are compared regarding their own understanding of their office. Their individual approach towards medical practice is examined on a broader spatio-temporal range within the context of medicalization, which was an integral part of the development of early modern territorial states. This comparison shows that beyond contemporary normative concepts town physicians also claimed particular roles within their social context. By achieving these, they often broadened or even transgressed the assumed delineation of the function subscribed to town physicians.