Tag: International

Planning for 36 Hours in Budapest

November 23, 2020 / odrozd

By Pierce Holloway

About the series: Welcome to our ongoing travel series. These are all posts written by planning students and professionals about what to do in a given city when looking for Views, Dessert, or a good idea on a Budget. To cap it all off, we include a fun planning fact!

About the visit: While traveling in Europe In late 2017 I happened upon an unlikely connection during my time in Vienna, Austria. I ran into an American, who happened to be my stateside roommate’s childhood best friend. Not wanting to waste such a small-world moment, we decided to take a bus to Budapest and have a whirlwind of 36 hours.

Views: While walking, the city streets offer beauty in architecture, rich history, and ample opportunities to delight the senses. The city is best seen from above. To reach these new heights, visit St. Stephen’s Basilica. While entering and viewing the interior is a joy in and of itself, for a small fee and conquering 302 steps, you can climb to the very top of the tower. From the top, you can have a 360 degree view of the entire city! If climbing a church spire is not in the cards for you, consider walking to the Liberty Statue (Szabadság szobor) located on the Buda side of Budapest.

*Looking out from St. Stephen’s Basilica . Photo Credit: Pierce Holloway*

Budget: As an alternative to indulging in the many fantastic restaurants in the city, consider visiting the Central Market Hall. Located next to the grand Danube river, the Market Hall was first opened in 1897 and survives as the oldest and largest indoor market in Budapest. The market offers a wide range of fresh fruits, produce, treats, meats, and souvenirs that are sure to match any craving or pocket book.

The Great Market Hall. Photo Credit: Pierce Holloway

Dessert: When I first was told of Rengeteg RomKafé, it was described to me as the home of a “Chocolate Wizard.” After an evening there, I can confirm that the description is nothing less than spot on. The kafé is located in the basement of a nondescript building southeast of downtown. However, as you descend from the street you realize very quickly that you are surrounded by childhood toys and have stumbled into a dream. In lieu of ordering off of the menu, you can ask for a custom drinking chocolate. To determine what your custom drink will be, your waiter asks you a wave of questions ranging from: sweet or savory, light or dark, fruity or more subdued? After 10 minutes or so, you are presented with a truly one-of-a-kind dessert.

*The best dessert I’ve ever had? Photo Credit: Pierce Holloway*

Fun Planning Fact: As is common with many cities in Europe, public transportation is heavily utilized in the city and a great way to get around. On an average weekday, 3.9 million riders utilize the Budapest Transportation network. This translates to around 1.4 million fewer riders than an average weekday in New York City. As part of Budapest’s prolific metro network, the Millennium Underground Railway- more commonly referred to as Line 1- is the oldest line on the Metro. Having been in near constant operation since 1896, Line 1 also holds the status of third oldest underground metro line in the world! Only the London Underground and the Mersey Railway are older.

Cover Image: A man and his horse overlooking the Danube River. Photo Credit: Pierce Holloway

Pierce Holloway is a first-year master’s student at the Department of City and Regional Planning with a focus on Climate Change Adaptation. Before coming to Chapel Hill he worked as a geospatial analyst for Urban3, working on visualizing economic productivity of communities and states. Through his coursework he hopes to explore the nexus between adaptation for climate change and community equitability. In his free time, he enjoys long bike rides, trail running, and any excuse to play outside.

Lessons in Disaster Response from the Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami

March 23, 2020 / odrozd

By Rachael Wolff

Tsunami comes from the Japanese characters meaning harbor (津tsu) and wave (波nami). While earthquakes and their resulting tsunamis have been a part of Japanese life since at least the 13th century, the 2011 duo that rocked Japan was the largest ever recorded in the country and fourth largest in the world. Interviews with first responders reveal their challenges with mental health and with “role conflict,” suggesting that communication could be improved during future man-made or natural disasters.

Japan is part of the “Ring of Fire,” home to the volatile Pacific Plate. Photo Credit: U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Three Disasters

Tōhoku is located in the northeastern region of Japan’s main Honshu island and is known for its hot springs, sake, cherry blossoms, and skiing. Though Tōhoku’s six prefectures are generally rural with a large elderly population, the city of Sendai was one of the most vulnerable areas hit.

Map of Tōhoku, Japan. Photo Credit: Tōhoku Tourism Promotion Organization

At 2:45 pm on March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Japan. The epicenter was detected 64 miles off of the Sendai coast and was estimated to be only 18.6 miles below the surface. Days before, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake with 6.0 magnitude aftershocks had occurred nearby. The pressure from the colliding tectonic plates was enough to create 9 to 131-foot tsunami waves that rolled in at the speed of a jet plane. These waves caused millions of dollars in damage as far east as California.

March 11, 2011 Shakemap. Photo Credit: The New York Times

At the time of the disaster, Japan was home to 54 nuclear reactors. The shocks from the earthquake-tsunami led to fires in multiple nuclear plants on the island, and the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was at the center of the scrutiny and press coverage. The Fukushima incident displaced more than 160,000 local residents, caused 44 deaths, and led to the sale of radioactive beef. Meanwhile, Japan also worked to control the smaller fires that burned along its coast.

The immediate aftereffects of these disasters were devastating. Within 48 hours, 10 percent of the island—or 6 million homes—had lost power. Overall, between 15,000 and 30,000 people had perished, and there were some 100,000 missing children. The total damages in Japan may have reached $220 billion, destroying infrastructure, economies, and livelihoods—especially in farming and fishing villages such as Ishinomaki.

People take shelter as a ceiling collapses in a bookstore during the earthquake in Sendai, northeastern Japan, on March 11, 2011. Photo Credit: Kyodo/Reuters via The Atlantic

The Responders

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, 100,000 members of the Self-Defense Force deployed, rescuing people trapped under buildings and stuck in flood waters. Elite squads of firefighters did the same, many of them rushing towards the Fukushima Daiichi disaster instead of away from it.

Dr. Michelle Dovil specializes in disaster risk, gender studies, and environmental inequality at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. In September 2014 during her doctoral program, she accompanied her advisor and Howard University professor Dr. Terri Adams to interview first responders in Sendai.

Dovil said some of the most surprising results from the sample of firefighters they interviewed were the respondents’ hesitation towards emotional and psychological impacts.* While some admitted to not sleeping, depression, and triggers such as shaking or a tsunami movie on TV, none admitted to receiving any help. The government offered testing and subsequent counseling, but most firefighters were not receptive to it. Dovil observed that the trend may be similar in African American and Latinx communities, where mental health is still considered a “big taboo.” Indeed, both contemporary and academic sources suggest stigma and denial of mental health is common in Japan.

The firefighters also balanced emergency response and personal duties in a challenge of “role conflict.” Similar to what Adams and Dovil found post-Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, many first responders were conflicted between the need to help others and the desire to keep track of their own family, friends, and loved ones.

“With the challenges, especially with the role conflict, we saw a lot of similarities [to other disasters] as it relates to just being concerned: their anxiety, the frustration, and the worry,” Dovil said.

While focus groups did not directly address the topic of risk, many firefighters expressed that the earthquake-tsunami was unexpected. One respondent called on people to “take care of themselves.” Another added, “just evacuate and don’t think.” One respondent may have alluded to the Japanese concept of wa (和), or “social harmony,” in his final remarks:

“Japanese people support each other, so the conflict is very low. Japanese people are very polite and have good morals even in disasters. Japanese people will aim to support others.”

Firefighters search for victims on March 14, 2011, in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, three days after the massive earthquake and tsunami struck. Photo Credit: AP via The Atlantic

Recommendations

Throughout the interview, both the firefighters and Dovil stressed the importance of information dissemination. While Japan is often seen as a leader in early warning systems and the emergency management community (also: TIME, World Bank, Washington Post), there were still breakdowns in communication. Specifically, phone systems were overwhelmed. At one fire station, there was a line for disaster victims but not another to communicate tasks to workers. Broadly, coastal and remote areas had difficulty evacuating.

Dovil stressed that risk should be tailored to specific communities because there is no “monolithic group.” Instead: “Risk communication is a component in how people receive this message and how they perceive the message, which inadvertently impacts how these communities will take protective actions and/or evacuate as a result of a disaster.”

After the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, 91 countries provided aid to Japan. It becomes crucial for governments at all levels to understand the populations they serve so that disaster response and recovery can be as effective and efficient as possible.

* Dovil, Michelle. Interview by Rachael Wolff. March 16, 2020.

Featured Image: Huge waves sweep ashore and flood Sendai Airport. Photo Credit: Kyodo/Reuters via International Business Times.

About the Author: Rachael Wolff is a first-year master’s candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning. She is interested in learning how flood risk shapes land use, property values and behavior. Prior to UNC, Rachael worked at a federal agency in Washington, D.C., where she also earned her bachelor’s degree at American University.

The Hawker Center

September 24, 2019 / odrozd

Many Americans got their first big glimpse into Singaporean culture via the 2018 rom-com Crazy Rich Asians, which is set in the small Southeast Asian country often associated with finance and food. The film primarily focuses on the gilded world of Singapore’s super-rich, but also highlights one of the most democratizing urban places on the planet and a unique cultural and urban planning product of the region: the hawker center.

Hawker center staff on patrol for tables to clear at the Chinatown Hawker Centre, Singapore. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

On their first night in Singapore, Rachel and Nick (the “rom” in the rom-com) join friends at a hawker center, a semi-open-air bazaar of dozens of food stalls serving the broad spectrum of food one can expect in a country whose unique culinary culture is a mosaic of Chinese, Malay, and Indian foodways. As Nick puts it in the movie, “Each of these hawker stalls sells pretty much one dish and they’ve been perfecting it for generations.” The Crazy Rich crew fills up on fresh sugar cane juice, laksa, satay, chili crab and more all while sitting among a crowd whose diversity is enabled by the affordable prices of hawker fare.

Browsing chicken rice options at the Chinatown Hawker Centre, Singapore. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

In the region, street (hawker) food has been a cultural fixture for decades. In Singapore, the institution of the hawker center has explicit roots in planning. In 1950, the Hawkers Inquiry Commission began investigating problems arising in the hawker industry: poor hygiene, disorder caused by the unorganized use of the public right-of-way, and resulting law enforcement issues. The first wave of hawker centers was built as a solution between 1971 and 1986. The island’s 100+ hawker centers (with more on the way), as well as hawker registration operations, are currently under the purview of Singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA). According to the NEA, individual hawkers rent stalls out with prices varying by size and location (median of $1234/month, accounting for about 12% of costs), with additional fees for service and maintenance, varying from $240 to $930.

Dessert beckons at the Chinatown Hawker Centre, Singapore. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

Parallel models in Hong Kong (cooked food centers) and Malaysia (hawker centers, kopitiams) reflect similar accessibility and diversity. Generally, customers first find a seat, reserving it with a pack of tissues (or another personal item) before browsing options. At busy times, it is common to share tables. Customers order at individual stalls plastered with the menu – photos, prices, and all. Self-serve stalls require the customer to bus their own order, but many will deliver to the table, identified either with a quick point or the number of the table (as noted by a label). A nearby beverage hawker is available – and will often stop by the table – to take a drink order. Teas, coffees, and juices are popular all day, while beers come out in the evening. A diverse offering of highly specialized stalls means that many options are quite affordable, especially the wide variety of noodle and rice dishes, without sacrificing quality.

A busy morning at Chong Choon kopitiam, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

The spaces themselves are utilitarian: fairly stark and unadorned, but functional and durable. Seating and tables are simple, sturdy, and easy-to-clean, just like the tile floors. The cups and plates are similarly long-lasting hard plastic, labeled on the bottom allowing staff to return them to the proper stalls. Bussing and dishwashing is centralized, with some centers asking patrons to help by delivering their dishes to a collection station. Napkins are the responsibility of the customer, so elderly salespeople often can be found roaming centers selling packs of tissues. Patrons can also sometimes find tissues being sold by the bathroom attendant, where payment is also collected for using the toilet. Bathroom design also prioritizes ease of cleaning, most being completely tiled. The common design of these spaces is low-maintenance and centralizes some costs that otherwise might make restaurant entrepreneurship challenging.

The white, washable walls of Woon Lam kopitiam, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

While using these spaces does cost money, their affordable cost (a cup of coffee for less than $1.50 in Singapore and less than 50 cents in Malaysia) for a quality product allows for a diverse clientele, even in a wealthy place like Singapore. They can be found in nearly every neighborhood, allowing for many types of people to access them. They are a ubiquitous and quotidian experience: about 60% of Singaporeans eat one of their daily three meals at a hawker center. In combination, these factors make for a satisfying restaurant experience in a cultural touchstone that closely resembles a vibrant public space. It’s this atmosphere that makes hawker centers (and their counterparts in the region) the best places to eat, drink, people-watch, and absorb culture in Southeast Asia.

A local pharmacist’s supplies at a kopitiam in Pulau Ketam, Selangor, Malaysia. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

The best advertising at Kafe Kheng Pin, Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

About the Author: Doug Bright is a first-year master’s candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning, specializing in transportation. He’s a proud Chicagoan, enjoys taking the streets by two wheels, and indulges in improvisational cooking. He likes thinking and talking about education, design, and sustainability. He also likes jokes. Doug received his undergraduate degree in Social Studies from Harvard College.