Time: Thursday, 11/Sept/2025: 9:00am - 10:30am Session Chair: Dr. Kirsten von Elverfeldt Session Chair: Dr. Maria Anna Martin Session Chair: Dr. Sebastian Block |
Accurate accounting and monitoring of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are key to assess our efforts at mitigating climate change. While most countries now routinely report their annual national emissions to the UNFCCC, many important climate policy decisions are made at the finer scale of regional and city governments. A growing number of cities have started developing their own local GHG inventories, but inconsistent methodologies sometimes lead to emission underestimations and hamper our ability to compare emission trends across cities.
High-resolution inventories of GHG emissions over large regions offer a way to standardize emission accounting and monitoring at policy-relevant scales, and are important inputs into the top-down inverse modeling of emissions using sensor measurements. In addition, scalable high-resolution inventories provide a tool to track emissions and prioritize mitigation policies to cities and local governments without the resources to construct their own inventories from scratch.
In this session, researchers and practitioners constructing and using high-resolution spatial inventories of GHG emissions will exchange their findings and discuss key challenges such as the validation of their results. The session will include research on territorial GHG accounting as well as consumption-based accounting, and cover the latest methods for GHG emission spatial disaggregation and bottom-up accounting, as well as for uncertainty quantification and data validation. To complement the methodological talks, we will invite contributions by practitioners using high-resolution GHG inventories to inform climate policy and local scales. With such a mix of contributions by inventory developers and users, the session will provide participants with rich opportunities for knowledge exchange and establishment of novel partnerships.
Can proximity forge strong bonds? Exploring the relationship between urban proximity and social cohesion at the neighbourhood level
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Urban proximity has recently regained prominence in urban and transport planning. While the environmental and health benefits of increased proximity are well documented, its social implications, particularly in relation to social cohesion, remain under-researched. This is important because social cohesion is often associated with increased community resilience and societal stability. While previous research has examined how features of the built environment affect social cohesion, few studies have isolated the impact of proximity to daily destinations. We address this gap by integrating objective and subjective measures of proximity to daily destinations and assessing their impact on neighbourhood social cohesion. Using survey data on social cohesion and perceived proximity, together with georeferenced data on destination distances in five Spanish cities, we apply an SEM approach to analyse the relationship. The results indicate a negative relationship between distance to destinations and social cohesion, mediated by perceptions of proximity. This means that the impact of distances to destinations over social cohesion is stronger when destinations are perceived to be closer or further than they actually are. Urban planners and policymakers should consider objective and subjective measures of proximity and focus on equitable access to essential services to promote community cohesion.
Diverse temporalities within the 15-minutes cities: micromobility future scenarios as moral claims in Italy.
University of Padua, Italy
The 15-minutes city is shaped by various temporalities. This paper examines the relationship between trajectories of responsibility and the urban landscape, exploring how temporality work and how future scenarios (Anderson 2010) related to micromobility are integrated into the planning of 15-minutes cities in Italy.
Micromobility refers to human-powered and motor-assisted lightweight vehicles (up to 350 kg), operating at low speeds (up to 45 km/h), with either fixed or free-floating parking, designed for short-distance travel. These are individualised but often shared services that use geolocation and on-demand travel through smartphone apps (Behrendt et al., 2023). Devices are increasingly becoming cultural and high-tech objects that support municipalities' sustainable mobility plans (Boréus et al. 2024).
Bikes, cargo bikes, e-bikes, and e-scooters are key for the 15-minutes city, connecting peri-urban areas and enabling intermodal transport. However, while offering mobility services, they impose limits based on infrastructure, design, and factors such as gender, age, and occupation. Micromobility combines advanced technology, service providers, and (non)users, influencing moral dimensions of the urban mobility, namely who is responsible for the city liveability. Indeed, devices’ mediatisation is tied to the mobilisation of future scenarios of urban evolution, extending trajectories of responsibility over time through the discursive formation of urban landscapes. How is the future present in and through the urban landscape of Italian 15-minutes cities?
I will discuss the outcomes of a thematic and discursive analysis of Italian newspaper articles on this subject from the TIPS database (Giardullo & Lorenzet 2016), which is part of my PhD project at the University of Padua.
References
Anderson, B. (2010). Preemption, precaution, preparedness: Anticipatory action and future geographies. Progress in Human Geography, 34(6), 777–798.
Behrendt, F., Heinen, E., Brand, C., Cairns, S., Anable, J., Azzouz, L., & Glachant, C. (2023). Conceptualizing Micromobility: The Multi-Dimensional and Socio-Technical Perspective [Online]. Preprints.org. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202209.0386.v2 [last consultation 02.01.2025].
Boréus, K., Bradley, K., & Tornhill, S. (2024). Breaking through banal consumerism? Representations of postconsumerist perspectives in mainstream press media. Journal of Consumer Culture, 24(1), 155-174.
Giardullo, P., & Lorenzet, A. (2016). Techno-Scientific Issues in the Public Sphere (TIPS). EASST Review, 35(4), 14–17.
Station district as a possible spatial theatre for cautious urban regeneration and/or sustainable development?
Universität Kassel, Germany
The spatial arrangement of railway stations in metropolitan suburbs and peripheral rural areas—often shaped over 150 years—frequently means that journeys to or from the metropolitan core start or end at a station located near a small-town center. These areas typically feature a "Bahnhofstraße" linking the station and the old town, but such streets often bear signs of economic disruption, particularly in East Germany, characterized by vacancies and dereliction. This phenomenon is not exclusive to East Germany. The visual impact of mobility infrastructure is significant. Public perception often lags behind operational changes, as exemplified by the lingering association of railway stations with outdated or inefficient imagery. This highlights the need to align mobility infrastructure design with societal expectations and urban development goals, moving beyond technical or quantitative metrics. While digital advancements like integrated ticketing apps have enhanced the user experience, a truly successful transition from car dependence requires more: accessible, appealing station areas and well-designed connections to other urban infrastructure (Krüger 2024b). Railway stations often function as transitional spaces between metropolitan ideals (e.g., walkable cities) and suburban or rural realities (e.g., car dependence). Successful examples showcase how integrating social infrastructure into station areas can transform them into vibrant, multi-functional spaces. Just one example: In Melsungen, a small-town near Kassel, a former goods shed was repurposed into community facilities, demonstrating the potential of small-scale interventions to improve the urban fabric. However, such comprehensive approaches remain rare, as station areas frequently fall outside designated urban renewal zones. The role of stations in urban and regional development is pivotal. They exemplify the coexistence of car-oriented suburban life with car-free metropolitan ideals, providing a space for seamless transitions between these modes of living. When designed effectively, station districts encourage sustainable mobility and enhance urban life by integrating essential services and fostering a sense of place.
An interesting comparative study can be put into the discussion of the panel. In 2023, the author received a research scholarship by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and conducted a study on small- and medium-sized-towns along Shinkansen lines: Does it play a role that ICEs and Shinkansen also stop in small-towns, providing for them quickly connections to metropolitan cores? As it is possible as well to get from Berlin to Wittenberge in an hour without changing trains on the ICE, you can do the same on the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Karuizawa (20,000 inhabitants each) [or from Cologne to Limburg or Vienna to Tullnerfeld). These are not isolated cases (Weidner et al. 2024). Why do trains traveling at least 200 km/h slow down here? Will a 15' rural city be created around these stations, connected to the inner areas of a metropolis in 1-2 hours travel time? Based on a comparative systematization of the station environments, these considerations are linked here with the discourses on the 15' city, whether these also radiate into the countryside - or do not.
This peculiar comparative study can be embedded into other research to elaborate possible means of transformation and transferability in research. The other reserch derives from:
• A transfer research project on small-town governance and sustainable strategies (www.kommunen-innovativ.de/isdn), including station zoning challenges (Krüger 2023, 2024b)
• The DFG-Research Group New Suburbanisms (www.suburbanitaet.de) examining infrastructure and urban planning interactions (Krüger 2024a)
• The ARL Working Group on Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) as urban maintenance.
References:
Krüger, A. (2024a): Infrastruktur für den Siedlungsbau im Wandel – Der Versuch einer Allokationstypologie im Siedlungsneubau der 2020-er Jahre. in: Altrock, Bertram, Krüger (Hg.): Stadterweiterung in Zeiten der Suburbanisierung – Neue Suburbanität; Bielefeld: transcript, S. 339-361.
Krüger, A. (2024b): Bahnhofsviertel als Gebietskulisse der Klimaanpassung. Der Fall Gößnitz (Thüringen). In: Raumplanung H. 226, 2-2024, S. 60–64.
Krüger, A. (Hg.) 2023: Thüringen-Reader (Band II) Energie Wohnen Mobilität. Kassel: Universität.
Weidner, S.; Haubold, T.; Krüger, A.; (2024): Kleinstadtbahnhöfe – Anbindung, Umfeld, Funktion. Cottbus: BTU/Hochschul-Campus Kleinstadtforschung