Urban Update 6 February 2025

News and Research

Built Environment 

Environmental sustainability of urban expansion: Implications for transport emissions, air pollution, and city growth - Environment International
This study examines the consequences of the growth of Warsaw since 2006

• Transport emission mitigation is more effective in compact cities than sprawled ones.
• Improved public transport significantly reduces emissions and pollution in both compact and sprawled scenarios.
• Environmentally sustainable cities must integrate accessibility, urban diversity, and nature availability into urban design. These factors influence mobility, reducing CO2 emissions and air pollution.

      Sprawl consequences:

• Continued sprawl increases transport CO2 emissions by 47% and NO2 levels by up to 25% in suburbs, impacting even central areas.
• Suburban residents are a major source of central NO2 pollution.

      Compact city benefits:

• Compact development reduces traffic CO2 emissions and NO2 concentration city-wide, though central NO2 reductions are minimal.
• Increased central density raises NO2 exposure, requiring additional abatement measures.

 
'Serious and systemic' problems found in English homes with external insulation applied since 2022 >>>>
 
City of London’s ‘retrofit first’ policy to come into force >>>>
 
Five urban design choices that make a world of difference for parents >>>>
1. Play opportunities on the doorstep
2. Play spaces outside children’s health centres
3. Caregiver-friendly amenities at maternity hospitals
4. Clustering services to create a care hub
5. Engaging caregivers in a co-creation process
 
 

Schemes

Section 106 affordable housing: call for next level support to new clearing service as registrations near 300 in first 50 days >>>>
 
Public consultation underway on proposals for £600 million Oxfordshire theme park >>>>
 
Net-zero carbon homes coming to Ringmer, East Sussex >>>>
 
No affordable homes in major Exeter waterside development >>>>
 
 

Humans, Health, Society

 
Common weed killer glyphosate may be harming infants >>>>
Rise of farmers spraying glyphosate correlated with drop in birthweight in large study
 
‘I have no neighbours’: overtourism pushes residents in Spain and Portugal to the limit >>>>
 
Misogyny identified as breeding ground for extremism in UK, says leaked report >>>>
 
Women were at the centre of iron age Britain >>>>
DNA study points to the Durotriges (a tribe based in southern Britain) practised matrilocal marriages: the men came to live with the women’s family, who stayed in the same location for generations.
 
 

Politics, Philosophy, Economics, History

 
Administrative areas and regional identity formation: The case of East Germany - Regional Science and Urban Economics
This paper argues that the uncertainty about people’s regional affiliation diminished citizens’ political engagement by undermining their identification with the federal state level.

The paper is of particular interest in view of most countries’ periodic attempts at local government reorganisation.  Success depends in part on people identifying with the area covered by each tier of government.
 
AI crosses ‘red line’ after learning to replicate itself >>>>
“Successful self-replication under no human assistance is the essential step for AI to outsmart the human beings, and is an early signal for rogue AIs,” the researchers warned.”
 
Dezeen survey points to "broken" architecture and design industry >>>>
 
Earth's oceans are filled with what scientists are calling "dark vessels" ships that are travelling with their satellite tracking turned off  >>>>
 
Water industry strategies to manufacture doubt and deflect blame for sewage pollution in England - Nature Water
English water and sewage companies (WaSCs), mostly owned by global investors, face intense scrutiny for massive environmental failures. Between 2019 and 2023, they discharged untreated wastewater and sewage into waterways for 12.7 million monitored hours. Despite limited prior monitoring, this paper asserts that these companies appear to have deliberately prolonged this pollution crisis, employing tactics similar to those used by other polluting industries. A study found 22 out of 28 identified "greenwashing/deception" tactics being used by the nine major English WaSCs.
According to the paper this exploitation of water resources, coupled with infrastructure decay and weak regulation, raises serious global concerns about water security, ethics, and environmental responsibility, demanding much stricter oversight of both industry actions and communications.
 

History

How a royal loo helped track down the lost palace of England’s last Anglo-Saxon king >>>>
 
The ancient discovery that put a Silk Road city back on the map >>>>
 
 

Natural Environment 

 
Marine Filter feeding micro-organisms may be breaking micro plastics particles into many smaller nano-plastic particles which are less easy to detect, but potentially much more harmful >>>>
 
Songbirds being killed by pesticides found in pet fur flea treatments >>>>
Insecticides involved include fipronil and imidacloprid.   Fur-lined nests potentially expose birds like blue and great tit to harmful chemicals, and lead to greater chance of death of chicks, and unhatched eggs.
 
Should we stop feeding birds, what happens if we do, and does it spread disease? >>>>
 
 

Movement

 
The closing longevity gap between battery electric vehicles and internal combustion vehicles in Great Britain >>>>

• Battery Electric Vehicles have evolved, and are now expected to outlast the average Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle.
• Most new EVs come with warranties of 8 years and 100,000 miles for their batteries.
• Nissan reporting that almost all of the batteries that they have ever produced are still in use in the EVs they sold over the last 12 years.
• The paper also mentions Electric Vehicle Graveyards

 
Are new Plymouth 20mph zones a 'no-brainer' or a 'rip-off'? >>>>
 
London taxi drivers have specialized human mental strategies for expertly navigating their city’s streets, scientists find >>>>

Pablo Fernandez Velasco et al., PNAS
 
The researchers' initial guess was that drivers would plan the route sequentially (first street, then second, etc.). This was proven wrong. Instead, drivers prioritized complex, distant junctions and major streets first during the offline planning phase. They figured out the overall structure of the route based on these key points, then filled in the details later. This is called "non-local precaching of critical junctions."  

Drivers also took longer to think about longer streets, suggesting a detailed mental map of London, not just an abstract one. This surprised the researchers, who thought drivers might have a less "spatially embodied" sense of the city.
 
The Impact of the Walking Environment on the Use of Public Transportation by the Transportation Vulnerable - KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering
This Korean study looks at how the walking environment affects whether these people use public transport.  Researchers looked at three things:

• How happy people are with walking conditions.
• Whether there are helpful things for people with disabilities (like ramps or tactile paving).
• How safe it is to walk.

      They found that:

• The better the walking conditions, the more people use public transport.
• This is especially true for people who are already disadvantaged when it comes to transportation.  For example, good walking paths are really important for visually impaired people to use public transport. The same goes for suitable facilities for those with visual or hearing impairments and safe walking for those with physical disabilities, pregnant women, or those with children.

To help people who are disadvantaged with transportation, we need to improve walking paths and make public transport better.
 

Energy and Climate Change

 
In the next century European cities will see millions more deaths from extreme temperatures >>>>
The paper warns that deaths from extreme heat in Europe will reach 136 per 100,000 people per year by 2099, unless cities take steps to adapt.
 
World’s addiction to fossil fuels is ‘Frankenstein’s monster sparing nothing and no one’, says UN chief >>>>

An underestimated source of methane found in shallow coastal waters >>>>
 
Burning wood for power not necessary for UK’s energy goals, analysis finds >>>>
Full report by E3G >>>>
 
World's first 'wall of wind turbines' wins funding >>>>
Rather than large single turbines the wall concept is to use many small turbines, mounted on what looks like a lattice structure that forms the wall.
 
Scottish Government to export hydrogen to Germany 'by ship' >>>>
Scottish Government Hydrogen Action plan predicts benefits to the economy of between £5bn and £25bn per annum.
 
A third of the Arctic’s vast carbon sink now a source of emissions, study reveals Nature Climate Change
It is thought that Arctic soils account for around ½ of the Earth’s carbon pool.  As temperatures increase, microbes can cause decay of the permafrost, releasing carbon into the atmosphere as methane.  Fires add to the emissions.
 
Rapid coastal erosion of Norfolk village shown through aerial imagery >>>>
On this part of the coast, the shoreline is formed by a gently shelving sandy beach and sand dunes which offer little resistance to wave action. The article suggests that there can be cycles of erosion that are influenced by the movement of offshore sand bars which when present protect the shoreline, and when absent, allow much more powerful waves to reach the beach causing it to narrow, and at high tide, waves being able to reach the bottoms of cliffs leading to rapid erosion.