Urban Regeneration and Sustainable Communities: The Role of Networks, Innovation, and Creativity in Building Successful Partnerships

The following examination goes against the currenttrend in policy on urban regeneration partnerships byrelaxing the assumption that they represent virtuouscircles of mutually reinforcing actions that are good in their own right. It does this by offering a critique of the market-led urban regeneration initiatives and suggesting that they be replaced by a plan-led alternative. This would entail strategic actions being based on a sufficiently “place-based” knowledge of what communities need to be sustainable.Urban regeneration now uses partnerships, with cities, regional development agencies, and businesses seeking to leverage resources from the private sector and channel money, capital, and professional expertise into the development of villages and neighborhoods as part ofthe search for sustainable communities.By focusing on the social capital of collaborative platforms and consensus building, it has become possible to recognize the critical role networks, innovation, and creative partnerships play in representing places that are not only sites of ecological integrity, equity, and democratic renewal, but that are also locations where socially inclusive decision making can institutionalize the civic values required for the regeneration of urban villages and neighborhoods as self-sustaining communities

The IntelCities community of practice.

Sets out the integrated community model of electronically enhanced governance services developed by IntelCities to represent its e-Learning platform, knowledge management system and digital library

The IntelCities community of practice.

Sets out the integrated community model of electronically enhanced governance services developed by IntelCities to represent its e-Learning platform, knowledge management system and digital library

The IntelCities elearning platform, knowledge management system and digital library for semantically-rich e-governance services.

The paper examines the architecture and services of the e-learning platform and describes how the knowledge management system designed for IntelCities is supported by the IP’s digital library. It suggests the e-Learning platform, knowledge management system and digital library developed under the IP provides the intelligence cities need to integrate them as a platform of semantically-rich e-Governance services. That is to say, an integrated platform of semantically rich e-Governance services with the intelligence which cities need to meet the expectations citizens have about the quality of such electronically enhanced products. The paper begins by outlining the integrated model of electronically enhanced governance (eGov) services adopted to represent the front-end, middleware and back-office functions of the IntelCities’ e-Learning, knowledge management (KM) and digital library. Having done this, the paper shall report on the search for an intelligent solution to the IP’s learning needs, knowledge transfer and capacity building requirements. It shall then go on to discuss the information technology (IT) underlying the solution adopted by the IP to integrate the electronically enhanced eGov services hosted on the eCity platform with the legacy systems operated by the public administrations involved in the project. From here the discussion shall then go on to examine how the e-Learning platform, KM system and digital library developed by the IP as back-office functions have been integrated into the IntelCities middleware and delivered as frontend services to citizens

An all-sky solar meteorological radiation model for the United Kingdom

With the proliferation of cheap, high performance desktop computers the building services profession is demanding detailed (hourly or sub-hourly)weather data for simulation, optimum plant sizing and design of buildings which may use passive solar and /or natural ventilation features. Even in a developed country such as the United Kingdom there is a dearth of measured long-term solar radiation and daylight data. Herein, a simple and precise model is presented which enables computation of horizontal beam and diffuse solar radiation to be carried out given four basic meteorological parameters - hourly dry and wet-bulb temperatures, atmosphheric pressure and bright sunshine duration

The IntelCities learning platform, knowledge management system and digital library for semantically interoperable e-governance services.

Sets out the integrated community model of electronically enhanced governance services developed by IntelCities to represent its e-Learning platform, knowledge management system and digital library