City profile: Ghent, Belgium

Boussauw, Kobe

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2014.04.004

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(24 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Ghent is a modern city that was founded in the eighth century at the confluence of two rivers and has a densely built historical inner city surrounded with nineteenth and twentieth century workers districts. The north of the city comprises an international harbour, whilst the south is characterised by the new train station [ 49 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors related with public open space use among adolescents: a study using GPS and accelerometers

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundLow physical activity levels and high levels of sedentary time among adolescents call for population wide interventions. Public open spaces can be important locations for adolescents’ physical activity. This study aimed to describe the prevalence, frequency and context of public open space visitation and to gain insight into the individual, social and physical environmental factors associated with public open space use among 12- to 16-year-old Flemish (Belgian) adolescents.MethodsGlobal positioning system devices, accelerometers and one-on-one interviews were used to measure location-specific activity levels, time spent at, reasons for using and accompaniment at public open spaces among 173 adolescents. Multilevel hurdle and gamma models were used to estimate the associations between the independent variables (age, gender, ethnicity, education, sport club membership and accompaniment) and the amount of time, sedentary time, light-, moderate- to vigorous- and vigorous-intensity physical activity at public open spaces.ResultsThree out of four participants had visited a public open space (for recreational purposes) and participants were most often accompanied by friends/classmates. Mainly public transportation stops/stations were used, and subsequently the most reported reason for public open space use was “to wait for something or someone”. Furthermore, boys, younger adolescents, non-western-European adolescents and lower educated adolescents were more likely to use public open spaces. Additionally, boys and younger adolescents were more likely to accumulate physical activity at public open spaces. The only social environmental variable associated with time spent at public open spaces was accompaniment by siblings: adolescents spent more time at public open spaces when accompanied by their siblings.ConclusionsPublic open spaces may be effective areas to promote physical activity among groups at risk for physical inactivity (i.e. low educated and non-western-European adolescents). Additionally, girls and older adolescents were less likely to visit and be physically active at public open spaces. Therefore, urban planners should consider adding attractive features, in order to encourage physical activity among girls and older adolescents at public open spaces. Furthermore, creating public open spaces that are attractive for youth of all ages could contribute to adolescents visiting public open spaces accompanied by siblings.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12942-018-0123-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors related with public open space use among adolescents: a study using GPS and accelerometers

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…At the end of the 19th Century, large textile factories and metal construction plants were raised outside the former city walls. From the 1950s onward, the center of industrial activities shifted toward the port area north of the city center, with a variety of industrial activities, including the steel industry, the car industry, trans‐shipment of bulk commodities, power plants, and the chemical industry (Boussauw, 2014). …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Patterns of Heavy Metal Contamination by Urbanization

Delbecque

Verdoodt

2016

J. Environ. Qual.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Source identification is an important step towards predictive models of urban heavy metal (HM) contamination. This study assesses the spatial distribution of enrichment of eight HMs (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb and Zn) in the city of Ghent (156.18 km 2 ; Belgium). A database with HM concentrations measured in the topsoil at 2138 point observations was collected from the Public Waste Agency of Flanders. The degree of anthropogenic HM enrichment was quantified using an urban pollution index (PI). Enrichment of HMs showed high variations throughout the study area due to manifold anthropogenic sources. Topsoil in Ghent was especially enriched with Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn, with median PI's of 1.91, 1.74, 2.12 and 2.02 respectively. Contrastingly, As, Cd, Hg, Cr generally did not exceed expected background concentrations, with median PI values < 1. Stratification of the PI based on land use (agriculture, park and recreation, residential zones, harbor and industry) generally revealed high enrichment of Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn in residential areas linked to housing and traffic, but proved unsatisfactory to capture major trends in urban spatial HM distributions. Moreover, an important control of industrial and traffic emissions is suggested for Ni, Cu, Pb and Zn. Industrial non-airborne point source contaminations were mainly historical, rather than linked to current industrial activities. Results indicated that urban-rural gradients or current land use stratification approaches are inadequate to predict spatial HM distributions in cities with a long history of industrialization.

show abstract

“…First, OCAS was founded in 1948 as the engineering department within Cockerill-Sambre steel group, a (far) predecessor of ArcelorMittal today. Second, the Ghent University has a long tradition in the academic research of steel, related to its industrial heritage (Boussauw, 2014). However, the presence of both (production and research related to steel manufacturing) within Ghent, doesn't explain the current network.…”

Section: The Steel Manufacturing Sector In Ghentmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Planning the Port/City to Planning the Port-City: Exploring the Economic Interface in European Port Cities

Berghe

Daamen

2020

European Port Cities in Transition

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In last three decades, planning agencies of most ports have institutionally evolved into a (semi-) independent port authority. The rationale behind this process is that port authorities are able to react more quickly to changing logistical and spatial preferences of maritime firms, hence increasing the competitiveness of ports. Although these dedicated port authorities have proven to be largely successful, new economic, social, and environmental challenges are quickly catching up on these port governance models, and particularly leads to (spatial) policy 'conflicts' between port and city. This chapter starts by assessing this conflict and argue that the conflict is partly a result of dominantoften also academic-spatial representations of the port city as two separate entities. To escape this divisive conception of contemporary port cities, this chapter presents a relational visualisation method that is able to analyse the economic interface between port and city. Based on our results, we reflect back on our proposition and argue that the core challenge today for researchers and policy makers is acknowledging the bias of port/city, being arguably a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hence, we turn the idea of (planning the) port/city conflicts into planning the port-city's strengths and weaknesses.

show abstract

City profile: Ghent, Belgium

Cited by 11 publications

References 26 publications

Factors related with public open space use among adolescents: a study using GPS and accelerometers

Factors related with public open space use among adolescents: a study using GPS and accelerometers

Spatial Patterns of Heavy Metal Contamination by Urbanization

From Planning the Port/City to Planning the Port-City: Exploring the Economic Interface in European Port Cities

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About