Copyright: © Lasse Gerrits

Every planner knows that cities change. The planning and policy recipes that drive those changes, are multiple. What works in one place may or may not work in another place. While there are degrees of uniqueness in each city, there are also similarities between them. This defies simplistic causal accounts but also does away with the idea that each city is so unique that comparison is impossible. Here we touch upon a core issue in planning theory: to discern unique characteristics from those that recur across cases, especially in transformations that play out over time. Too often, we are left with descriptions of single cases or with ad hoc comparisons of a small set of cases. The first doesn’t identify what is unique and what is not, the second may run the risk of cherry-picking results. As a possible remedy, we developed Trajectory-Based Qualitative Comparative Analysis (TJ-QCA), which is a variation of QCA that incorporates different development stages of cases in the comparison. In this talk, we will present the main aspects of this research method and will demonstrate what kind of results it can generate. To this end, we will present our latest empirical research that compares eleven urban transformations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This research contributes to a better understanding of what makes urban transformations work because the method deployed acknowledges (1) the complex causality driving real-world changes, (2) structural differences and similarities between trajectories, and (3) can therefore identify policy mixes that contain conjunctions and disjunctions of conditions that contribute to said transformations.

Contact: gerrits@ihs.nl

Copyright: © Kathrin Wieck

The lecture will focus on the COLLOC workshop series and the Dual Design strategy which serves as a transdisciplinary format for co-producing common ground knowledge. As cooperation project since 2018 between TU Berlin, BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, UFRJ Rio de Janeiro, technicians, societal actors and nature processes it gives insights to the collaborative production of transformation knowledge in the self-organized occupation Solano Trindade in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro. It also reflects on opportunities for transferability and linkage with the theoretical framework of transdisciplinary research and teaching.

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Copyright: © Guibo Sun

Public transport accessible to older people may offer a transformative solution to achieving healthy ageing. However, the evidence to support such transport infrastructure modifications is unclear. Previous studies on public transport use and elderly health were mostly observational studies using cross-sectional data. Few studies have examined the before-and-after effects of a new metro, for example, to see if it improves elderly health.

We use a new metro line in Hong Kong as a natural experiment to examine the impact of the metro-led public transport intervention on elderly health. In Hong Kong, more than 90% of daily travel is made by public transport. The public transport modifications consist of the new metro line with eight stations and changes in the walking environment and bus services around the stations. We will look at the before-and-after differences in public transport use and health outcomes between elderly participants living in treatment neighbourhoods (400 m walking buffered areas of the new metro stations) and in control groups (living in comparable areas but unaffected by the new metro). Questionnaire-based baseline data were collected in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic, while some qualitative interviews are ongoing. Amid the pandemic, we conducted a quick telephone-based survey of COVID-19’s potential impact on public transport use behaviours of our elderly cohort in September 2020. After the new metro opened in June 2021, we conducted a follow-up survey in November 2021.

We aim to investigate if the new metro and the associated changes in the built environment affect public transport use behaviours, physical activity and wider health outcomes among the elderly (e.g., social inclusion, quality of life, subjective well-being). The research project collects practice-based evidence to enable future evidence-based planning for healthy ageing cities.

Contact: gbsun@hku.hk