The effectiveness of CCTV and improved street lighting has been studied extensively in terms of their potential for reducing the number of crimes in a certain area. However, this does not take into account the cost of the interventions or the savings due to crime reduction. This paper presents a model, which takes the form of a cellular automaton to simulate the implementation of improved street lighting and CCTV cameras using a range of strategies. This permits an exploration of simulated options to find which is most cost effective and what the best strategy for implementation is. The results indicate that there are few situations where CCTV is more cost effective than improved street lighting as a way of reducing street crime. In addition, it is shown that the strategy of targeting locations with the highest crime rates, “hot spots‟, has the greatest potential for maximising the cost effectiveness of interventions
Recent debates over the content and theoretical orientation of urban studies act as a strong reminder that the nature and existence of the city as a form of spatial urban agglomeration is changing. They have acted positively as a heuristic to inspire critical analysis of urbanisation and helped to illuminate the considerable empirical variation over time and space in urban agglomeration forms. However, in shifting the focus onto the planetary reach of urbanisation, such debates risk deflecting attention away from the city core at a time when it too is being subjected to transformation. The city centre has been taken for granted as critical attention has been given to the impact of development and enterprise in extending the city outwards. The recent proliferation of public and policy interest in the future of the city centre as the archetypal expression of urban agglomeration has not been matched by similar growth in academic and theoretical accounts of its transformation. Drawing on the examples of two city centres, and placing them in the context of the recent debates of urban agglomeration theory, this article seeks to initiate deeper analysis and dialogue about the future of the urban core, including how it is being articulated and by whom. It argues for a greater analytic understanding of the ways in which the city centre as a physical and emotional entity has been so resilient, and advocates for stronger engagement with initiatives seeking to reactivate the city centre as a crucial epicentre of urban agglomeration.
Recent research into legacies derived from major sporting and cultural events has highlighted the need to explore more critically the ways in which such legacy is defined and assessed in specific contexts and how different approaches to production of legacy are being created. This paper examines how, associated with the XX Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow in the summer of 2014, there has been an attempt to redefine temporal notions of event legacy. In particular, the focus is on the creation of measurable and visible legacies in advance of the event. Using two illustrations associated with increasing participation in sport and physical activity and community regeneration, the paper considers how such re-framing has helped to generate early legacies but also created challenges in terms of event management and legacy sustainability. The paper concludes by discussing some of the wider implications in terms of alternative framing of legacy research arising from this alternative temporal timeframe.
Digital innovation has scaled exponentially in many sectors including tourism, banking, and retail. It is well cited that the health sector is slower to embrace digital health innovations (DHI) beyond the pilot stage and consequently, many successful DHI pilot projects have failed to scale up. Such failure arises in part from a knowledge gap around what type and level of evidence are needed to convince implementers and decision makers to fund, endorse, or adopt new innovations into care delivery systems and sustainable practice. Much is known about the range of DHI evaluation methods used; however, less is published on the evidence that decision makers need to move innovations to scale. This paper draws on interviews (N = 18) with decision makers/project leads engaged in DHI in Scotland to identify what evidence matters when making DHI adoption/scale decisions. The results are used to present a heuristic service readiness level (SRL) framework that captures the changing nature of the evidence base required over a project lifecycle for progression to scale. We utilise this framework to discuss ‘what evidence’ is required and ‘how data accumulate’ over time to assist project teams to build a ‘DHI case for scale’.