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The An-Nuur Mosque is one of the components forming the Alun-Alun area in Batu City. This area has been designed as a strategic city area and has functioned as a tourist attraction supporting Batu City as an international tourist city. Therefore, the An-Nuur Mosque has to be inclusive, accommodating people with disabilities. This study aims to explore the dimensions and criteria for forming an inclusive mosque. This is a qualitative research using coding analysis techniques. The data collection techniques used observation and in-depth interviews conducted with eight disabled respondents in Batu City. The results of the analysis showed that an inclusive mosque is formed by three dimensions and several criteria; those are the physical dimension (internal circulation, external circulation, facility], social dimension (assistance from others, conflict with transportation drivers], and management dimension (mosque administrators). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While being celebrated as the ideal of inclusiveness, cities also constitute the place of different types of discrimination, which some public policies intend to tackle. The “urban” has also been pointed out as the locus where vice and lust con‐ centrate, leading public policies to develop regulations for public space aiming to maintain the social order of the city. This, in turn, contributes to the definition of the contours of urban moral economies, which are continuously shaped by processes of in/exclusion. Hence, crucial is the need to further explore how cities can be welcoming to their dwellers and newcomers, as well as the role public policies (have to) play in the vision of the future of an open and inclusive city. In so doing, social work is certainly called upon to play a major role based on its historical presence in cities and its know‐how in accompanying transitions. How does social work contribute to the definition of an inclusive city? By presenting new and original research that draws on various case studies as well as theoretical reflections across disciplines, this thematic issue aims to provide answers to this question to better understand the role of social work in the shaping of an open and inclusive city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban spaces are always contested and, as such, permeated by processes of inclusion and exclusion. Since the 2000s, new types of governmental public order services have been established in Switzerland specialized in dealing with socially marginalized individuals, groups, or areas. Without having police powers, they proceed with socio‐communicative meth‐ ods typical in outreach social work. Based on our ethnographic research and drawing on Foucault‐inspired governmentality studies we elucidate the socio‐preventive risk management of two types of order services: While the welfare type aims to protect public spaces of attractive urban centers from social marginality, the neighborhood watch type is concerned with improving the coexistence of residents of marginalized housing developments. As the former wants to keep socio‐spatial in/exclusion of social marginality in motion and prevent its fixation in certain places, the latter works towards the inclusive socio‐spatial entrenchment of residents in segregated housing developments. Both dynamics—inclusion and exclusion—are closely intertwined and utilized for the governance of public spaces. The “inclusive city” should not be celebrated as a dull ideal and must be confronted with its own socio‐spatial mechanisms of exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Half the world's population now lives in cities, and this figure is expected to reach 70% by 2050. To ensure future cities offer equity for multiple age groups, it is important to plan for spatially inclusive features such as pedestrian accessibility. This feature is strongly related to many emerging global challenges regarding health, an ageing population, and an inclusive society, and should be carefully considered when designing future cities to meet the mobility requirements of different groups of people, reduce reliance on cars, and encourage greater participation by all residents. Independent travel to public open spaces, particularly green spaces, is widely considered a key factor that affects human health and well-being and is considered a primary motivation for walking. At the same time, unfavourable steepness and restrictive access points to open spaces can limit accessibility and restrict the activities of older adults or people with mobility impairments. This paper introduces a novel open access proximity modelling web application, PedestrianCatch, that simulates pedestrian catchments for user-specified destinations utilising a crowd-source road network and open topographic data. Based on this tool, we offer a multi-criteria evaluation approach that considers travel speed, time, urban topography, and visualisation modes to accommodate various simulation needs for different urban scenarios. Two case studies are conducted to demonstrate the technical feasibility and flexibility using the proposed evaluation approach, and explain how new renewal strategies can be tested when designing a more inclusive neighbourhood. This evaluation tool is immediately relevant to urban designers, health planners, and disability communities, and will be increasingly relevant to the wider community as populations age, while the corresponding analysis approach has a huge potential to contribute to the pre-design and design process for developing more walkable and accessible communities for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Despite the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, many cities are still struggling to facilitate inclusive playgrounds. This paper contributes to our understanding of the everyday landscapes of disabled childhood, by investigating the play‐policy of Dutch municipalities via a mixed‐methods approach. Our online survey reveals that 90 per cent have a play‐policy, although the length and content of these documents vary extensively, and accessibility and inclusive play are often lacking. Additionally, we focus on the play‐policy of two municipalities in the east of the Netherlands. Interviews with civil servants, play professionals and families with disabled children show that municipalities willingly respond to parents' requests for playground changes. Though resulting in tailor‐made adjustments, this also configures disability as an individual problem. Parents and policy‐makers also highlight different expectations regarding playground adjustments and investments. The paper therefore calls for open communication to avoid disabled children being involuntarily absent in public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, lifestyles changed completely. This new normality damages human psychology and mental health. Hence, new approaches must be considered while shaping public spaces to accommodate the pandemic life. This paper aims to show the importance of exploiting outdoor spaces to save people's mental health. Accordingly, an online survey is conducted and analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for more precise answers. Afterward, the most important public spaces during the pandemic are extracted; consequently, another questionnaire has been held to validate these items. The last one has been run through a machine learning technique to classify and categorize the users' different preferences in three situations only. It was found that 85,17% of the sample declared the importance of outdoor public spaces. However, future research is needed to rethink urban spaces' design and to relocate the activities done within indoor public spaces to the outdoors to maintain human mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We investigate the roles of neighborhood environment in migrant inclusion in China. • Quasi-public spaces are more significant in promoting inter-group inclusion. • Density of sidewalks has negative impacts on inter-group inclusion in Beijing. • Physical planning should combine with social programs to promote meaningful inter-group encounters. Worldwide countries face growing challenges of social inclusion amid the massive influx of migrant populations into large cities. Planning scholars have long been intrigued by the role of the physical design of urban neighborhoods in fostering a cohesive and inclusive urban society. However, empirical research on the effects of public spaces on promoting intergroup solidarity and inclusion has been less systematic and produced far less conclusive findings. Using Beijing, China, as a case study, this research contributed to this ongoing debate with an empirical investigation of the extent to which neighborhood physical environment – specifically, accessibility to different types of urban public spaces -- contributes to a more positive attitude among native residents toward migrant social inclusion through fostering more frequent neighborly social interaction. Based on a large-scale survey conducted in 2017, we adopted structural equation modeling analysis and found more significant effects of accessibility to quasi-public spaces than typical public spaces in promoting both neighborly interactions and inclusiveness attitudes. We discuss the theoretical and policy implications for the role of neighborhood physical environment in the pursuit of building inclusive cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]