Based on the experiences gained and the knowledge produced in this dissertation, and while the research can be continued along several pathways, the most urgent actions needed in the future are the following. Firstly, the temporal volatility of the implicit prices of ecological amenities and risks needs to be explored, in conjunction with achieving a better understanding of agents’ decision behavior in the housing market. Secondly, the cross-sectoral distribution of environmental impacts and of alternative spatial policies aimed at addressing those impacts has to be explored in an encompassing manner. Thirdly, both analytical studies and strategy development are in dire need of expanding the historical timeframe. Informing the future development of urban societies when important parameters are in flux (demographics, climate, ecosystems, and technology) can benefit from analyzing similar occurrences in the past. This long-term information can be supplied by the paleo-environmental and archeological records, but is not captured by economic datasets.
The first direction will need an amendment of hedonic price theory by introducing more elements of bounded rationality than currently included. This task also suggests that the value-based rationale implied by hedonic theory will need to be complemented by non-utilitarian decision-making theories. The second direction will need the implementation of multi-sectoral spatially disaggregate urban simulation models, with elements of both equilibrium-based microeconomic theory and
disequilibrium-based complexity theory. The third direction implies work in extending social and economic data to match their paleo-environmental counterparts, while refining the theories available to us in explaining the co-evolution of human societies, ecosystems, and climate. All three directions will contribute toward the same goal: a fuller understanding of human-environment interactions in urban regions under changing boundary conditions.
Returning to urbanism, many technical problems related to climate-proof sustainable urban planning will call for non-technical solutions (cf. Hardin 1968), or at least an earnest consideration of non-technical dimensions. One can be certain that thinking about cities, climate change, and climate-related urban strategies will raise debates of a more general nature about future cities.
Urban research has been long characterized by a divide between technology and policy (Batty 2004) or efficiency and equity (Brooks et al. 2012). This raises the question of the position of technical quantitative analysis, such as in this dissertation, in the wider context of thinking about cities, especially since visions of good cities are value-dependent and change within and across cultures.
Technical, that is to say, merely engineering approaches are but one element of city design, alongside with non-technical (such as aesthetical and ethical) approaches. Technical research is primarily concerned with the needs of the city, while non-technical research extents to the realm of desires and values. Both spheres have to be taken into consideration when designing strategies for the future development of cities, if such cities are to truly support wellbeing. An improper understanding of the role of technical urban research may distort the urban visions of future generations. In the past, such flaws as overemphasizing the rational-technical aspect of planning led to the appearance of phenomena like the plans of Brodsky and Utkin (Nesbitt et al. 2015). These plans sprang as a reaction to enforcing rational planning principles as the sole guidance for planning and design. The subdued creativity was rechanneled into imagining bizarre cityscapes, which began as mere thought experiments but currently seem to inspire the present generation to realize these irrational city plans in practice, producing actual city projects. This tendency may lead to the appearance of distorted cities that border the irrational; a cunning revenge of the irrational.
A better approach to utilizing technical research is to communicate it with value-driven viewpoints.
Therefore, it is advised that the recommendations based on the results of this dissertation research are placed within the boarder context of urbanism. These recommendations are technocratic in nature; they are tools of achieving value-loaded visions of cities, but themselves do not suggest such visions. The results of the research are applied to currently existing models of cities, and cannot answer such questions as whether radically different modes of human settlement can be equally productive. Whether or not the polar opposite blueprints of LeCorbusier (dense towerscapes) and Frank Lloyd Wright (scattered individual settlements) may be equally sustainable, depends on the production, communication, and perception of particular urban spaces, which has been shown to rely not only on denotative (for instance, technical, functional, utilitarian, and need-based), but also on connotative (for instance, cultural, symbolic, and want-based) codes (Eco 1972, 1986;
Gottdiener and Lagopoulos 1986; Lagopoulos 2005). These codes are vernacular and a large portion of them have certainly the capacity to create market forces and in the end influence the more technical aspects of an urban system (Toivonen and Viitanen 2015, 2016). What rational analysis can do is to assess the implications of alternative visions of good cities in their contexts, so that the inherent creativity, adaptability, and resilience of humans is facilitated.
changes in urbanization trends. These changes are not radical shifts in urban dynamics, but deviations in existing dynamics that result in measurable differences in land use morphology within a few decades. This observation, in combination with the discussion in Sections 8.1 and 8.2, supports the idea that targeted changes rather than big ones can facilitate gentle transitions to climate-proof and sustainable spatial equilibria.
In aiding assessments for alternative urban adaptation strategies, the dissertation results may form the basis for a set of guiding questions about harmonizing ecological and economic effects. These questions may be used as a guidance by adaptation experts and environmental planners when their task is designing and implementing a strategy that harmonizes the benefits of climate-proofing interventions with agglomeration benefits and minimizes the risks of climate-sensitive hazards.
Divided into six categories, these questions are:
Type What type of ecosystem is involved in an intervention?
Location Where in the urban area is the intervention located?
Scale What is the size of the intervention and target area?
Diffusion What is the spatial reach of the economic effects?
Information Are both climate-sensitive risks and amenities transparent?
Evolution How are neighborhood and city-wide trends affected?
It must be emphasized that these questions are not stand-alone; they are questions aboutecological and economic effects. While they may appear trivial at first sight, they raise issues upon which the effectiveness of a strategy relies. These questions have been too frequently omitted in technical assessments or the drafting of urban visions, resulting in the perpetuation of unnecessary tensions between ecological and economic objectives.
9. Afterthoughts: Future directions and relating the results to visions of future cities
Based on the experiences gained and the knowledge produced in this dissertation, and while the research can be continued along several pathways, the most urgent actions needed in the future are the following. Firstly, the temporal volatility of the implicit prices of ecological amenities and risks needs to be explored, in conjunction with achieving a better understanding of agents’ decision behavior in the housing market. Secondly, the cross-sectoral distribution of environmental impacts and of alternative spatial policies aimed at addressing those impacts has to be explored in an encompassing manner. Thirdly, both analytical studies and strategy development are in dire need of expanding the historical timeframe. Informing the future development of urban societies when important parameters are in flux (demographics, climate, ecosystems, and technology) can benefit from analyzing similar occurrences in the past. This long-term information can be supplied by the paleo-environmental and archeological records, but is not captured by economic datasets.
The first direction will need an amendment of hedonic price theory by introducing more elements of bounded rationality than currently included. This task also suggests that the value-based rationale implied by hedonic theory will need to be complemented by non-utilitarian decision-making theories. The second direction will need the implementation of multi-sectoral spatially disaggregate urban simulation models, with elements of both equilibrium-based microeconomic theory and
disequilibrium-based complexity theory. The third direction implies work in extending social and economic data to match their paleo-environmental counterparts, while refining the theories available to us in explaining the co-evolution of human societies, ecosystems, and climate. All three directions will contribute toward the same goal: a fuller understanding of human-environment interactions in urban regions under changing boundary conditions.
Returning to urbanism, many technical problems related to climate-proof sustainable urban planning will call for non-technical solutions (cf. Hardin 1968), or at least an earnest consideration of non-technical dimensions. One can be certain that thinking about cities, climate change, and climate-related urban strategies will raise debates of a more general nature about future cities.
Urban research has been long characterized by a divide between technology and policy (Batty 2004) or efficiency and equity (Brooks et al. 2012). This raises the question of the position of technical quantitative analysis, such as in this dissertation, in the wider context of thinking about cities, especially since visions of good cities are value-dependent and change within and across cultures.
Technical, that is to say, merely engineering approaches are but one element of city design, alongside with non-technical (such as aesthetical and ethical) approaches. Technical research is primarily concerned with the needs of the city, while non-technical research extents to the realm of desires and values. Both spheres have to be taken into consideration when designing strategies for the future development of cities, if such cities are to truly support wellbeing. An improper understanding of the role of technical urban research may distort the urban visions of future generations. In the past, such flaws as overemphasizing the rational-technical aspect of planning led to the appearance of phenomena like the plans of Brodsky and Utkin (Nesbitt et al. 2015). These plans sprang as a reaction to enforcing rational planning principles as the sole guidance for planning and design. The subdued creativity was rechanneled into imagining bizarre cityscapes, which began as mere thought experiments but currently seem to inspire the present generation to realize these irrational city plans in practice, producing actual city projects. This tendency may lead to the appearance of distorted cities that border the irrational; a cunning revenge of the irrational.
A better approach to utilizing technical research is to communicate it with value-driven viewpoints.
Therefore, it is advised that the recommendations based on the results of this dissertation research are placed within the boarder context of urbanism. These recommendations are technocratic in nature; they are tools of achieving value-loaded visions of cities, but themselves do not suggest such visions. The results of the research are applied to currently existing models of cities, and cannot answer such questions as whether radically different modes of human settlement can be equally productive. Whether or not the polar opposite blueprints of LeCorbusier (dense towerscapes) and Frank Lloyd Wright (scattered individual settlements) may be equally sustainable, depends on the production, communication, and perception of particular urban spaces, which has been shown to rely not only on denotative (for instance, technical, functional, utilitarian, and need-based), but also on connotative (for instance, cultural, symbolic, and want-based) codes (Eco 1972, 1986;
Gottdiener and Lagopoulos 1986; Lagopoulos 2005). These codes are vernacular and a large portion of them have certainly the capacity to create market forces and in the end influence the more technical aspects of an urban system (Toivonen and Viitanen 2015, 2016). What rational analysis can do is to assess the implications of alternative visions of good cities in their contexts, so that the inherent creativity, adaptability, and resilience of humans is facilitated.
10. References
Aaheim A, Ahlert G, Meyer M, Meyer B, Orlov A, Heyndrickx C (2015), Integration of top-down and bottom-up analyses of adaptation to climate change in Europe – the cases of energy, transport, tourism and health (deliverable 3.4), ToPDad Consortium Partners. Available at http://www.topdad.eu/upl/files/120230
Aerts JCJH, Wouter Botzen WJ, Emanuel K, Lin N, de Moel H, Michel-Kerjan EO (2014), Evaluating Flood Resilience Strategies for Coastal Megacities, Science 344: 473–475.
Anas A (1987), Modelling in Urban and Regional Economics (Harwood Academic Publishers).
Anas A (2013), A summary of the applications to date of RELU-TRAN, a microeconomic urban computable general equilibrium model, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 40(6):
959–970.
Anselin L (2003), Spatial externalities, spatial multipliers, and spatial econometrics, International Regional Science Review 26(2) 153–166.
Atreya A, Ferreira S, Kriesel W (2013), Forgetting the flood? An analysis of the flood risk discount over time, Land Economics 89(4): 577–596.
Bar-Yam Y (1997), Dynamics of Complex Systems (Addison-Wesley).
Bass Warner S (2011), Evolution and transformation: The American industrial metropolis, 1840-1940, in LeGates RT, Stout F (eds.) The City Reader (Routledge), 55–64.
Bateman I, Mace G, Fezzi C, Atkinson G, Turner K (2011), Economic analysis for ecosystem service assessments, Environmental and Resource Economics 48(2): 177–218.
Batty M (1997), Cellular automata and urban form: A primer, Journal of the American Planning Association 63(2): 266–274.
Batty M (2004), Dissecting the streams of planning history: Technology versus policy through models, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 31: 326–330.
Batty M (2007), Cities and Complexity: Understanding Cities with Agent-Based Models, Cellular Automata, and Fractals (The MIT Press).
Batty M (2013), The New Science of Cities (The MIT Press).
Batty M, Longley M (1994), The Fractal City: A Geometry of Form and Function (Academic Press).
Barnett J, Evans LS, Gross C, Kiem AS, Kingsford RT, Palutikof JP, Pickering CM, Smithers SG (2015), From barriers to limits to climate change adaptation: path dependency and the speed of change, Ecology and Society 20(3): 5–16.
Bin O, Crawford TW, Kruse JB, Landry CE (2008a), Viewscapes and flood hazard: coastal housing market response to amenities and risk, Land Economics 84(3): 434–448.
Bin O, Krusc JB, Landry CE (2008b), Flood hazards, insurance rates, and amenities: evidence from the coastal housing market, The Journal of Risk and Insurance 75(1), 63–82.
Bin O, Landry CE (2013), Changes in implicit flood risk premiums: empirical evidence from the housing market, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 65(3): 361–376.
Blair JP (1995), Local Economic Development. Analysis and Practice(SAGE Publications).
Brander LM, Koetse MJ (2011), The value of urban open space: Meta-analyses of contingent valuation and hedonic pricing results,Journal of Environmental Management92: 2763–2773.
Briant A, Combes P-P, Lafourcade M (2010), Dots to boxes: Do the size and shape of spatial units jeopardize economic geography estimations?,Journal of Urban Economics67(3): 287–302.
Brooks N, Donaghy K, Knaap G-J (2012),The Oxford Handbook of Urban Economics and Planning (Oxford University Press).
Brueckner JK (2011), Lectures in Urban Economics(The MIT Press).
Brueckner JK, Thisse J-F, Zenou Y (1999), Why is central Paris rich and downtown Detroit poor? An amenity based theory, European Economic Review43(1): 91–107.
Calthorpe P (2013), Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change(Island Press).
Campbell S (1996), Green cities, growing cities, just cities? Urban planning and the contradictions of sustainable development, Journal of the American Planning Association62(3): 296–312.
Chaudhuri G, Clarke KC (2013), The SLEUTH Land Use Change Model: A Review, International Journal of Environmental Resources Research1(1): 88-104.
Chrysoulakis N, Lopes M, San José R, Grimmond SCB, Jones MB, Magliulo V, Klostermann JEM, Synnefa A, Mitraka Z, Castro EA, González A, Vogt R, Vesala T, Spano D, Pigeon G, Freer-Smith P, Staszewski T, Hodges N, Mills G, Cartalis C (2013), Sustainable urban metabolism as a link between bio-physical sciences and urban planning: The BRIDGE project,Landscape and Urban Planning112: 100–117.
Chrysoulakis N, de Castro EA, Moors EJ (2014),Understanding Urban Metabolism: A Tool for Urban Planning(Taylor & Francis)
Conroy SJ, Milosch JL (2011), An Estimation of the Coastal Premium for Residential Housing Prices in San Diego County,The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics42(2): 211–228.
Cumming GS (2011), Spatial Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems(Springer).
Czembrowski P, Kronenberg J (2016), Hedonic pricing and different urban green space types and sizes:
Insights into the discussion on valuing ecosystem services,Landscape and Urban Planning146: 11–
19.
Daniel VE, Florax RJGM, Rietveld P (2009), Flooding risk and housing values: An economic assessment of environmental hazard,Ecological Economics69(2): 355–365.
Davies L, Kwiatkowski L, Gaston KJ, Beck H, Brett H, Batty M, Scholes L, Wade R, Sheate WR, Sadler J, Perino G, Andrews B, Kontoleon A, Bateman I, Harris JA (2011), Urban [Ecosystem Assessment]
(Ch. 10), inThe UK National Ecosystem Assessment Technical Report(UNEP-WCMC), 361–411.
De Groot RS, Wilson MA, Boumans RMJ (2002), A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services,Ecological Economics41(3): 393–408.
10. References
Aaheim A, Ahlert G, Meyer M, Meyer B, Orlov A, Heyndrickx C (2015), Integration of top-down and bottom-up analyses of adaptation to climate change in Europe– the cases of energy, transport, tourism and health (deliverable 3.4), ToPDad Consortium Partners. Available at http://www.topdad.eu/upl/files/120230
Aerts JCJH, Wouter Botzen WJ, Emanuel K, Lin N, de Moel H, Michel-Kerjan EO (2014), Evaluating Flood Resilience Strategies for Coastal Megacities,Science344: 473–475.
Anas A (1987), Modelling in Urban and Regional Economics(Harwood Academic Publishers).
Anas A (2013), A summary of the applications to date of RELU-TRAN, a microeconomic urban computable general equilibrium model, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design40(6):
959–970.
Anselin L (2003), Spatial externalities, spatial multipliers, and spatial econometrics,International Regional Science Review26(2) 153–166.
Atreya A, Ferreira S, Kriesel W (2013), Forgetting the flood? An analysis of the flood risk discount over time,Land Economics89(4): 577–596.
Bar-Yam Y (1997), Dynamics of Complex Systems(Addison-Wesley).
Bass Warner S (2011), Evolution and transformation: The American industrial metropolis, 1840-1940, in LeGates RT, Stout F (eds.)The City Reader(Routledge), 55–64.
Bateman I, Mace G, Fezzi C, Atkinson G, Turner K (2011), Economic analysis for ecosystem service assessments,Environmental and Resource Economics48(2): 177–218.
Batty M (1997), Cellular automata and urban form: A primer, Journal of the American Planning Association63(2): 266–274.
Batty M (2004), Dissecting the streams of planning history: Technology versus policy through models, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design31: 326–330.
Batty M (2007), Cities and Complexity: Understanding Cities with Agent-Based Models, Cellular Automata, and Fractals(The MIT Press).
Batty M (2013),The New Science of Cities(The MIT Press).
Batty M, Longley M (1994), The Fractal City: A Geometry of Form and Function(Academic Press).
Barnett J, Evans LS, Gross C, Kiem AS, Kingsford RT, Palutikof JP, Pickering CM, Smithers SG (2015), From barriers to limits to climate change adaptation: path dependency and the speed of change, Ecology and Society20(3): 5–16.
Bin O, Crawford TW, Kruse JB, Landry CE (2008a), Viewscapes and flood hazard: coastal housing market response to amenities and risk,Land Economics84(3): 434–448.
Bin O, Krusc JB, Landry CE (2008b), Flood hazards, insurance rates, and amenities: evidence from the coastal housing market,The Journal of Risk and Insurance75(1), 63–82.
Bin O, Landry CE (2013), Changes in implicit flood risk premiums: empirical evidence from the housing market,Journal of Environmental Economics and Management65(3): 361–376.
Blair JP (1995), Local Economic Development. Analysis and Practice (SAGE Publications).
Brander LM, Koetse MJ (2011), The value of urban open space: Meta-analyses of contingent valuation and hedonic pricing results, Journal of Environmental Management 92: 2763–2773.
Briant A, Combes P-P, Lafourcade M (2010), Dots to boxes: Do the size and shape of spatial units jeopardize economic geography estimations?, Journal of Urban Economics 67(3): 287–302.
Brooks N, Donaghy K, Knaap G-J (2012), The Oxford Handbook of Urban Economics and Planning (Oxford University Press).
Brueckner JK (2011), Lectures in Urban Economics (The MIT Press).
Brueckner JK, Thisse J-F, Zenou Y (1999), Why is central Paris rich and downtown Detroit poor? An amenity based theory, European Economic Review 43(1): 91–107.
Calthorpe P (2013), Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change (Island Press).
Campbell S (1996), Green cities, growing cities, just cities? Urban planning and the contradictions of sustainable development, Journal of the American Planning Association 62(3): 296–312.
Chaudhuri G, Clarke KC (2013), The SLEUTH Land Use Change Model: A Review, International Journal of Environmental Resources Research 1(1): 88-104.
Chrysoulakis N, Lopes M, San José R, Grimmond SCB, Jones MB, Magliulo V, Klostermann JEM, Synnefa A, Mitraka Z, Castro EA, González A, Vogt R, Vesala T, Spano D, Pigeon G, Freer-Smith P, Staszewski T, Hodges N, Mills G, Cartalis C (2013), Sustainable urban metabolism as a link between bio-physical sciences and urban planning: The BRIDGE project, Landscape and Urban Planning 112: 100–117.
Chrysoulakis N, de Castro EA, Moors EJ (2014), Understanding Urban Metabolism: A Tool for Urban Planning (Taylor & Francis)
Conroy SJ, Milosch JL (2011), An Estimation of the Coastal Premium for Residential Housing Prices in San Diego County, The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics 42(2): 211–228.
Cumming GS (2011), Spatial Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems (Springer).
Czembrowski P, Kronenberg J (2016), Hedonic pricing and different urban green space types and sizes:
Insights into the discussion on valuing ecosystem services, Landscape and Urban Planning 146: 11–
19.
Daniel VE, Florax RJGM, Rietveld P (2009), Flooding risk and housing values: An economic assessment of environmental hazard, Ecological Economics 69(2): 355–365.
Davies L, Kwiatkowski L, Gaston KJ, Beck H, Brett H, Batty M, Scholes L, Wade R, Sheate WR, Sadler J, Perino G, Andrews B, Kontoleon A, Bateman I, Harris JA (2011), Urban [Ecosystem Assessment]
(Ch. 10), in The UK National Ecosystem Assessment Technical Report (UNEP-WCMC), 361–411.
De Groot RS, Wilson MA, Boumans RMJ (2002), A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services, Ecological Economics 41(3): 393–408.
DietrichO, HeunM, Notroff J, SchmidtK, ZarnkowM (2012), The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey, Antiquity 86(333): 674–695.
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Dubin R (1988), Estimation of regression coefficients in the presence of spatially autocorrelated error