The present study attempts to model the spatiotemporal urban growth of Kolkata metropolitan area (KMA), India, in a comparative modeling framework using three (remote sensing and geographic information system) RS-GIS integrated techniques, namely stochastic-choice Markov-chain (STCHOICE), cellular automata-Markov (CA-MARKOV), multi-layer perceptron neural network (MLPNN) coupled with approaches...

Due to the inherent discrete nature of sensing, interpolation is a key activity in sensing. Interpolation in urban computing faces an unprecedented inference issue that was not present in large scale traditional sensing environments. Obstacles such as buildings and walls are prevalent in urban sensing, and it is important to consider them in urban sensing interpolation. This paper introduces an...

Suburban sprawl, a relatively recent phenomenon, is among the most important urban policy issues facing contemporary cities. To date, a well-accepted rationale has not been settled on for explaining and managing the causes of sprawl. Our contention is that consideration of geography is essential—that geographical explanations offer much potential in informing the debate about sprawl. Similarly,...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To examine the relation between birth weight and blood pressure at 5 years in a cohort of South African children. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. PARTICIPANTS 849 five year old children. SETTING Soweto, a sprawling urban area close to Johannesburg, South Africa, which was a designated residential area for people classified as "black" under apartheid legislation. MAIN RE...

BACKGROUND Cities are expanding and accommodating an increasing proportion of the world's population. It is important to identify features of urban form that promote the health of city dwellers. Access to green space has been associated with health benefits at both individual and neighbourhood level. We investigated whether a relationship between green space coverage and selected mortality rate...

Dispersed low-density development–“urban sprawl”–has many detrimental environmental, economic, and social consequences. Sprawl leads to higher greenhouse-gas emissions poses an increasing threat the long-term availability of vital ecosystem services. Therefore, urban sprawl is in stark contradiction principles sustainable land use need for a sustainability transformation. This study presents de...

The rapid growth of the built environment has been pointed out as one of the major challenges to sustainability in the US. Low density “sprawling” neighborhoods represent the most undesired form of urban growth both for the waste of land and energy they cause, as well as for the lack of a “sense of place” they promote among their inhabitants. Several critiques to such type of urbanization have ...

Innovation and technological change are central to the quest for regional development. In the globally-connected knowledge-driven economy, the relevance of agglomeration forces that rely on proximity continues to increase, paradoxically despite declining real costs of information, communication and transportation. Globally, the proportion of the population living in cities continues to grow and...