Osman Balaban

ABSTRACT Climate change has the potential to affect urban vegetation diversity. The effects of climate change will vary across the globe. Global climate change along with increasing urbanization and its associated heat islands could lead to significantly warmer temperatures in developing regions. The local climate and soils, urban processes, vectors of plant and seed transmission, and vegetation management decisions combine to produce the current biodiversity exhibited in cities. The diversity of urban vegetation composition has changed through time with many cities currently having species richness and Shannon-Wiener diversity index values greater than native forest stands. Vegetation managers can affect future biodiversity and help offset potential environmental changes by understanding these changes and designing vegetation plans to sustain future plant health and diversity, and ensure ecosystem services that help mitigate climate changes.

ABSTRACT This paper presents a methodology to measure the environmental co-benefits of transport initiatives, defined here as carbon emissions in conjunction with local air pollution. An evaluation tool was developed and then tested on the case of the Delhi metro. The metro is an extensive rail project spanning the Indian capital, which is also the world's first rail based Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project. However, it has also been a flashpoint in urban policy-making in the city in recent years. This analysis identifies the co-benefits based on the current situation as well potential co-benefits based on increased ridership and altering mode share contributions. The paper then discusses the challenges faced in the quantification process and the practical implications of achieving increased co-benefits. The paper highlights issues of data quality as well as data access, whilst identifying that factors peripheral to the project itself can have a critical effect in achieving co-benefits from large scale transport infrastructure projects in developing countries.

ABSTRACT Urban regeneration policy and projects could facilitate the implementation of spatial policy responses to mitigate climate change and adapt to its consequences in cities. However, the potential role of urban regeneration in creating climate-friendly urban environments is not sufficiently evaluated and understood. Considering this gap, the paper aims to explore the potential linkage between urban regeneration and climate change. The case study analysis focuses on two urban regeneration projects, representing two major approaches of regeneration practices in Japanese cities, namely “project-based” and “plan-based” approaches. Research findings demonstrate that urban regeneration could help in reorganising existing urban areas in a climate-friendly manner. As a cross-cutting field of urban policy, urban regeneration could also help in creating synergies between mitigation and adaptation goals. Yet, achievement of such outcomes via regeneration projects necessitates the existence of an overriding urban development vision, political commitment, and willingness to implement binding and structural measures.

Actions to tackle climate change are twofold. On one side, there are mitigation actions to avoid further global warming; on the other, there are adaptation actions to be prepared to its consequences. The public sector should play a crucial role in tackling climate change. Both mitigation and adaptation-oriented actions necessitate the existence of an effective and strong governance system. Recently in Turkey, we are witnessing the simultaneous realization of a series of positive and negative developments concerning climate change. Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is coupled with some other developments intensifying the vulnerabilities of urban areas to climate change. This paper aims to evaluate these developments based on the related literature. This evaluation is followed by a series of findings as concluding remarks.

ABSTRACT Urban regeneration policy and projects could facilitate the implementation of spatial policy responses to mitigate climate change and adapt to its consequences in cities. However, the potential role of urban regeneration in creating climate-friendly urban environments is not sufficiently evaluated and understood. Considering this gap, the paper aims to explore the potential linkage between urban regeneration and climate change. The case study analysis focuses on two urban regeneration projects, representing two major approaches of regeneration practices in Japanese cities, namely “project-based” and “plan-based” approaches. Research findings demonstrate that urban regeneration could help in reorganising existing urban areas in a climate-friendly manner. As a cross-cutting field of urban policy, urban regeneration could also help in creating synergies between mitigation and adaptation goals. Yet, achievement of such outcomes via regeneration projects necessitates the existence of an overriding urban development vision, political commitment, and willingness to implement binding and structural measures.

ABSTRACT Cities concentrate a large part of the world economy today. Understanding how the urban economy and its decision making function as well as how they are connected to a larger world (regional, national, global) is fundamental to create governance mechanisms and the institutions to move the world towards a green economy. This paper analyzes the city through its key economic processes of the transformation of space; circulation (transport); consumption and production and social, knowledge and ecosystem services. Transforming urban processes will only be achieved with better urban governance. As governance is embedded in institutions, it is the foundation for building the legitimate political and social mechanisms to green socio-ecological and economic systems. Yet the question of whether or not current governance systems in these processes are steering cities towards a greener economy, or if they are, how are they affecting people and ecosystems is yet to be addressed. Thus, we propose a set of governance indicators to assess the greening of urban processes that go beyond the decision-making procedures and include the capacity to implement change, the results of greening the economy and final outcomes on the ground. We also look at the obstacles, achievements and lessons in the greening of the direct and indirect economic processes in cities. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

ABSTRACT This paper revisits the City Profile for Delhi, the first article ever published in Cities in 1983 (Datta, 1983). Thirty years later and following the centennial anniversary year of Delhi’s establishment as the capital of India in 2012, this article makes a wide-ranging survey of Delhi in the administrative, socio-economic and environmental arenas. By tracing the history of urban planning in the city to the present and examining the issues facing Delhi, we then critically examine its institutional arrangements with respect to the outcomes of recent developments that have occurred in the city. These aspects are then evaluated in the context of the future development of the city; a city which still faces numerous local challenges but also houses the government of an emerging superpower that will play an increasing role both regionally and globally.