Between Abundance and Constraints: The Natural Resource Equation of Asia’s Diverging, Higher-Income City Models
1
LSE Cities, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK
2
Institute of Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds LS29JT, UK
3
European Institute for Energy Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Land 2020, 9(11), 426; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9110426
Received: 8 October 2020 / Revised: 24 October 2020 / Accepted: 27 October 2020 / Published: 31 October 2020
(This article belongs to the Section Urban Contexts and Urban-Rural Interactions)
This paper investigates how natural resource conditions impact the physical development of cities and how, once built, the urban spatial structure leads to different patterns of resource use. The point of departure for this research is the common “resource urbanisms” assumption that cities are directly affected by the availability and costs of natural resources, and that in turn, different urbanisms result in substantial differences in resource use and consequent impact on the environment. Considering extreme and divergent, higher-income urban models of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and Singapore, the paper focusses on two resources, land and energy, and the case of building cooling and transport energy demand. The research uses a mixed methods approach which includes qualitative methods such as expert interviews, analysis of planning documents and historic planning decisions, alongside quantitative methods such as remote sensing, GIS and data analysis and energy modelling. The paper suggests that land availability is a major driver of urban form while energy prices may play a secondary role. It also finds that urban form-induced energy efficiencies for transport and cooling energy diverge in the four cities by a factor of five and two, respectively.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
urbanism; urban form; building typology; transport; infrastructure; cooling energy; Kuwait; Abu Dhabi; Hong Kong; Singapore
▼
Show Figures
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Rode, P.; Gomes, A.; Adeel, M.; Sajjad, F.; Koch, A.; Murshed, S.M. Between Abundance and Constraints: The Natural Resource Equation of Asia’s Diverging, Higher-Income City Models. Land 2020, 9, 426. https://doi.org/10.3390/land9110426
AMA Style
Rode P, Gomes A, Adeel M, Sajjad F, Koch A, Murshed SM. Between Abundance and Constraints: The Natural Resource Equation of Asia’s Diverging, Higher-Income City Models. Land. 2020; 9(11):426. https://doi.org/10.3390/land9110426
Chicago/Turabian StyleRode, Philipp; Gomes, Alexandra; Adeel, Muhammad; Sajjad, Fizzah; Koch, Andreas; Murshed, Syed M. 2020. "Between Abundance and Constraints: The Natural Resource Equation of Asia’s Diverging, Higher-Income City Models" Land 9, no. 11: 426. https://doi.org/10.3390/land9110426
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
Search more from Scilit