Virtual Only | Track 1 | Session 4. Heritage, Culture and Health

Traditional villages are both the roots of Chinese civilisation and the carriers of traditional culture. However, with the advancement of urbanisation and industrialisation, traditional villages are facing the crisis of cultural loss and destruction of spatial forms. Taking the ancient village of Qiqiao in Gaochun District, Nanjing as an example, this paper explores the influence of the natural environment, land system, feng shui concept, patriarchal system, traditional customs and behavioural habits on the village settlement form. Based on the complexity of the current influence of multiple cultural forms on village settlements, this paper introduces the theory of cultural genes and focuses on the use of this theory to analyse village forms and their formation mechanisms, and proposes a strategy for traditional village conservation and revitalation based on cultural genes inheritance and development.

In 2013, the State Council officially issued the National Sustainable Development Plan for Resource-Based Cities (2013-2020), which proposed that there are 262 resource-based cities in my country. The development of these cities mostly depends on the constant consumption of resources. In recent years, due to depletion of resources, and reduction of energy, more and more resource-based cities are facing the problems of population decline, industrial failure, economic recession, and even a lot of idle space. How to move toward a more lasting and sustainable development path? It is a key problem that many resource-based cities will face. In the context of sustainable development, many resource-based cities have chosen the path of transformation and development led by a circular economy, thus getting rid of the predicament of resource development. However, after the transformation, whether the sustainable development capacity of resource-based cities has been improved or reduced, the current research has revealed little, and there is no definite answer. According to the theory of social, economic, and natural complex ecosystems, ecological carrying capacity can represent the sustainable development capacity in a region. Nanchuan, a southern city of Chongqing, is a typical resource-based city. It started its transformation around 2013-2014 and achieved good results. This study takes the Nanchuan District of Chongqing, as the research object, constructs the evaluation model of the ecological carrying capacity of the region with the data of recent 10 years, deconstructs the changes in sustainable development capacity since its transformation, and tries to analyze the factors affecting its changes from the aspects of population, industry and so on. Then, this paper summarizes the main approaches to the transformation of the Nanchuan District. The results of this paper show that: (1) The ecological carrying capacity of the Nanchuan District exhibits certain changes in both time and space. (2) There are also significant differences in ecological carrying capacity under different dimensions. (3) Changes in industrial structure have a significant impact on the sustainable development capacity of resource-based cities after transformation. This research helps to strengthen the understanding of the sustainable development of resource-based cities after transformation and helps to summarize and refine the transformation approaches of resource-based cities from a medium and micro perspective, leading the development of cities from wealth to health. At the same time, this study can also provide some suggestions for the sustainable development of other resource-based cities.

Since the dawn of liberalization in India, Indian cities have been shifting their economic base from a secondary economy to a tertiary economy. This shift in the economy resulted in the creation of various economic growth centers and the formation of new townships along the peripheries for faster capital capture. This led to large privatization of land and infrastructure and therefore a drive for creating a world-class global image began (Mehrotra, 2008), restructuring cities into paradigms necessitating segregation between the global and local population. This privatized vision led to the creation of such a socio-spatial structure that does not accommodate the local population, living there for generations. The Northeastern peripheral expansion of Kolkata, initiated by the Left Front Government in the 90’s post liberalization of the economy, and influenced greatly by private developers and the entry of the private sector in the housing sector, has been facilitated through violent erasures, expropriation of agricultural land, dispossessions and displacements that underwrite the production of the periphery as spaces of urban consumption, living and working. The city of Kolkata historically had gone through segregated planning mechanisms, yet has shown greater flexibility and adaptability in achieving inclusiveness ultimately leading to spatial hybridity or grey zones. This paper aims to investigate the anomalies or spatial hybridity in the post-planning scenarios of Newtown, Rajarhat. The paper is divided into three main parts. The first part focuses on the cultural and socio-spatial interdependencies between the global and local populations and also across different classes of people. This part also explores the idea of how local culture overrides the principles of global city planning. The second part explores the government and civil society’s role in strengthening the interdependency between the global and the local population. Here, national and state-driven urbanization schemes are critically examined which has resulted in certain socio-economic interdependencies. The last part of this paper looks at the overall spatial structure of Newtown Rajarhat through the lens of ephemeral urbanism. This section will highlight how evictions led by government and private authorities result in further anomalies in the spatial structure of this area. Temporality or ephemeral urban spatiality plays a major role as a coping mechanism against such evictions. Therefore, the overall attempt of this paper is to highlight such spatial anomalies as signs of inclusive development which emerges as a reaction against the rigid framework of globally planned cities.

Over the last decade, individual and social well-being gained increasing relevance in public policy discourses and has become more and more central to the shaping of the Urban Agendas across Europe. This “well-being turn” has been accelerated by the pandemics experience, which prompted urban actors and citizens to rethink the way they live cities, their spaces and services. Issues related to citizens’ physical and mental health, social inclusion of vulnerable populations, quality and accessibility of public spaces and services have been brought to the forefront. This momentum paves the ground for broadening the perspective on the wellbeing-city nexus beyond the strictly sectoral boundaries in which it had often been confined. Also, this shift calls for a redefinition of “quality of life” parameters in cities, opening to new forms of experimentation and collaboration among multiple urban agents. Finally, this change triggers a reflection on drivers of social and individual well-being. As part of this reflection, this study focuses on the role of cultural practices, which have been broadly recognised as crucial drivers of enhancing citizens' health and quality of life. On the one hand, the impact of cultural experiences on individuals is broadly acknowledged. Cultural prescriptions and art-therapeutic practices are increasingly used to complement medical therapies, while there is evidence that participation in cultural activities can enhance self-confidence, evoke positive emotions, and strengthen personal identity as well as relational and cognitive abilities. The beneficial effects of cultural experience are particularly relevant for vulnerable populations, including elderlies, people with physical and mental disabilities, and marginalised social groups. On the other hand, the contribution of culture is considered pivotal to social wellbeing. Cultural activities can directly affect modes of social interaction and organisation, allowing for the generation of shared discourses, paradigms, and values, which ultimately affect social cohesion and the quality of social relations within local communities, as well as how the latter conceive, shape and live public and semi-private urban spaces. The transformative potential of cultural practices and policies has been recognised by the New European Agenda for Culture (2018), which identifies cultural participation, culture-led urban regeneration and cultural actions targeting health and well-being as the three key areas in which the contribution of culture has proven to be effective in producing significant social value. Relying on empirical materials collected under the umbrella of the MESOC Horizon 2020 Project (www.mesoc-project.eu), the paper reflects on those factors and dynamics that (i) allowed for the emergence of the cultural initiatives themselves; and (ii) enabled the generation of well-being related impacts both at the individual and city level. This study draws from structured dialogues with public actors, cultural operators and healthcare professionals from the City of Valencia to explore cultural initiatives targeting well-being in the urban context. After providing a short overview of the selected cultural projects, the paper discusses place-based and exogenous factors affecting individual and societal well-being. The analysis of the dialogues allowed sketching some common elements influencing citizens' well-being. Finally, the authors reflect on the lessons learnt from the case study, formulating some hypotheses on their possible usefulness in other contexts.

Residents' health is not only affected by individual physiological characteristics and lifestyle, but also closely related to environmental factors, which is the result of multi-scale environmental factors. Community environment as a micro - scale unit of the city is an important place to carry people's life. Especially affected by ecological and environmental problems and public health emergencies, good community environmental governance can promote the improvement of public physical and mental health, and give full attention to the needs of different groups for barrier-free, convenient and healthy life. In order to improve the quality of living environment, facilitate the elderly and young, nursing women, the sick and disabled and other special groups to fully participate in social life, reflect the humanistic care of spatial planning, to create barrier-free and environmentally friendly community environment. China has put forward a strategy of community inclusive and healthy development based on three aspects of grid management. The first is the equalization of basic public services in urban and rural communities. The layout of three-level living circle of community public service facilities is divided into street level, neighborhood committee level and owners committee level. Facilities include educational facilities, community management and services, commercial services, cultural facilities, sports facilities, green space, elderly service facilities, medical and health facilities, municipal facilities, transportation facilities, etc. We will pay attention to the needs of vulnerable groups in the post-EPIDEMIC era, grow inward, and create a safer, more accessible, comfortable and inclusive living space. Second, the community grid is divided and refined management is combined with smart community. As a basic unit of digital city construction, smart community provides safe, comfortable and convenient intelligent life scenes for community residents. With the increasing aging population in China and the increasing social awareness of the need to take care of the injured and disabled, the spatial planning integrates traditional Chinese medicine hospitals, rehabilitation medical centers, dining halls for the elderly, day care centers and other resources to provide "integrated medical care" services for vulnerable groups in the community. Stay at home, achieve timely meet the needs of life barrier-free. Third, pay attention to the physical environment construction of community health, improve the community ecological environment. From the perspective of environmental pollution, the grid supervision system of ecological environment should be constructed to master the dynamic supervision of pollution sources and grid members, and realize the control of noise, air and water environment in the community by combining with community micro-update. Location and habitat creation of new communities should be considered from the perspective of the impact of the environment on human health and disease. Everyone has certain demands for the barrier-free environment in the city at a certain time, and everyone needs a healthy living environment. Community grid spatial governance takes into account the life demands, resource allocation and interest goal coordination of all kinds of groups, gets rid of their own age or physical factors of life restrictions, and provides space care for everyone's dignity, fairness and independent life.

In 2019 Statistics South Africa confirmed that a quarter of the country’s population lives in informal settlements with approximately 1.25 million houses currently within the urban space located in informal settlements. Research currently being conducted in South Africa pertaining to informal settlements mainly focuses on the neglect of informal settlements, current living conditions in regions, and the increase of inequality in South Africa, especially the gap between formal and informal areas. However, studies ignore the important issue of how liveable informal settlements are. Liveability comprises social, economic, and ecological indicators that promote and enhance the quality of life. For this reason, this study is concerned with contributing to the research on the liveability of informal settlements by assessing liveability in Caleb Motshabi informal settlement in Bloemfontein. To achieve this, the study will make use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods, using primary and secondary data sources. To assess liveability, residents' perspectives on the living conditions of their community will be determined by surveys and in-depth interviews. Furthermore, the study will make use of a land-use map which will highlight major activities in Caleb Motshabi and will assist in understanding the current landscape. Lastly, the study assesses the spatial land-use regulations against the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act, No. 16 of 2013 development principles to determine the adherence to suitable land regulations for the residents of the informal settlement. The study found that Caleb Motshabi is perceived to have challenges with access to basic services, healthcare, education, housing, employment, proximity to schools, and recreational activities.