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Semantic segmentation of urban street scenes has attracted much attention in the field of autonomous driving, which not only helps vehicles perceive the environment in real time, but also significantly improves the decision-making ability of autonomous driving systems. However, most of the current methods based on Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) mainly use coding the input image to a low resolution and then try to recover the high resolution, which leads to problems such as loss of spatial information, accumulation of errors, and difficulty in dealing with large-scale changes. To address these problems, in this paper, we propose a new semantic segmentation network (HRDLNet) for urban street scene images with high-resolution representation, which improves the accuracy of segmentation by always maintaining a high-resolution representation of the image. Specifically, we propose a feature extraction module (FHR) with high-resolution representation, which efficiently handles multi-scale targets and high-resolution image information by efficiently fusing high-resolution information and multi-scale features. Secondly, we design a multi-scale feature extraction enhancement (MFE) module, which significantly expands the sensory field of the network, thus enhancing the ability to capture correlations between image details and global contextual information. In addition, we introduce a dual-attention mechanism module (CSD), which dynamically adjusts the network to more accurately capture subtle features and rich semantic information in images. We trained and evaluated HRDLNet on the Cityscapes Dataset and the PASCAL VOC 2012 Augmented Dataset, and verified the model's excellent performance in the field of urban streetscape image segmentation. The unique advantages of our proposed HRDLNet in the field of semantic segmentation of urban streetscapes are also verified by comparing it with the state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the application of information technology under the goal of developing a smart city, smart city streetscape design is emerging and gradually developing. Due to the lack of attention to "smartening" traditional streetscape design, the existing urban streetscape design falls short in meeting the needs of smart city development. Regarding current research, more in-depth research should integrate the streetscape design system into the development of smart cities and build a practical smart-streetscape system. This paper is part of a larger study that aims to explore suitable streetscape sustainable design guidelines within the smart city context by integrating a set of guidelines based on the four dimensions (the city, society, the economy, and the environment) of a sustainable streetscape. Methodologically, this study conducts a systematic literature review of the discussion of streetscapes in the context of smart cities, finding 7 first-level attributes and 39 s-level candidate guidelines for smart city streetscape sustainable design. In the second stage, experts' opinions were collected through a Delphi method, and the attributes and guidelines were screened and revised based on experts' theoretical and practical knowledge. Through three rounds of Delphi method review and Likert scale (5 scores) to score the attributes and guidelines, the finally 7 first-level attributes and 38 s-level guidelines were determined. Use the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to determine the weightage of guidelines. Finally, it analyzes how the guidelines are relevant to the four dimensions of sustainable streetscape. Subsequently, the guidelines will be used to develop an SCS design framework that will be useful for advancing our understanding of smart city streetscapes promote urban sustainable development and can be used to explore how friendly the smart city streetscapes are to its residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermal comfort is a key determinant ruling the quality of urban park visits that is mainly evaluated by equivalent meteorological factors and lacks evidence about its relationship with emotional perception. Exposure to green space was believed to be an available approach to increase thermal comfort, but this argument still needs verification to confirm its reliability. In this study, about ~15,000 streetscapes were photographed at stops along sidewalks and evaluated for green view index (GVI) and plant diversity index in five urban parks of Changchun, Northeast China. The faces of visitors were captured to analyze happy, sad, and neutral scores as well as two net positive emotion estimates. Meteorological factors of temperature, relative humidity, and wind velocity were measured at the same time for evaluating thermal comfort using equivalent variables of discomfort index (DI), temperature and humidity index (THI), and cooling power index (CP). At stops with higher GVI, lower temperature (slope: from −0.1058 to −0.0871) and wind velocity (slope: from −0.1273 to −0.0524) were found, as well as higher relative humidity (slope: from 0.0871 to 0.8812), which resulted in positive relationships between GVI and thermal comfort evaluated as DI (R2 = 0.3598, p < 0.0001) or CP (R2 = 0.3179, p < 0.0001). Sad score was positively correlated with THI (R2 = 0.0908, p = 0.0332) and negatively correlated with CP (R2 = 0.0929, p = 0.0294). At stops with high GVI, more positive emotions were shown on visitors' faces (happy minus sad scores, 0.31 ± 0.10). Plant diversity had varied relationships with GVI in parks depending on age. Overall, our study demonstrated that using imagery data extracted from streetscapes can be useful for evaluating thermal comfort. It is recommended to plan a large amount of touchable nature provided by vegetation in urban parks so as to mitigate micro-climates towards a trend with more thermal comfort that evokes more positive emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores citizens' creation and knowledge of the sensory environment in town and city centres in Great Britain during the mid-20th century as a vital part of urban history. It describes the sources used to study the citizen experience in the central streets, including oral histories, autobiographies, surveys and social media. It discusses the emotional responses of citizens to being in close contact with other people in crowds on busy streets.

It is known that street elements influence the vernacularity and livability of urban spaces, the quality of life and the vitality of society everywhere in the world. Thus, there has been an urgent need to examine the quality and suitability of streets, specifically the commercial streets facing rapid developments and urbanization. Indeed, it is more so in Jordan. In this context, this research investigates the effect of physical characteristics of elements of livable streets where people can enjoy life and act freely. In other words, produce vernacularity. The research employs mixed methods; qualitative and quantitative methods within a case study. Data collection techniques include a desk study, direct observation and a questionnaire survey. The findings indicate that applying and paying attention to the characteristics such as color, shape, size, placement of the signs, colors of light, and light in general can achieve livable streets that promote vernacularity. The study suggests a framework to regulate the priorities of principles and the variables of streetscape elements, to help the decision-makers in municipalities and urban planners to bring about livable streets: in other words, promote vernacularity in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Environmental justice research largely focuses on the allocation of public resources in terms of quantified distribution and accessibility. This study suggests that the quality of landscape equity, an important urban resource, should be evaluated as it typically appears as a combination of elements. This brings another perspective to the attention of landscape equity in addition to the provision equity: the equity in the quality and level of provision. From this perspective, this study explores the equitable role of streetscape qualities in promoting human physical, mental, and social health. Using street view images, questionnaires, artificial intelligence-based image analysis, geographic information system-based cluster analysis, and correlational analysis, the spatial distribution of health promotion streetscapes and health-influential streetscape elements were presented and compared within the scope of the Shanghai Outer Ring Road. The results disclosed an uneven distribution of streetscapes that can promote human health within research sites. Streets with poor health ratings are concentrated in the Huangpu, Hongkou, and Yangpu districts, primarily in the western part of Shanghai around Shanghai Railway Station, People's Square, and Yuyuan Garden, where the old city centre is located. Compared with the distribution of health-influential elements, less healthy streets are more likely to be accompanied by low visibility of 'vegetation' and a high proportion of 'buildings'. Streetscape design implications were then discussed in terms of providing people with equal health opportunities. Research outcomes inspired an essential quality perspective in health equity research, and it can be especially helpful when the provision and accessibility can hardly be moderated in high-density cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of urban streets lies in their role as the fundamental structure and framework of a city. Streets acquire extraordinary power as they endure the passage of time, accumulating special meanings and memories. This inherent strength is so influential that proper organization and utilization of existing streets can render the construction of new ones unnecessary. Valiasr, spanning 18 kilometers, stands as the longest street in Tehran and the Middle East. Beginning at the railway square in the south of Tehran at an altitude of 1100 meters above sea level, it extends to Tajrish square in the north, reaching an altitude of 1600 meters above sea level. The street boasts wide sidewalks, a sizable pond, and a line of ancient plane trees, enhancing its aesthetic appeal. Originating during the Qajar era (1785-1925), various segments of Valiasr were constructed to link the capital with city gates. In the early Pahlavi period (1925-1979), it was further developed to connect summer palaces to the city. The street's design, implemented without strict adherence to existing buildings, aimed to establish a direct connection between the north and south of Tehran. During this era, significant government and public structures, royal residences, and palaces were constructed along both sides of Valiasr in adherence to established construction regulations from 1928. This period also witnessed the construction of cultural buildings, public parks, gardens, universities, and medical centers. Following the Islamic Revolution of Iran (1979), Valiasr Street evolved into one of Tehran's traditional shopping centers and promenades, reflecting the city's dynamic cultural shifts. Each historical period of Iran has profoundly impacted Valiasr Street, shaping it into a symbol of Tehran's historical and cultural evolution. To delve into the changing trends and meanings associated with Valiasr Street from 1925 to the present, a comprehensive approach was adopted. A total of 100 street users, encompassing residents, pedestrians, traders, and various stakeholders, were interviewed on-site within the study area. Subsequent to these interviews, a meticulous analysis of the gathered data was conducted, facilitating the synthesis and preparation of a comprehensive diagram. The findings reveal that a multitude of factors, including functional, economic, social, political, and cultural elements, have contributed to the evolving mental imagery associated with Valiasr Street across distinct epochs. In its early existence until 1925, the perceptual influence of the observer led to Valiasr Street being conceived as a narrow garden alley nestled among the Qajar city gardens. Transitioning into the period between 1925 and 1979, the passage of time transformed its role into a communication route connecting newly constructed palaces. Moreover, the increasing influence of temporal dynamics, coupled with cultural and social components, elevated Valiasr Street into the consciousness of the populace, turning it into a cherished urban space among the residents of Tehran. The period from 1979 until the present marks a notable phase in the urban life of Valiasr Street. Following a period of stagnation, the street has undergone a revitalization, and the impact of all four meaning-forming components, with a particular emphasis on the temporal aspect, has led to its designation as a cultural heritage site of the city of Tehran in 2011. This recognition culminated in its inclusion in the list of national heritage sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The streetscapes of old urban districts record the changes in urban space and the vitality of socio-economic entities like storefronts. However, prior studies of urban vitality have preferred the demand end of crowd agglomeration to the supply end of commercial businesses, while the refined application of street-view images (SVIs) and the spatial heterogeneity resulting from sectional differences among elements deserve further research. Under this context, this paper took both the alive and the closed storefronts as the objects and developed an analytical framework based on machine learning and SVIs to analyze the characteristics of the streetscape and the economic vitality, followed by a regression analysis between them with a multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) model. Our findings comprise three aspects: (1) despite the sum of the storefronts being more often used, combining the alive and the closed businesses is beneficial to reflect the real economic vitality; (2) as a reflection of the spatial heterogeneity and sectional differences of elements, the asymmetric streetscape has a significant influence on the economic vitality; and (3) although different factors from the streetscape can influence economic vitality differently, based on varied proxies of the vitality, three factors, namely, higher difference value of the signboards, higher sum of glass interfaces, and lower difference value of the glass interfaces, can benefit the economic vitality. This research can support urban physical examination and the regeneration of old urban districts for urban planners, designers, and decision-makers, and provide new perspectives and proxies as well as a more fine-grained analysis among the traditional studies on economic vitality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Avenue de France (2001), the first volume in an autobiographical trilogy by Jewish Franco-Maghrebi writer, Colette Fellous. The book pairs first-person writing with a series of images. This study examines Fellous's use of photography and argues that the urban sites represented in the text and images communicate the fragmented nature of the first-person subject. The narrator is an individual fragmented across spatiotemporal divides, as she is strongly informed by the collective, and sometimes conflicting, narratives throughout history that shape her identity. The primary objective here is thus to demonstrate that Fellous's representation of spatial sites actively contributes to her portrayal of the first-person self. The secondary aim is to show that her specific use of photography plays a crucial role in representing urban spaces as "sites" of a fragmented identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The architectural façade has been a site of intensive experimentation and innovation throughout the 20th century, something that continues to this day, resulting in a vast range of architectural imagery, often incohesive in the post-modern reality. This research explores contemporary façade types and classifies the character of exterior building surfaces. In this paper, we aim to explore how the façade has been designed and has affected its surroundings. How and why has the façade evolved in the ways that it has? Is it the material innovation, structural novelty, the new design techniques or new aesthetics? We adopt a method of analytical induction to extract the most prevalent façade themes from relevant contemporary literature, characterize their meanings and categorize them in order to better explain the many sides of the façade. We set out to define the principles of façade design to then develop a general categorization, which can be applied to most building façades in recent history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Placemaking is an initiative with roots in the 1960s and 70s to enhance public life in the urban setting. This complex notion requires multiple disciplines, flexibility, and a human-centric approach toward development. While developing new streets and enhancing the existing, built environment, professionals, community residents, and business owners must consider multiple elements to bring people to the street: furniture, vegetation, walkability, art, and culture. With this sidewalk interaction comes the opportunity for economic development. When the people are drawn in, signage can inform the pedestrian. This study builds a collection of 200 photos, representing four levels of placemaking intensities. Each photo is coded into 600 cells to count the quantity of placemaking elements. Visual attentive software (VAS) is then used to measure the sign effectiveness to visually stand out. Placemaking initially impacts preattentive visibility, while the building façade, road surface, tree canopy, landscaping, and the sky each play a role. Planners, designers, and business owners can use these findings to better inform the impact and interaction of streetscape and business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to the increasing focus on places in urban planning and design, methods to evaluate the quality and value of urban places is crucially needed. Many studies use deep learning models to identify the proportion and composition of landscape elements in images for evaluation. The accuracy of semantic segmentation achieved with such models is often validated using Cityscapes, a street-level image dataset taken from German cities. However, few studies have quantitatively revealed the inference accuracy decrease caused by culture-specific characteristics of streetscapes.In this study, we calculated by-class intersection over union (IoU) and newly-defined indices of false inferences to demonstrate how and to what extent deep learning models can infer each landscape element falsely when applied to Japanese street-level images. Our analysis revealed that certain landscape elements are more difficult to infer correctly based on specific causes, such as their appearances in images and unique characteristics of the fixed physical configuration of Japanese streets. By applying the false inference categorization framework presented in this study, researchers can adjust their approaches considering two aspects: a decrease in inference accuracies of deep learning models and the impact of culture-specific characteristics of streetscapes on people's perception and valuation of urban places. Based on the results and analyses, a future research direction is to develop and implement more accurate image recognition models considering culture-specific characteristics to understand people's perceptions of urban spaces and assess the value of urban places by using the big data including street-level images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual 3D modeling is widely implemented in urban planning and design. To evaluate urban planning modeling, based on existing computer vision models, this article aims to improve performance in the field of human perception analysis for urban street views. In this study, the PSP module extracts detailed features from recognized objects of different sizes, an attention mechanism is applied to solve the problem of large information differences in pictures, and transfer learning technology is used to expand the model to the field of virtual 3D modeling to extract more representative and universal features, similar to how humans perceive street view information. Finally, we obtain a more objective, stable, and accurate neural network model that imitates human perception. This evaluation model converges within the correct interval on the training and validation datasets compared with an evaluation of virtual modeling by a large number of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increase in the variety of development in urban context has made it more complicated and complex for the users of public spaces. Absence of sufficient information to read the surrounding causes psychological anxiousness leading to perceived danger or discomfort for the urbanites. Consequently, perceived safety and comfort of the users is distinctively low in urban contexts, creating neglected and underused spaces. Complexity is one of the information processing variables as per Kaplan and Kaplan's informational model which helps users to comprehend the surrounding environment. The streetscape plays a vital role in the daily movement patterns within the urban cities and is the transition boundary between the public and private realms. Visual complexity of these streets is a result of different configurations of elements within the urban areas. This research is conducted to ascertain the relationship between visual complexity levels of the streets with the perceived safety and comfort of the users. Shannon Diversity Index (SDI) and Fractal dimension analysis were conducted with 48 SVIs (Street View Images) selected within 1km radius of Colpetty junction, Colombo Sri Lanka covering all the possible compositions found within the context. The visual index data extraction had identified ten major components within the selected 48 SVIs. 78 subjective ranking responses for perceived safety, comfort (preference) and perceived complexity were collected from snowball sampling. Findings of the study revealed that perceived safety levels and preference scores for the SVIs are related to the Shannon Diversity Index calculation in an inverted 'U' shape where the highest and lowest SDI values are related with low preference scores and low safety levels. The SVIs with medium SDI values are perceived as the safest and most preferred by the users of urban streets of Colombo Sri Lanka. The SDI and fractal dimension values were significantly correlated with the perceived complexity scores of the users. The results of this study can be accommodated in the planning and designing of urban streetscapes of tropical climates for sustainable and friendly urban expansions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Streetscape is an important factor that forms the image of a city. The visual value and preference in streetscape images need to be measured by examining the interaction between places and visitors in the real environment. The study applied a method to recognize and evaluate urban streetscape from the perspective of tour bus passengers, and proved its effectiveness in streetscape visual attraction research. In this study, a visitor-employed photography (VEP) survey was conducted along 32 blocks on the No. 1 urban tour bus (with an average speed of 28 km/h) in Suzhou, China; the visual attributes and significance of urban streetscapes were recognized through empirical research on tour bus visitors' on-site experience. The researcher cultivated the emotional motivations and block distribution captured by 30 respondents through analyzing the types of photos the respondents liked and disliked. The results of this study show that, in general, positive streetscape types tend to be of regional landscape, with cultural and readable emotional motivations. Negative streetscape types tend to be of modern architecture and construction sites, with unreadable and unattractive emotional motivations. The block cluster analysis, based on the average frequency/km of positive and negative streetscape photos, shows that the four block unit clusters were perceived by visitors with deviation between the land use image and the planned land use. The bus VEP method revealed that the visual attractiveness and preferences of streetscape were highly context-specific, rather than for performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Object detection is a central task in computer vision, with applications ranging across the process of smart city construction, city managers always spend a lot of energy and money cleaning street garbage due to the random appearances of street garbage, As deep network solutions become deeper and more complex, they are often limited by the amount of training data available. With this in mind, to spur advances in analyzing and understanding images, Open CV or Google AI has publicly released the Open Images dataset. Open Images follows the tradition of PASCAL VOC, Image Net and COCO, now at an unprecedented scale. In this project we to implement the Consequently, visual street cleanliness assessment is particularly important. However, existing assessment approaches have some clear disadvantages, such as the collection of street garbage information is not automated, and street cleanliness information is not real-time best performing algorithm for automatically detecting objects. Finally, the results are incorporated into the street cleanliness calculation framework to ultimately visualize street cleanliness levels, which provides convenience for city managers to arrange clean-up personnel effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second half of the twentieth century urban landscapes were affected by heavy infrastructural development. With regard to streets, managing the growing fluidity and speed of motor vehicle flows has been a priority for most designers. Nowadays there are multiple driving forces behind a transition that could accommodate different uses within the streets, primarily the cultural, social and economic exchanges that streets faciliated in the past but that have been lost over time. In the spreading practice called "shared street" most signage and traffic lights can be removed to permit the self-regulated and spontaneous circulation of all users and vehicles. This paradigm is discussed with regard to its potential to strengthen urban landscape identity, ensuring accessibility, redefining uses and practices within the street, reducing injuries and misbehaviour, and offering real and perceived safety to all users. "Back to the street" is an ongoing design research project dealing with integration strategies for different kinds of urban streetscapes. Which design features are necessary to encourage a change in attitude, speed and hierarchy for street users? How can these features positively affect urban landscapes in general and the liveability of streets first and foremost? The research attempts to answer these questions by considering street design as a means of triggering the effective enhancement of urban public spaces. The paper is based on the case study of Via San Paolo in Prato (Tuscany) and presents a set of quality requirements for street design such as plant integration, water drainage, and comfortable paths for both cyclists and pedestrians. As the design for separate flows cannot fulfill all the quality features in Via San Paolo, mostly due to its varying width, it is assumed that the "shared street" can replace it in order to enhance community life within the streets while promoting local sustainable mobility. The research examines two options: sharing the street in narrow stretches or along its whole length. A preliminary comparison is proposed to discuss the earlier research outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article focuses on urban green spaces, including parks, street trees and plantings that are beneficial for physical and mental health, reduce runoff of polluted storm water into rivers and streams, increase urban biodiversity, and cool and shade buildings and streetscapes. Topics include considered that urban greening is expensive due to high costs associated with maintenance and inputs such as water, fertilizer and replanting.

To date, several macro-level walkability measures have been proposed, but microscale and audit-based walkability approaches prove to be highly effective to support realistic, quick and cheap mechanisms for pedestrian-friendly environments. Yet, walkability audits are time- and cost-intensive solutions, because they require several streetscape observations. This study aims to investigate whether a multiple linear regression model of urban form- and function-related variables can effectively predict an audit-based average walkability indicator. For this purpose, we use a virtual, brief and reliable audit tool (MAPS-Mini) in Athens city centre in order to collect street-level data and in turn to construct a microscale walkability indicator (dependent variable). Moreover, our approach suggests a flexible statistical model of open-source data, with six exploratory variables of the macro-level built environment: angular integration, population density, transit stop density, pedestrian street density, retail and entertainment activity density, and building height. The results indicate that audit-based average walkability scores can be effectively estimated, as the regression model can explain about 82% of the variation. Furthermore, the density of retail and entertainment activities was indicated as the strongest correlate of more walking-friendly streetscapes, while some urban policy implications include the promotion of footpath repairs and better-engineered crossings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In human-dominated landscapes, roads are known to negatively influence birds causing decline in species richness, as well as reduction in the number of avian species. However, linear stretches of green spaces formed by roadside plantations in urban streetscapes can support diverse avian communities. In spite of being an integral habitat feature of urban areas, there is a clear paucity of studies on avian diversity in urban streetscapes. The present study was carried out in Kolkata, where data on avian species richness and abundance was collected from 16 randomly placed belt transects (replicates), each of 500 m length and 20 m width, on different major roads throughout the study area keeping a minimum gap of 200 m between adjacent transects to avoid data overlapping. Each of these transects were traversed on foot twice in a month from January to March 2017 during days with calm weather conditions. We recorded 31 species of birds belonging to 8 orders and 19 families, of which maximum species belonged to the order Passeriformes (13 species). We found that both abundance and species richness of birds in transects with higher number of trees (78±4.1 individuals and 19.55±1.703 species of birds) were significantly higher than transects with fewer trees (53.74±2.5 individuals and 9.5±0.789 species of birds). Amongst various habitat features along these streetscapes, the total number of trees positively influenced both species richness (GLMM: F1, 90=14.485, P<0.05) and abundance of birds (GLMM: F1, 90=8.081, P<0.05). However, the other land use variables (i.e. number of bushes, waterbodies, markets and buildings) neither influenced the abundance of birds nor the species richness. Our findings can be useful for urban development to perceive the importance of various habitat features in urban streetscapes in sustaining avian diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Streetscapes of two middle-upper-class suburbs in Melbourne, the State capital city of Victoria, Australia, are photographically compared. Selected pairs of pictures from each streetscape are discussed and contrasted, each pair being considered for how it illustrates one of the five aspects or dimensions in the chosen photographs from the respective suburbs. The near-similarity, yet subtle differences, seen from the street, in the housing and property facades in these suburbs, makes the comparison more difficult, but potentially more useful in terms of Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus manifesting not just in people as individuals but in their lived environment. This embodied class imperative is described in interpreting the selected photograph pairs as producing a suburban class habitus in how inhabitants inscribe suburban class distinction into where they live. Using photographs as a methodological tool like Bourdieu means that the point of these visual streetscape representations of each suburb is not summative, deploying the term as a neat or easy label, but aims to be consistent with Bourdieu's approach as a way of investigating the complex socioeconomic and sociocultural mechanisms by which the naturalised class sense is expressed physically in these presentations of self from the street-views they offer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Place names, or toponyms, which were traditionally considered the geographical markers, the "addresses" on the maps, and were used mostly only as a source of encyclopedic linguistic, historical, and geographical information, can act as an immensely effective political instrument. Importantly, the spatial politics of the local authorities in the sphere of place naming creates a complex toponymic system, a palimpsest, which often combines contested or mutually exclusive place names with various ideological messages and connotations in the symbolic landscapes. [Extracted from the article]

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Just as the political divisions in the North of Ireland are subject to ongoing critique, so too is its culture that maintains what scholars recognize as contested heritage. Ethno-political symbols, such as flags and murals, not only point to certain identities but also mark their territory. Whereas those emblems have been the subject of extensive research, political posters remain an overlooked source of rich iconography. This article fills that void by examining a collection of posters on display at the Irish Republican History Museum in West Belfast. The posters, in their original incarnation, emboldened the streetscapes of urban zones during "the Troubles"—a euphemism used to depict sectarian violence from the 1960s to the 1990s. In their afterlife, those posters have been preserved as material artefacts consumed by political tourists interested in gaining insight into the dissonance of heritage. Semiotics—the study of signs—provides a theoretical paradigm for this interpretation of the posters and their meaning. Moreover, Juri Lotman's notion of the semiosphere (semiotic space) adds a deeper layer of analysis by directing critical attention to the role of the boundary where the performance of signs is most intense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We surveyed North Carolina (NC) municipalities to document the presence of municipal walking- and bicycling-related projects, programs, and policies; to describe whether prevalence of these elements differed if recommended in a plan; and to characterize differences between urban and rural municipalities. Methods: We surveyed all municipalities with ≥ 5000 persons (n = 121) and sampled municipalities with < 5000 persons (216/420), with a response rate of 54% (183/337). Responses were weighted to account for the sampling design. Results: From a list provided, staff reported on their municipality's use of walking- and bicycling-related elements (8 infrastructure projects, 9 programs, and 14 policies). The most commonly reported were projects on sidewalks (53%), streetscape improvements (5 1%), bicycle/walking paths (40%); programs for cultural/recreational/health (25%), general promotional activities (24%), Safe Routes to School (24%), and law enforcement (24%); and policies on maintenance (64%), new facility construction (57%), and restricted automobile speed or access (45%). Nearly all projects, programs, or policies reported were more likely if included in a plan and more prevalent in urban than rural municipalities. Conclusion: These results provide cross-sectional support that plans facilitate the implementation of walking and bicycling elements, and that rural municipalities plan and implement these elements less often than urban municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study provides empirical insight into the extent to which pedestrians visually engage with urban street edges and how social and spatial factors impact such engagement. This was achieved using mobile eye-tracking. The gaze distribution of 24 study participants was systematically recorded as they carried out everyday tasks on differing streets. The findings demonstrated that street edges are the most visually engaged component of streets; that street edge visual engagement is impacted by everyday social tasks as well as the spatial and physical materiality of edges on differing streets; and that street edges, which attract a lot of visual engagement while undertaking optional tasks, also attract greater amounts of visual engagement while undertaking necessary tasks. These findings offer new insight into urban street edge engagement from the direct perspective of street inhabitants and in doing so provide greater understanding of how street edges are experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporary appropriation (TA) is a re-emerging concept which occurs in the urban social landscape as a multidimensional phenomenon. Intended as multi-disciplinary and multi-scalar research, the present paper explores the way in which temporary appropriation could be interpreted as an assemblage product of other assemblages within the urban landscape. It, therefore, seeks to unravel and to re-think the nature of temporary appropriation through interconnected theoretical frameworks such as assemblage theory. Derived from the seminal work of Deleuze and Guattari (1989) and developed further by Manuel DeLanda (2016), assemblage theory focuses on the relations produced by the components of a whole rather than the components themselves. Thus, in the present paper, a diverse range of theories is combined together to conceptualise temporary appropriation as part of the urban landscape and as an emerging product of other assemblages such as culture, legal framework and urban design. These approaches are drawn together by illustrating Mexico City Centre as an example of a highly coded city in which these assemblages emerge. A representative sample street was selected as a case-study to analyse TA in relation to the streetscape design through participant observation and image analysis of the visual complexity of the streetscape. The paper concludes that assemblage theory could be used as a theoretical framework investigating urban-social phenomena. In addition, the study identified the visual complexity of the assemblage of the urban landscape that supports the greater diversity of TA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the British landscape artists Thomas and William Daniell composed and circulated aquatints depicting the European sector of Calcutta in 1786‐8. The Daniells' streetscapes challenged metropolitan stereotypes and condemnation of Europeans in India. During the eighteenth century Britons described the otherness of both Indians and the lower orders of Britain in terms of oriental qualities. These aquatints presented visual equivalences between the Britishness and orientalness of Calcutta and London. By mystifying dissimilarities between London and Calcutta, the Daniells' aquatints suggested to viewers that the two cities and their populations were intertwined branches of a global British social landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Vietnamese socialist state privileges 'modern' mobilities over so-called 'traditional' means, the livelihoods of informal motorbike taxi drivers (locally known as xe ôm) are increasingly under threat. Drawing on the literatures of mobilities and everyday politics, and on ethnographic fieldwork with xe ôm drivers, recent app-based competitors and planners in Vietnam's capital city, Hanoi, we argue that the state's vision creates specific mobility experiences, rhythms and frictions for xe ôm drivers. These drivers must not only negotiate policies curbing their mobilities, excessive police fees and dangerous customers, but also new smartphone app-based competitors. Nonetheless, xe ôm drivers have reacted with subtle everyday politics to reshape their mobilities, with tactics including performing 'identity management' with police, information gathering via social networks and inventive efforts to build loyal customers. This paper thus highlights how mobility and access to urban streets are being framed, coproduced and respatialised in a rapidly growing socialist city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data revolution: Big data, open data, data infrastructures and their consequences. This has happened somewhat spontaneously, with the introduction of the I smart city i paradigm, and sources of data multiplying and diversifying, going beyond formal institutional collections (e.g., census, county business patterns, local government records, and maps) and beyond structured and systematic process (e.g., VGI, big data). The second impetus for this special collection is to affirm the expansion from geographic information science, whose body of knowledge and multidisciplinary foundation have by now solidified ([29]), to data science. They promise to enable a further step into the democratization of data-dependent processes and have blurred the boundary between data users and data producers to create a hybrid category of data I produsers i ([2], [4]). [Extracted from the article]

Urban spaces and streets have been studied in a variety of ways in Montreal and Paris, but rarely have historians examined the specific relationship between the function of the street and social usage to reflect changes over time. The argument here is for an analytical approach to photographs combined with textual evidence to reveal the urban processes affecting the retail streets of rue Notre-Dame and rue Sainte-Catherine in Montreal, the through street of Boulevard de Sébastopol, and the pedestrian street of rue Mouffetard in Paris. Photographs reflect the success of modern urban transformations to rework the images of the city from various perspectives and for different purposes. They include the bourgeois female shopper on the late nineteenth-century retail and through streets, female retail and office workers interspersed among men on early twentieth-century rue Sainte-Catherine, and the agency of working-class women in the market transactions and peddler trades of rue Mouffetard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two studies, we took a prospect–refuge based perspective to investigate how lighting and other physical attributes (i.e., prospect, concealment, and entrapment) affect people’s judgments of the safety of urban streets during nighttime. Both studies complement existing research, which predominantly use factorial designs, with more ecologically valid correlational research using a large and representative sample of urban streets as stimulus materials. Results from Study 1 corroborate existing research demonstrating that differences in prospect, concealment, and entrapment predicted, to a large extent, variation in the perceived safety of urban streets—thus demonstrating the utility of such environmental information for making safety judgments in real-life settings. Results from a mediation analysis conducted in Study 2 showed that the relation between appraisals of lighting quality and safety judgments was completely accounted for by co-occurring variation in appraisals of prospect and entrapment. Implications for theory and methodology are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernized trams usually run on exclusive rail lanes along urban streets, but they share the right of way with general vehicles at intersections and often get interrupted by traffic signals. We developed a mixed integer model to resynchronize traffic signal timings to favor tram movements. The objective is to balance the operational needs between minimizing bidirectional tram travel times and reducing the likelihood of activating the green extensions. The model depicts both tram and vehicle progressions in one signal timing plan, making it possible to control the impact of signal timing resynchronization through traffic. Trams following the tram bands produced by the proposed model are prevented from being stopped by red phases at signalized intersections. The applicability and effectiveness of the proposed model were demonstrated in a real-world case study. Compared with the state-of-the-art practice approach, the developed model reduced tram travel time by 10% with lower negative impacts on traffic on side streets. The reduction in tram travel time was obtained without sacrificing the mobility of through traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic congestion, a common and complicated phenomenon in urban transportation systems, is attracting increasing attention from researchers in Geographical Information Science (GIS) and other fields. In this study, we illustrate a general mechanism that reveals the relationship between travel time and dynamic traffic conditions. We measure a vehicle’s travel time to its destination along any path, where the travel time is calculated based on the path length and on the real-time traffic volume and transport capacity of each road segment on the path. On the basis of this measurement, we present a simple dynamic routing strategy that allows each vehicle to dynamically choose the path to its destination while imposing the minimum travel time. The application of our routing algorithm to the Chengdu street network, Barabási-Albert scale-free network and Erdös-Rényi random network shows that the proposed strategy remarkably improves network throughput and balances traffic load distribution. Our findings suggest that mining the time mechanism of network transport is important to explore efficient time-optimization routing algorithms to enhance the transport capacity of urban street networks and other kinds of networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Having an active lifestyle is recognized to positively contribute to public health. Creating more walkable streets and neighborhoods is an important way to promote an active lifestyle for urban residents. It is therefore important to understand how the urban built environment can influence human walking activities. In this study, we investigated the interaction of human walking activities and physical characteristics of streetscapes in Boston. A large number of anonymous pedestrian trajectories collected from a smartphone application were used to estimate human walking activities. Publicly accessible Google Street View images were used to estimate the amount of street greenery and the enclosure of street canyons, both of which were used to indicate the physical characteristics of streetscapes. The Walk Score and population were also added in the statistical analyses to control the influence of nearby urban facilities and population on human walking activities. Statistical analysis results show that both the street greenery and the enclosure of the street canyons are significantly associated with human walking activities. The associations between the streetscape variables and human walking activities vary in different land use types. The results of this study have implications for designing walkable and healthy cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how contemporary on-going and lively debate on Critical Heritage Studies merges with previous discourses on World Heritage Cultural Landscapes and rural societies. The scholarly approach to authenticity and integrity, and the critical point of static and dynamic approaches to these terms allow the author to challenge previous World Heritage (WH) discourses with a view to obtaining innovative insight into abandoned vernacular landscapes. Two main arguments are thus developed in this study. The first of these is an overview of the dynamics of abandoned cultural landscapes on an international scale. The second is an inside view aiming to provide an accurate interpretation of how these landscapes should be scrutinised and understood. To do this, autotopias and heterotopias broach the fundamental issue of how the Outstanding Universal Value of attributes in abandoned cultural landscapes needs to be understood, enhanced, experienced, and managed in an innovative WH approach. In conclusion, complex proposals for these heritage landscapes should rely on understanding the dynamics of the material and the social construct of the habitats they contain in order to assess them effectively from the standpoint of a World Heritage Cultural Process Assemblage rather than that of Outstanding Material Stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the contours of a new way in which Rome was explored, imagined, and represented in the eighteenth century in texts and images by French travelers. These narratives, found in epistolary writings and the pictorial arts, reflected and suggested that viewers, readers, or strollers could enter into landscapes, wander through streetscapes, and commune with the past in both the space of the city and the space of representation. These narratives, found in epistolary writings and the pictorial arts, reflected and suggested that viewers, readers, or strollers could enter into landscapes, wander through streetscapes, and commune with the past in both the space of the city and the space of representation. French travelers brought with them a new modern form of walking linked to the creation of Parisian public boulevards, while contemporary philosophy associated the production of knowledge directly to the sensorial apparatus of the body. Writers would describe contemporary encounters with imagined figures from ancient history, while artists would visually reconfigure such encounters through the genre of the Roman capriccio. This pictorial mode was turned toward an exploration of the various ways in which movement, real or imagined, gave rise to popular forms of experiencing the Eternal City directly as well as to a verbal and visual language to express it to others. What this teaches us is that, for the enlightenment visitor, looking was not a passive act of consumption, but an active engagement with complex, confusing, and evocative material remains of the ancient city within the frame of the modern one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]