Urban landscape and climate affect residents' sentiments based on big data

Residents' sentiments are a quantitative indicator of human feelings, which is useful for optimizing urban residential environments. Little is known about the spatiotemporal variations and potential drivers of sentiment based on big data. A total of 221,104 Weibo social media data were used to quantify daily sentiment in the Beijing metropolitan area during the COVID-19 pandemic from January 1, 2021 to March 8, 2022. Deep-learning natural language processing was used to extract this dataset to investigate the spatiotemporal sentiment patterns. The density of roads and buildings, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), population, sky visibility factor, daily land surface temperature (LST), daily precipitation, and daily air pollution concentrations (CO, NO2, PM2.5, SO2, and O3) were explored as potential drivers of sentiment. Results show that (1) the holiday sentiment was 1.31% higher than on weekends and 4.61% higher than on weekdays. Extreme precipitation, air pollution, and COVID-19 lockdown measures have reduced sentiment. (2) The sentiment in spring was found to be the highest. The numbers of functional zones with high sentiment values (>0.8) in spring were 13.59%, in summer 34.48%, and in autumn 14.71%. (3) Sentiment was highest under conditions of moderate greenness (0.4<NDVI<0.6) and comfortable daily temperature (25 °C < LST<30 °C). (4) Sentiment was negatively associated with daily air pollutants, such as PM2.5, NO2, and CO. This paper presents the effectiveness of sentiment quantification based on social media data and deep-learning techniques. The results provide practical implications and support decisions for sustainable urban health development.

A New Urban Greening Scheme Approach: Increasing Quantity and Quality of Urban Green Space

Urban green spaces are perceived as vital urban infrastructure for healing from the spread of the COVID-19 disease. Regarding the limited availability and the high price of land in urban areas, local governments are encouraged to find alternative solutions that are good, appropriate, and fast to achieve the target of 30% green open space in their area. Based on the Green City Development Roadmap by the Ministry of Public Works and Housing in 2015, several cities were creatively assessing and determining the components of green open space based on the city's natural character and stipulated in local regulations. This causes the diversity of existing green open space data in each city which cannot be compared validly. Furthermore, along with technology development in providing more environmentally friendly elements, the term "green open space"is considered to limit improvement efforts in the quantity and quality of urban green spaces. Therefore, this descriptive-qualitative study was conducted to find a new paradigm in defining green open spaces through benchmarking methods based on selected cities' strategic and practical policies. The study results found the term "green space"in general as a response to the spatial problem that does not limit the function and utilization of the space, such as the condition of being open or closed by a tree canopy, owned by public or private, or furnished with vegetation and/or hardscape elements. However, we consider that implementing this breakthrough idea needs to be supported by related scientific studies and best practices relevant to the environmental context, both ecological, social, and cultural aspects. Consequently, a deeper study in realizing the green space concept needs to be carried out, primarily related to proving that this concept can increase both the quantity and quality of the urban green space. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

Developing Strategies to Improve the Urban Environmental Structure Resiliency During and After Corona Pandemic: A Literature Review

Purpose of ReviewThe objective of this study is to review the literature on the role of urban environmental structures and to develop proper strategies to strengthen their resilience so that the management performance of the Corona disease can be enhanced.Recent FindingsCities have been severely affected by the Coronavirus pandemic. Changes in the lifestyle of citizens during the pandemic have led urban planners to the realization that the current structure and function of cities do not meet the needs of citizens. Hence, the structure of urban landscape must be transformed so that cities become livable ecosystems for citizens and the urban environment becomes resilient to all kinds of crises. As a result, considering the new standards of life during the pandemic, the question of what changes to the urban planning and design are required to make cities viable and resilient systems arises. Since the year 2020, much research has been published on the impact of Coronavirus on the lifestyle of citizens and the urban environment. These impacts have positively or negatively affected the structure and function of cities in a direct or indirect manner. Similar to all the related studies, the necessity of making changes to the planning and design of urban landscapes has been emphasized here.SummaryThe present study reviews the literature on the effect of the structure of the urban environment on the corona pandemic management. The objective is to develop proper strategies for planning and designing resilient urban landscapes. It is emphasized that in order to realize the dream of resilient cities during and after the pandemic, the need to develop an interconnected network of green and open urban patches, green transportation system, green neighborhoods, and green residential buildings should be met so that urban resilience and livability can be achieved at a higher level.

GIS-Based Design for Urban Heritage Routes

The technological advances of the 21st century lead us to think about spatial designs that, even when approached from the field of architecture, could require more than physical and palpable solutions, since proposals incorporating processes of a virtual or intangible nature should also be considered. Following this line, this text presents a design methodology for a route-based spatial strategy carried out with the support of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The strategy, based on the new tourist approaches that were accentuated after the COVID-19 pandemic, such as proximity or kilometer 0 tourism, aims to value the Historic Urban Landscape as a touristic product and brings a new vision to the way of “reading the historic city” through a system of alternative tourist routes that include urban spaces and lesser-known architecture. The route design rejects the traditional model based on the isolated visit to cultural landmarks, and the landscape is considered as the common thread of the associated architectural elements. The main contribution of this text is the presentation of a graphical methodology to project these routes based on data analysis in GIS, which uses historical, sensory and mathematical criteria generated from operations with georeferenced data. This study opens the doors to deeper diagnostic and project methodologies in which advanced graphic tools like GIS are imposed as powerful graphic means to generate new ways of offering efficient solutions to contemporary problems. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Learning from COVID-19: the role of architecture in the experience of urban landscapes

The COVID-19 pandemic, through lockdowns and mobility restrictions, has created an atmosphere of global reflection towards contemporary urban landscapes. Architecture is an essential component in them and determines, to a large extent, how building users perceive, interpret, and value the surrounding environment. From an experiential and phenomenological perspective, and taking into account the situations lived in 2020, the paper explores the existing relations between architecture and urban landscape at three levels: first, the experience of the environment from the architectural space - namely, the home -;second, the experience of the `interior urban landscape' at street level;and finally, the experience of the `exterior urban landscape' from city fringes or vantage points that provide vast prospects. The article advocates a holistic understanding of landscapes in building and urban design processes and suggests landscape architecture can offer a valuable apprenticeship in this sense. A sustained interplay between those disciplines shaping the built environment is decidedly needed. The paper concludes by pointing out that landscape, given its integrating and all-encompassing condition, could articulate the entire set of municipal urban policies through a transdisciplinary `city-landscape' plan.