The Urban Development in Relation to the Occurrence of Diseases in the Casa-Settat Region of Morocco during the Emergence of SARS-CoV-2.

The Casa-Settat region is experiencing very worrying environmental and epidemiological problems and challenges, namely, population growth, the significant development of unsupervised industrial activities, road traffic, the significant weight of the spread of diseases with high epidemiological potential such as SARS-CoV-2, the increase in hospital activities, and the significant discharge of hospital effluents highly contaminated and untreated. To understand and analyze the factors influencing the high prevalence of deaths and the occurrence of diseases under surveillance, among others SARS-CoV-2, on the quantitative data recorded relating to ten regions of Morocco, and informing, on the one hand, on intrinsic data linked to the urban development, and on the other hand, on the evolution of diseases under epidemiological surveillance, a multidimensional analysis was made. The results reveal the typological framework highlighted by the factorial map F1 × F2 which showed the individualization of the region of Casablanca explained by a large number of variables and diseases that affect it. Finally, these results call for a diagnosis that will make it possible to model new approaches and implement new actions promoting the dynamics of environmental and epidemiological change in one of the most polluted and infected regions of Morocco.

Exploring the Influencing Factors of the Recreational Utilization and Evaluation of Urban Ecological Protection Green Belts for Urban Renewal: A Case Study in Shanghai.

With the continuous expansion of urban construction land, the green belts aiming for ecological protection have ensured a sustainable and effective function of regional ecosystem services. At the same time, these ecological green belts are expected to develop their compound service potentials with the development of cities. In order to meet the increasing demand of urban residents for the recreational utilization of urban green space, the primary function of the ecological green belts has transformed from being purely ecological to a combination of being ecological and recreational. Based on social media data, which has the characteristics of a large amount of accessible geographic information, this study used multiple regression models to analyze the recreational utilization intensity of ecological protection green belts with a case study in the green belt of Shanghai, China. The research results showed that the internal elements (total external area, water area, etc.) of the Shanghai green belt have positive correlations with its recreational utilization. The impact of external factors was inconclusive on the recreational utilization of the outer forest belt (the number of subway stations in accessibility factors was negatively correlated; the number of cultural facilities and the number of restaurants in the surrounding service facilities were positively related). Combined with the "Shanghai City Master Plan (2017-2035)", this study suggests potential zones for the recreational transformation of the Shanghai green belt, provides a theoretical and practical basis for improving the recreational utilization of an urban ecological protection green belt and contributes to the sustainable development of ecological protection green belts in high-density cities.

Effects of Urban Vibrancy on an Urban Eco-Environment: Case Study on Wuhan City.

In the context of rapid urbanisation and an emerging need for a healthy urban environment, revitalising urban spaces and its effects on the urban eco-environment in Chinese cities have attracted widespread attention. This study assessed urban vibrancy from the dimensions of density, accessibility, liveability, diversity, and human activity, with various indicators using an adjusted spatial TOPSIS (technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution) method. The study also explored the effects of urban vibrancy on the urban eco-environment by interpreting PM 2.5 and land surface temperature using "big" and "dynamic" data, such as those from mobile and social network data. Thereafter, spatial modelling was performed to investigate the influence of urban vibrancy on air pollution and temperature with inverted and extracted remote sensing data. This process identified spatial heterogeneity and spatial autocorrelation. The majority of the dimensions, such as density, accessibility, liveability, and diversity, are negatively correlated with PM 2.5, thereby indicating that the advancement of urban vibrancy in these dimensions potentially improves air quality. Conversely, improved accessibility increases the surface temperature in most of the districts, and large-scale infrastructure construction generally contributes to the increase. Diversity and human activity appear to have a cooling effect. In the future, applying spatial heterogeneity is advised to assess urban vibrancy and its effect on the urban eco-environment, to provide valuable references for spatial urban planning, improve public health and human wellbeing, and ensure sustainable urban development.

Intensifier of urban economic resilience: Specialized or diversified agglomeration?

With increased uncertainty and instability worldwide, how to enhance the urban economy resilience effectively has become one main issue for urban economic development. Based on the measurement of the economic resilience of 241 cities at the prefecture level and above in China using the sensitive index method, we scrutinize the impact of industrial specialization agglomeration and diversification agglomeration on urban economic resilience. Results indicate that, during the impact resistance period, industrial diversification agglomeration, especially related industrial diversification agglomeration, can enhance urban economic resilience, whereas industrial specialization agglomeration has no positive effect. In contrast, during the period of recovery and adjustment, industrial specialization agglomeration can improve urban economic resilience, and industrial diversification agglomeration, especially related industrial diversification agglomeration, has no positive effect. Further analysis indicates that, under the interaction of specialization and diversification agglomerations, the effect of industrial agglomeration on urban economic resilience depends on the type of dual industrial agglomeration, showing remarkable heterogeneity. This study may provide useful references for policy makers concerned with urban resilience.

Analysis and optimization of 15-minute community life circle based on supply and demand matching: A case study of Shanghai.

The 15-minute community life circle (15min-CLC) strategy is one of Shanghai's important methods for building a global city and facing a society with a more diverse population structure in the future. In the existing research, the balance between the construction of the life circle and the needs of the people in the life circle still needs to be further fulfilled. This paper is based on the city's multi-source large data set including 2018 AutoNavi POI (Point of Interests), OSM (OpenStreetMap) road network data and LandScan population data set, and evaluates the current status of Shanghai's 15min-CLC through the fusion of kernel density estimation, service area analysis and other statistical models and proposes relevant optimization suggestions. The results show that there are the following shortcomings: (1) From the perspective of different types of infrastructure service facilities, the spatial construction of Shanghai's overall life service facilities and shopping service facilities needs to be optimized. (2) From the perspective of comprehensive evaluation, the comprehensive service convenience of infrastructure service facilities in the downtown area is relatively high, while the comprehensive service convenience of urban infrastructure service facilities in the suburbs and outer suburbs is relatively low; The diversity of basic service facilities in the 15min-CLC in the downtown area is more consistent with the population distribution; However, in the peripheral areas of the urban area, too many infrastructure service facilities have been constructed. Based on the above shortcomings and the perspective of supply and demand matching, relevant optimization strategies are proposed in different regions and different types of infrastructure service facilities: (1) focus on the construction of basic service facilities in the urban fringe and urban-rural areas, improve the full coverage of the basic service facilities, and appropriately reduce the number of basic service facilities in the downtown area. (2) The development of community business models can be used to promote the development of new life service facilities and shopping service facilities. (3) Improve community medical institutions through facility function conversion, merger and reconstruction, etc. (4) Optimize the hierarchical basic service facility system and improve the population supporting facilities of basic service facilities in the 15min-CLC. This paper incorporates people's needs and concerns on the living environment into the 15min-CLC evaluation model, and uses Shanghai as an example to conduct research, summarizes the existing shortcomings, and proposes corresponding optimization strategies based on the matching of supply and demand. This article attempts to explore a replicable 15min-CLC planning model, so that it can be extended to the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, to provide reference for further research on the 15min-CLC, and to promote urban construction under the concept of sustainable development.

Research on Spatiotemporal Differentiation and Influence Mechanism of Urban Resilience in China Based on MGWR Model.

Urban resilience in the context of COVID-19 epidemic refers to the ability of an urban system to resist, absorb, adapt and recover from danger in time to hedge its impact when confronted with external shocks such as epidemic, which is also a capability that must be strengthened for urban development in the context of normal epidemic. Based on the multi-dimensional perspective, entropy method and exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) are used to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of urban resilience of 281 cities of China from 2011 to 2018, and MGWR model is used to discuss the driving factors affecting the development of urban resilience. It is found that: (1) The urban resilience and sub-resilience show a continuous decline in time, with no obvious sign of convergence, while the spatial agglomeration effect shows an increasing trend year by year. (2) The spatial heterogeneity of urban resilience is significant, with obvious distribution characteristics of "high in east and low in west". Urban resilience in the east, the central and the west are quite different in terms of development structure and spatial correlation. The eastern region is dominated by the "three-core driving mode", and the urban resilience shows a significant positive spatial correlation; the central area is a "rectangular structure", which is also spatially positively correlated; The western region is a "pyramid structure" with significant negative spatial correlation. (3) The spatial heterogeneity of the driving factors is significant, and they have different impact scales on the urban resilience development. The market capacity is the largest impact intensity, while the infrastructure investment is the least impact intensity. On this basis, this paper explores the ways to improve urban resilience in China from different aspects, such as market, technology, finance and government.

The importance of urban natural areas and urban ecosystem services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Urban, peri-urban forests and other natural areas provide a wide range of material and non-material benefits to people known as ecosystem services. Access to these areas has been linked to benefits for physical and mental health of local populations. In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic forced many governments to impose a set of restrictions including the closure of businesses, cancelation of public events and schooling, social distancing, limitations on the size of social gatherings, and travel restrictions. During this period of restrictions, we conducted a study assessing the importance of urban and peri-urban forests and other natural areas to people living in and around the city of Burlington, Vermont, USA. We evaluated the self-reported use and changes in personal importance related to these natural areas before and during the period of restrictions. We received over 400 responses to our field survey. The results show that 69.0% of the respondents had increased or greatly increased their visitation rate to our natural areas and urban forests, and 80.6% of respondents considered that the importance of these areas, and access to them, either increased or greatly increased. Moreover 25.8% of the sample had either never, or very rarely accessed their local natural areas before the pandemic, but 69.2% of the first time or infrequent visitors reported that having access to these areas during COVID-19 as 'very important'. People reported that these areas were important for a wide range of activities from exercise to birding, but also reported values related to reducing stress in a time of global chaos. Our results indicate the increasing demand and value of such areas in times of crisis such as COVID-19. Experts in zoonotic disease predict the potential for more frequent pandemic events, thus predicating the importance for continued funding for, maintenance of, and improved access to, natural areas to our largely urban civilization.