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With an increasing interest for electric vehicles (EV) and the associated charging needs, understanding how public charging infrastructure networks impact the adoption of such vehicles is central for planners and policymakers. While most studies are conducted at the regional or national scales, urban contexts present specificities for the deployment of these networks, given the scarcity of private parking spaces and the strong competition for land. Using data from a survey (n = 642) conducted in Montreal, Canada, this work investigates the influence of public charging infrastructure accessibility on EV adoption in an urban context. Three measures of accessibility are analyzed: 1) objective (number of charging stations near home), 2) perceived (perceptions about the current public charging network), and 3) prospective (expectations on the public charging network in five years). The findings reveal the importance of perceived and prospective accessibility measures as opposed to objective ones, and thus demonstrate that the deployment of public charging networks is an issue tied by perceptions. We also find that non-EV owners underestimate their accessibility to public chargers, thereby illustrating how perceptions may vary across individuals. The results suggest that, in addition to expanding the public charging network, efforts aiming at better informing citizens on the presence and the locations of these charging facilities could contribute to increasing EV adoption. This study highlights the importance of perceptions and expectations and provides a nuanced understanding of how integrating accessibility-based policies into electrification plans might speed up EV adoption in metropolitan areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We looked at the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Great Bay Area (GBA), especially Shenzhen, to demonstrate how geospatial big data, such as remote sensing data and human trajectory data, were used to monitor and track the progress of SDGs in the area. B Contents b B Introduction b Mee Kam Ng and Cecilia Wong B The Policy Conundrum of Integrating the Three "S's": Spatial planning, Smart Cities and Sustainable development b Cecilia Wong, Caglar Koksal, Ransford A. Acheampong, Wei Zheng and Mark Baker B This is Manchester: Working to be a Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive "Original, Modern" City b Dave Carter B Building a Digital and Green Region in Greater Manchester: Multi-Stakeholder Analysis and Role of Planners b Caglar Koksal, Wei Zheng, and Ransford A. Acheampong B Genesis of Smart Sustainable Development in Shenzhen, China's "Silicon Valley" b Mee Kam Ng, Jonah Tang, Mingmin Pan, and Sylvia Y. He B Strategy for the Application of Smart Technology in Spatial Planning in Shenzhen b Jifeng Dai, Weizhi Cheng, Tao Wang, and Yu Fang B Geospatial Big Data Analytics and the Progress of SDGs in the Greater Bay Area b Yang Yue, Zhong-Wen Hu, Qi-Li Gao, and Chi-Sheng Wang B "Digital Bay Area": Towards Sustainable Regional Development in the Greater Bay Area - From High Speed to High-Quality Development b Yu Fang, Wenyong Sun, Shuyao Cai, and Jifeng Dai B Smart Cities, Chinese Rooms and Extended Minds b Ian Wray Introduction Most smart city literature is about the adoption of information and communication technologies to make cities smart now (Fernandez-Anez et al., [1]). The "Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA" proposes the construction of smart city clusters, facilitated by big data monitoring platforms for the free flow of spatial data and information in the GBA. [Extracted from the article]

Problem, research strategy, and findings: From the 1970s to the 1990s, the Hong Kong government developed several new towns to alleviate pressure on contemporary urban areas and provide housing for a rapidly growing population. Although self-containment is a key objective in building new towns, no research has assessed residents' behavioral outcomes, limiting the objective assessment of the spatial planning of new towns. In this study, we hypothesize that adequate job accessibility would offer residents shorter commutes and hence more time for noncommute travel and activities and better work–life balance. Drawing on census and household travel survey data, we assess the spatial planning of new towns by investigating the effects of job accessibility on commute and noncommute travel durations. We find that a) there is a disparity in self-containment and access to job opportunities between these towns and urban areas, b) job accessibility strongly influences commute duration, and c) prolonged commutes can reduce noncommute travel duration, particularly for public transportation users, suggesting that this may harm work–life balance for workers with long commutes. Takeaway for practice: Building a self-contained new town requires strategic spatial planning and a concrete plan to develop the local economy. To cultivate local employment, planners should develop a regional plan that differentiates main industries in different new towns. A good starting point would be a thorough understanding of the history, spatial distribution of existing industries and firms, and skills of local workers in these towns. We recommend more proactive efforts to a) establish more self-contained new town communities, b) relocate jobs in certain sectors (e.g., government offices) to new towns, c) strengthen an integrated transit system, and d) adopt alternative work schedules (e.g., telecommuting, flexible work hours) in certain industries to relieve commute burdens, improving both commute experience and work–life balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]