1 Understanding the New Sociocultural Dynamics of Cities: Comparative Urban Policy in a Global Context

Untangling ‘integration’ in urban development policy debates

“…Examples of these include devolutions and decentralisation action (Manor, 1999); national and local democratisation (McGill, 1998); participatory development debates and its impact on government systems and behaviour (Abers, 2000); urban planning debates as explored earlier, especially strategic planning as the key instrument to knit together disparate institutional initiatives in the city, and those forces from outside that impact on the city (Amin and Graham, 1997;Stren and Pol~se, 2000). If one accepts the over-arching importance of governance for urban management, defined in relational terms, we can return to an engagement with the urban management perspective and complete the survey of different interpretations of integration in urban development.…”

Digital representation of park use and visual analysis of visitor activities

“…Such processes can manifest within one park or in between parks or neighborhoods (Kuentzel & Heberlein, 1992;Ostermann & Timpf, 2007). Consequently, one of the greatest challenges for public authorities is to manage cultural and social diversity so that it improves social sustainability (Stren & Polèse, 2000). This challenge is even greater for urban parks, as they have to accommodate heterogeneous visitor needs within a small area.…”

The Social Dimension of Sustainable Neighborhood Design: Comparing Two Neighborhoods in Freiburg, Germany

“…However, the underlying question of what social goals of sustainable development are and a clear understanding of how to meet those goals is still up for debate (Hopwood et al, 2005;Littig & Griessler, 2005). Even though the social dimension of sustainability is widely accepted as a key aspect of sustainable development, it has not been clearly conceptualized and only a few efforts to define social sustainability exist McKenzie, 2004;Stren & Polèse, 2000;Yiftachel & Hedgcock, 1993). Little attention has been given to the social sustainability factors at the community level.…”

“…The work of Dempsey et al (2011Dempsey et al ( , 2012 and this paper's underlying general definition of social sustainability by Stren and Polèse (2000) led to the development of a new framework to examine different elements of urban form on different factors of social sustainability. This framework identifies social justice and equity as core principles underlying social sustainability (Bramley, Dempsey, Power, & Brown, 2009;Hamiduddin, 2015).…”