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Understanding black carbon (BC) levels and its sources in urban environments is of paramount importance due to the far-reaching health, climate, and air quality implications. While several recent studies have assessed BC concentrations at specific fixed urban locations, there is a notable lack of knowledge in the existing literature on spatially resolved data alongside source estimation methods. This study aims to fill this gap by conducting a comprehensive investigation of BC levels and sources in Modena (Po Valley, Italy), which serves as a representative example of a medium-sized urban area in Europe. Using a combination of multi-wavelength micro-aethalometer measurements and a hybrid Eulerian–Lagrangian modelling system, we studied two consecutive winter seasons (February–March 2020 and December 2020–January 2021). Leveraging the multi-wavelength absorption analyser (MWAA) model, we differentiate sources (fossil fuel combustion, FF, and biomass burning, BB) and components (BC vs. brown carbon, BrC) from micro-aethalometer measurements. The analysis reveals consistent, minimal diurnal variability in BrC absorption, in contrast to FF-related sources that exhibit distinctive diurnal peaks during rush hours, while BB sources show less diurnal variation. The city itself contributes significantly to BC concentrations (52 ± 16 %), with BB and FF playing a prominent role (35 ± 15 % and 9 ± 4 %, respectively). Long-distance transport also influences BC concentrations, especially in the case of BB and FF emissions, with 28 ± 1 % and 15 ± 2 %, respectively. When analysing the traffic-related concentrations, Euro 4 diesel passenger cars considerably contribute to the exhaust emissions. These results provide valuable insights for policy makers and urban planners to manage BC levels in medium-sized urban areas, taking into account local and long-distance sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding human movement patterns is crucial for comprehending how a city functions. It is also important for city planners and policymakers to create more efficient plans and policies for urban areas. Traditionally, human movement patterns were analyzed using origin–destination surveys, travel diaries, and other methods. Now, these patterns can be identified from various geospatial big data sources, such as mobile phone data, floating car data, and location-based social media (LBSM) data. These extensive datasets primarily identify individual or collective human movement patterns. However, the impact of spatial scale on the analysis of human movement patterns from these large geospatial data sources has not been sufficiently studied. Changes in spatial scale can significantly affect the results when calculating human movement patterns from these data. In this study, we utilized Weibo datasets for three different cities in China including Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai. We aimed to identify the effect of different spatial scales on individual human movement patterns as calculated from LBSM data. For our analysis, we employed two indicators as follows: an external activity space indicator, the radius of gyration (ROG), and an internal activity space indicator, entropy. These indicators were chosen based on previous studies demonstrating their efficiency in analyzing sparse datasets like LBSM data. Additionally, we used two different ranges of spatial scales—10–100 m and 100–3000 m—to illustrate changes in individual activity space at both fine and coarse spatial scales. Our results indicate that although the ROG values show an overall increasing trend and the entropy values show an overall decreasing trend with the increase in spatial scale size, different local factors influence the ROG and entropy values at both finer and coarser scales. These findings will help to comprehend the dynamics of human movement across different scales. Such insights are invaluable for enhancing overall urban mobility and optimizing transportation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil is now a central issue on the European as well as the national political agenda, as it represents a fundamental ecosystem for human survival on the planet. Today, more than ever, its protection and proper use in various contexts (agricultural, natural, urban) require stringent policies that can be implemented immediately. The difficult reversibility of urban transformations is the main threat to the ecosystem integrity of soil. Starting from this statement, the main objective of the proposed work is to analyze how the main European countries (Italy, France, Germany, and Spain) are addressing the issue of the goal of zero net land take by 2050 by examining the current laws and strategies. The results highlight how the regulatory aspect plays a key role in managing the phenomenon and how the absence of a national framework law can generate strong distortions and different interpretations of the soil ecosystem. The analysis of the Nature Restoration Law, adopted by the European Commission in July 2023, enables us to assess whether the regulations and measures adopted by the major European countries align with the European Union's trends. Through a comparative perspective, the study aims to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of sustainable development practices and provide valuable insights for policymakers, urban planners, and academics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City planners are seeking ways to incorporate human-centric urban projects that combine smart technology, good infrastructure and people's perception as well as their participation. Smart city developments are increasingly being applied to smaller scales at which communities can co-design hard infrastructure and the resulting services. Experiences from city projects at this level have produced a plethora of designs, challenges and success factors, particularly from cases in countries with long legacies in city development. In the Gulf Cooperation Council region, young cities and new planned cities house the bulk of the population and face environmental challenges related to urban segregation, urban sprawl and large consumption footprints. The political-economy of this region in terms of central urban planning and government-led economic development offers valuable insights on the limits and challenges in implementing projects related to smart and connected communities (SCC). SCC as a label for smart urban interventions towards more connectedness between hard and soft (human-related) infrastructure can provide opportunities for participatory and sustainable urban planning in the region. This paper analyzes the role of community-level interventions within the smart city policies of Gulf countries. It shows that only few local-level projects exist, while the barriers to large-scale SCC initiatives are related to demographics, community characteristics, technological sophistication, lack of conducive regulations, and the prevalence of central urban planning. The success of local smart city approaches in the Gulf is dependent on public leadership in terms of clearing obstacles, designing broader strategies, and expanding projects to include the residential sector. Considering the potential of SCC projects to enhance the transition to sustainability in the predominantly urban Gulf societies, broader engagement of local governments, utilities, and community-level developers can result in tangible benefits in terms of more sustainable, smart and tailored local services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global urbanization and heat-related fatalities are rapidly increasing, while the full potential of advanced information technologies to mitigate urban heat has not yet been used by city planners and policymakers. Cognitive computing systems (CCSs), which mimic human information processing and reasoning abilities, can transform how cities strategize and operate. In this commentary, we develop a framework and outline future research directions to understand the disconnect between a strategic and operational CCS, which can facilitate an effective interplay between urban policy (e.g., framing alternative policies) and urban technology (e.g., engaging local communities with data generated by sensor networks). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European urban areas have different practices for the planning of transportation systems, for the decision-making processes of new regulations, the implementation of transportation solutions, and for the cooperation between operators. In this paper, the specific conditions and potential solutions in the field of electric micromobility (e-micromobility) are analyzed. The elaborated method consists of two parts. In the first part, an expert workshop is conducted, where urban mobility experts from different fields share their experience of e-micromobility and its relevance to policy-making. Additionally, an expert survey is developed to set an urban definition of e-micromobility up and to bring its most relevant parameters into focus. In the second part, a framework assessment including planning, regulatory, and practical realizations related to the usage of new mobility services is created. The findings can serve as an input to recommendations, roadmaps, implementation guidelines, and policy documents for urban planners and decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban green space accessibility is an essential consideration in determining environmental liveability and the well-being of individuals, and the spatial inequity of urban green space supply and demand has become a research focus. However, few studies have conducted a multidimensional and comprehensive assessment of the influences on accessibility from the different perspectives of supply and demand. To address this, our study centred on the mountainous Chongqing region and established a comprehensive research framework examining the spatial pattern of accessibility of urban green spaces and its correlation with physical geographical elements and socioeconomic factors. We reveal the spatial distribution characteristics of urban green space accessibility by using Gaussian-based two-step floating catchment area and network analysis methods and further observe the spatial clustering features utilising hotspot analysis. The ordinary least squares (OLS) model and the spatial lag model were used to evaluate the physical geographical and socioeconomic disparities. Our findings reveal explicit blind spots in urban green space accessibility, primarily within the 30 min travel threshold in the city's marginal area. A discernible supply–demand imbalance existed in the urban core, constituted by implicit blind spots. Furthermore, we identified that the relationship between urban green space accessibility and elevation under different methods is not always consistently significant over space because spatial heterogeneity may exist. Most concerningly, the study found inequities in urban green space accessibility, particularly impacting vulnerable demographics such as the elderly and lower-income groups. These results can inform urban planners and policymakers about the blind spots of urban green space accessibility and sufficiently consider the physical and socioeconomic heterogeneity of the space to determine where and how to implement inclusive urban greening policies or planning schemes. It is also of great significance in increasing awareness of vulnerable groups and preventing environmental inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban heat island (UHI) effect has become a hot topic in the global urban ecological environment. Research on the UHI effect is of great significance for alleviating urban environmental problems. Therefore, it has attracted the extensive attention of a large number of researchers in the field of urban environmental issues, such as urban ecologists, urban climatologists, urban planners, geographers, relevant policy makers, etc. However, systematic reviews are lacking on UHI research in the context of rapid urbanization and global change in recent years. In this study, we used Cite Space software to analyze the development process and current situation of UHI research from multiple perspectives during 2008–2021, aiming to reveal research hotspots and predict future trends. We found that UHI has gradually become a multidisciplinary field, and has existed in a flourishing period since 2008 with the rapid development of a number of publications. A large amount of research has been carried out by relevant institutions and scholars in 85 countries from 2008 to 2021. The hotspot research frontier focuses on the influencing factors, mitigation measures, and quantitative analysis of the UHI effect. Based on these trends and the status of the field, we proposed further research directions to promote interdisciplinary integration, optimize quantitative monitoring methods, strengthen the impact of three-dimensional urban landscape and vegetation landscape patterns, and expand the study of the urban agglomeration scale. Our results provide a valuable reference and potential frontier for future research in the field of the UHI effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing prominence of urban scaling laws highlights the importance of a systematic understanding of the variational scaling rates for different economic activities. In this article, we utilize several datasets to provide the first systematic investigation of the urban scaling of manufacturing industries in China. Most existing literature assumes that the divergence in urban scaling can be explained by returns to agglomeration, with a few exceptions instead highlighting the role of knowledge complexity or a mixture of both. Our main purpose in this paper is to explain the inter-sector variation of urban scaling rates. In doing this, we provide a clearer approach to demonstrating the relations between urban scaling, returns to agglomeration, and knowledge complexity. Our findings are twofold. First, after uncovering the scaling rates (denoted as urban concentration) and returns to agglomeration (denoted as urban productivity) for each sub-manufacturing sector, we prove that, rather than being a positive predictor, returns to agglomeration is slightly negatively associated with urban scaling rates. This finding reveals that urban concentration of manufacturing may not simply be a natural consequence driven by the maximization of performance. We also show that this result of the manufacturing system contrasts with what would be found in other pure knowledge systems such as patents. Secondly, we measure the complexity for each sector and demonstrate that the variation of urban concentration can be largely explained by their complexity, consistent with the knowledge complexity perspective. Specifically, complex manufacturing sectors are found to concentrate more in large cities than less complex sectors in China. This result provides support for the view that the growth of complex activities hinges more on diversity than on efficiency. The findings above can greatly reduce the current level of ambiguity associated with urban scaling, returns to agglomeration and complexity, and have important policy implications for urban planners, highlighting the significance of a more balanced and diversified configuration of urban productive activities for the growth of innovation economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Integrated Urban Development Planning: Concepts - Methods - Examples" by Stefan Heinig deals with the topic of urban development planning in German cities. It provides an overview of the historical development since the 1970s and links it to current programmatic approaches such as the New Leipzig Charter and the National Urban Development Policy. The book addresses various dimensions of urban development planning, such as goal orientations, process characteristics, and scales, as well as analytical foundations and participatory processes. It includes numerous examples from different cities and is aimed at students, municipal urban and specialist planners, as well as societal actors. The book is praised as a comprehensive and well-founded monograph on integrated urban development planning in Germany. [Extracted from the article]

The connotation of liveability varies with context. Assessing the liveability of cities is complicated by the plethora of mutually-interacting dimensions – physical, economic, social, environmental and institutional. The authors, in this paper, have attempted to address this complexity and advance the understanding of the concept of liveability to planners, and its applicability to more inclusive policymaking. By availing of the body of knowledge in extant literature, the paper fosters a systematic understanding of the concepts of liveability and its key constructs, suggests various methods to measure liveability, and highlights the need for trade-offs between liveability and sustainability outcomes in urban planning. It also contributes to the identification of the inherent social construction reflecting the values, perceptions and experiences of its inhabitants in defining and measuring liveability. The authors suggest the use of cognitive, participatory and micro-scale indicators to assess liveability, while arguing in favour of a 'pro-equity' perspective in the local context; and opine that the assessment framework suggested can unearth opportunities to formulate place-based innovative policies to create liveable, sustainable and equitable cities. Bolstered by their findings from the review, the authors have introduced a novel participatory assessment approach, abbreviated as SaRVO, which they recommend to town planners and policymakers as well as researchers in the future. [Display omitted] • Liveability is contextual with differing values and experiences of individuals. • Liveability and sustainability are complementary despite existence of tensions. • Managing trade-offs between influencing drivers can enhance city's liveability. • Equity issues needs to be addressed in defining and measuring liveability for all. • Microscale indices and cognitive approach can shape city's liveability performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between single-building scaled urban regeneration, driven by the Disaster Risk Transformation Law, and urban segregation in Maltepe district. Following stricter building codes, the district underwent significant demolition and construction between 2014 and 2015. We employ construction data and credit card transaction data to analyze the demographic changes. We find that urban regeneration due to building renewal may have diverse context-dependent effects on the demographic tapestry of communities, their culture and history. While some neighborhoods showed positive response to increased local amenities and resulted in reduced mobility outside their local area, leading to greater income segregation from the rest of the city, others behaved in the opposite direction. Similarly, the transformation process has attracted a more educated and higher-income inflow of residents in some neighborhoods compared to others. Herein, we employ new big data and mobility-driven metrics from computational social science such as diversity, loyalty and assortativity to reveal the link between urban regeneration and segregation. Our findings provide important clues and insights to urban planners for developing urban policies leading to neighborhood designs that are more connected to each other (hence reducing segregation) while still offering modern amenities expected by their residents. • Urban transformation may have diverse context-dependent effects on tapestry of communities and their culture and history. • The reconstruction activities lead to demographic and behavioral changes that led to increased segregation. • Assortativity coefficient is used to measure the macro level of segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deterioration of the urban environment is a problem which has captured the attention of governmental departments and researchers, who are committed to improving the urban environment from the perspective of optimizing urban morphology. Although many researchers have applied computational fluid dynamics (CFD) plug-ins to study the problems of urban ventilation and pollutant accumulation, studies on the reliability and simulation accuracy verification of CFD plug-ins are currently scarce. Therefore, we used three CFD plug-ins based on different architectural design platforms to evaluate and compare their operation difficulty, simulation accuracy, and efficiency through the analysis of the simulation results of urban ventilation. This study complements the reliability validation of CFD plug-in simulations and guides urban planners and architects in the selection and application of CFD plug-ins. The results show that the CFD plug-in generally underestimates the wind speed at the pedestrian level and the prediction accuracy is poor in the wake area of obstacles, especially with the GH_Wind plug-in. Under the 0° inflow direction, the simulation results of the Butterfly plug-in were the most consistent with the experimental values. When the inflow direction increased to 22.5° and 45°, the Autodesk CFD showed the best simulation accuracy. Overall, Autodesk CFD achieves a balance between simulation accuracy and speed in urban airflow simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban agendas are struggling to challenge conventional planning paradigms, to improve environmental, economic, and social conditions in cities and meet sustainability goals. Such problems call for a critique of existing planning structures, which determine how planners and urban designers work, and thus condition cities themselves. While it is widely acknowledged that descriptive or paradigmatic urban concepts have multiplied in recent years and play a part in shaping development strategies, it is unclear that they reach the desired outcomes. This paper addresses this gap in the case of Portugal, seeking to compare two specific periods of Portuguese planning history: the 1960s and nowadays. For different reasons, both moments urged urban planners and designers to seek urban change. We retrieve key concepts and definitions to call for an observation of how planning at each of those time-periods approached social, political, environmental, and economic challenges. By observing such paradigmatic changes, we aim to identify their advantages and limitations for current urban policies, while gathering eventual lessons for spatial planning to handling the need for a sustainable transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although polycentrism is widely promoted by city planners and policymakers as a potential solution for alleviating the sprawl of central urban areas, there is no sufficient empirical evidence to verify the validity of this claim. Our study aims to complement this experience by providing solid evidence on whether polycentric urban structures can mitigate the problem of urban sprawl. In this study, the corresponding evaluation factors are selected from four perspectives: socioeconomic, spatial form and organization, and ecological environment, to measure the performance of Hangzhou's polycentric spatial development. The results show that the performance in Hangzhou has improved significantly, and the performance improvement is more prominent over the 2010–2020 period. Third, the changing characteristics of the spatial development performance of the city centers show a significant diversity. During the study period, the development of Jiangnan city started early, but the development performance of Xiasha city improved significantly, and the development of Linping city was relatively the weakest. Fourth, socioeconomic and urban spatial organization are the main factors causing the temporal stage and spatial variability of the performance in Hangzhou. It can be seen that market-driven endogenous factors are more conducive to improving spatial development performance than government-led exogenous factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethiopia, one of the least urbanized and fastest-urbanizing nations in sub-Saharan Africa, has experienced rapid urban growth, but political pressures on urban planners have exacerbated urban problems. This study explores political pressures on urban planners in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Purposive sampling was applied to investigate the pressures upon urban land use planning deeds at the Regional Urban Planning Institute of the region. 35 respondents from the head office, 21 respondents from Bahir Dar, 13 respondents from Gondar, 11 respondents from Debre Markos, 7 respondents from Dessie, and 6 respondents from Debre Birhan were taken. Data collection instruments included questionnaires, key informant interviews, and Henry Garrett's ranking technique. The study revealed that service land use was of utmost pressure in planning and implementation. Comprehensive know-how of the facts, real needs, problems, and views of professional autonomy in performing one's duty is vital. Political pressures on urban planners were common and unavoidable in developing countries, particularly in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. The study concluded that planners should not suffer from a lack of professional autonomy and should be objective in their analysis and policy recommendations, and it suggested further research on the lesson. • Service land use was under most pressure in planning and implementation. • Religious land use functions were allocated through rezoning requests. • Urban planners cannot allocate religious land use. • Politically appointed city and regional management can influence religious and related uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the intersection between degrowth and urban planning and contributes to a deeper understanding and a sharper concretisation of how a strong sustainability concept such as degrowth can be taken into planning practice. Taking the Swedish municipality of Södertälje as a case, this paper uses empirical material from interviews with municipal urban planners and urban planning policy. The findings put current planning in relation to degrowth ideas, gather insights about the possible role of planning actors in a degrowth transition, and includes proposals for how planning practice can facilitate a degrowth future. This study finds that integrating a degrowth approach in planning practice means that urban planning needs to be subordinated to overarching social and environmental goals. Producing urban planning that is measured and conditioned by overarching goals would most likely imply completely different ways of planning, and goal-oriented backcasting scenarios are suggested as a tool to overcome this challenge. This paper also gathers strategies, like Södertälje's Cultivation Strategy, that can facilitate a degrowth transition within current planning practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Change is considered a prominent feature of urban areas because of the various services and functions in cities, with complex functional relations. The study aims to build an informational foundation for urban planners and designers on the effects resulting from the imbalance in the organization and proportions of urban land uses, which in turn affects the performance of its functions in the city and its changes, and thus the necessity of using modern technologies to identify and define urban problems in cities, especially those related to land uses. An analytical approach to the research was taken, adopting geographic information systems as a tool for research by studying the reality of the region and determining the changes occurring from the functional side for the periods of 2,003,200,820,132,018. These periods witnessed substantial development and changes at the city and country levels. Through the results of the study, the changes were identified, remedies suggested, positive aspects were strengthened, and negative phenomena were reduced. The conclusions reached by the study indicate that planning for the use of the land is a very important practical aspect of achieving the needs of the population and limiting the noncultural aspects of expansion. Deliberate and planned change can generate positive results and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use mix (LUM) is a key part of urban form, but the definitions and measures of LUM are debated. This study aims to reveal the spatial characteristics of LUM patterns by using a sample of 216 streets in Shanghai, a megacity of China. Firstly, a systematic quantitative framework for sustainable LUM is proposed. Then, an LUM degree index (LMDI) that integrates diversity, proximity and compatibility is developed to address the possible bias of a single dimension. Results suggest that areas with high diversity are not necessarily mixed, due to inaccessibility or negative externalities of land uses. Subsequently, spatial characteristics of LUM patterns that combine LMDI with dominant mix‐typologies are analyzed. Results show that residential & service‐dominated streets tend to exhibit higher mix, and are mainly distributed in the city center or the administrative core area. However, 44.4% of the streets with residential & industrial‐dominated or equally distributed mix have lower mix degree and are generally located in the outskirts. More optimized policies for urban periphery areas should be considered. LUM patterns present a detailed perspective to measure and depict the spatial features of LUM, and have the potential to assist urban planners in making decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Planning Education & Research is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

On the example of working-class Prague quarter of Žižkov, the article studies the interrelation between heritage protection of late nineteenth-century tenement housing and neoliberal city policies after 1989. It locates the common root of both phenomena in the strong sense of crisis of socialist modernist urbanism among urban planners and architects since the early 1970s. The criticism of socialist urbanism culminated shortly before the Velvet Revolution of 1989 in a public struggle against demolition and redevelopment of the entire Žižkov quarter, led by a group of young architects. The article concludes by describing a bitter victory as the quarter's architecture was eventually saved, while neoliberal urban policies and gentrification eroded its working-class nature. This process illustrates a major shift in urban expertise from social planning under socialism to neoliberal discursive planning in which a "story" of a city is constructed through preservation of belle-époque tenement housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of urbanity in a specific context, namely Helsinki, Finland. In a European context, Finland urbanized late. This lies at the heart of the common interpretation that Finland lacks an urban culture and urban lifestyles. Today, however, with the new comprehensive Urban Plan, city planners in Helsinki emphasize a paradigm shift towards urbanity. This paper seeks to understand this changing emphasis in planning by exploring how planners frame and understand urbanity. The paper concludes that within the Nordic welfare context more emphasis is needed to rethink whom urbanity serves and how it resonates with the prevention of segregation that the city also aims at. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to delve into the theoretical meaning of the concept of the urban antispace, and quantify in real terms how much surface this unused urban space represents and what are the main patterns of the spatial distribution. As part of the theoretical results, three categories are presented (empty spaces, abandoned spaces, and urban leftover spaces). At a practical level, the results of a practical exercise applied in the border city of Nuevo Laredo (Mexico) are presented, where a database composed of 5,002 cases was obtained, which methodologically were registered and quantified through the use of geographic information software (QGIS) which served as the basis for the generation of statistical material and various types of spatial models. The conclusion reflects on the main findings and also emphasizes the importance that this topic can have for the work of urban planners and municipal authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Düzce University Journal of Forestry / Düzce Üniversitesi Orman Fakültesi Ormancılık Dergisi is the property of Duzce University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

• Mainstreaming urban resilience poses explicit governance challenges. • Resilience competes with other policy goals for political commitment. • Institutional incentives should support voluntary resilience strategies. • Urban policymakers require support in attracting the private sector. Despite the burgeoning popularity of resilience as an urban policy narrative, we know little about how policymakers and planners approach the challenge of operationalising urban resilience or what problems they face. Although their ultimate goal is presumably to integrate resilience goals into sectoral policy and decision-making as well as to dissolve policy silos, the concept of mainstreaming has received relatively little attention in urban resilience literature so far. To address this void, we use the concept of mainstreaming to analyse the two cities of Christchurch and Rotterdam, both participants in the Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities Programme. We identify three main challenges that are apparent in both cities despite their contextual differences. The first is to make resilience a top priority for policymaking and planning because it competes with other urban development agendas for political commitment. Secondly, institutionalising cross-sector governance constitutes a challenge because participation in 100 Resilient Cities brings few incentives for institutional reforms. The third challenge – to actively engage decision-makers from public and private sectors – arises because urban policymakers and planners are not sufficiently equipped to convince them to invest additional resources in terms of personnel, time and money and to dissolve conflicts of interest between them. In the light of these challenges, we argue that participating in 100 Resilient Cities is a relevant but not sufficient first step towards mainstreaming urban resilience in Christchurch and Rotterdam. In addition to developing a resilience strategy and appointing a Chief Resilience Officer, formal changes (for instance in procedural law and national policymaking) are required, to address the challenges identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important for urban planners and policy makers to understand complex, diverse urban demands and social structure, but this is not easy due to lack of data that represents the dynamics of residents at micro-geographical level. This paper explores how to create population data at at a micro-level by allocating population data to building. It attempted to allocate population data stored in a grid layer (100 meters by 100 meters) into a building footprint layer that represents the appearance of physical buildings. For the allocation, this paper describes a systemic approach that classifies grid cells into five prototypical patterns based on the composition of residential building types in a grid cell. This approach enhances allocation accuracy by accommodating heterogeneity of urban space rather than relying on the assumption of uniform spatial homogeneity of populations within an aerial unit. Unlike the methods that disaggregate population data to the parcel, this approach is more applicable to Asian cities where large multifamily residential parcels are common. However, it should be noted that this paper does not demonstrate the validity of the allocated population since there is a lack of the actual data available to be compared with the current estimated population. In the case of water and electricity, the data is already attached to an individual address, and hence, it can be considered to the purpose of the validation for the allocation. By doing so, it will be possible to identify innovative methods that create a population distribution dataset representing the comprehensive and dynamic nature of the population at the micro geographical level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, 54.5% of the total population was living in urban settings in 2016 and a projection indicates that if the same trend goes, then this population will be 60% in 2030. Natural land has been converted to impervious space rapidly which is altering the climate change. The main focus of the present paper is the study of Land Surface Temperature (LST) dynamics and its relationship with Land Indices, viz., Normal Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) which is found negative, Normal Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) which is found positive, Enhanced Built-up and Bareness Index (EBBI) which is found positive in Lucknow city on both time points of 1993 and 2019. This study also includes the effects of land indices on LST profiling in nine different parts and eight different directions to explore the spatial dynamics of city landscape. The NDVI is found higher in the southern side than any other parts of the city in 2019 because of high vegetation growth which resulted in reduction of LST by 4.42 °C to 5.76 °C as compared to parts of the city. The results of NDBI and EBBI exhibit high built-up growth in the landscape of the Lucknow city especially from city center to 13 kms (least growth in south-eastern side) from 1993 to 2019. The results indicate intensification of LST in the range of 0.26 °C to 2.24 °C between city centre and city periphery from 1993 to 2019. The findings of the present study will help urban planners and policy makers to adopt suitable measures for sustainable planning for Lucknow city landscape to reduce the adverse effects of LST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been considerable research into the barriers to implementing urban agriculture projects in cities, and recent scholarship has examined the role of local policy makers and city planners in shaping cities' responses to urban agriculture. In this paper, we use the 2012-2015 debate over rewriting the urban farm code in Austin, TX as a case study for exploring the difficulties in governing urban farms. Drawing from in-depth interviews with twenty-six stakeholders involved in the debate, we use understandings of heuristics--unconscious mental shortcuts that help make fast and efficient decisions--to argue that, during the debates, ambiguity surrounding definitions of what an urban farm is, what it does, and how it operates resulted in important stakeholders relying on their memories and previous experiences when forming opinions about the urban farm policy. The resulting heuristic bias made it difficult for farmers to come together to create effective coalitions, exacerbated tensions within the community, and complicated the rewriting of the farm code. We conclude by suggesting that broader conceptualizations of farming must still be developed in the public's imagination along with more deliberate policymaking that accounts for the diversity of scope of urban agriculture projects and how municipalities govern them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For almost half of a century, urban planning in Croatia took place under the socialist regime. During that time, it mostly played a role in addressing the pressing spacerelated issues of the development of socialist society, and in facilitating economic growth. In this paper, we examine urban planning in Croatia between 1944 and 1991 from eight aspects: the general roles of planning; legislation; relationship to societal planning; politicalinstitutional responsibility; urban planners and policy; plan execution; public participation; and environmental concerns. We analysed archival data and literature on urban, spatial and societal planning legislation and practices in the Socialist Republic of Croatia, including the planning journals Arhitektura and Čovjek i prostor, and planning legislation from the socialist period. We outlined the five evolutionary phases over which urban planning experienced decentralisation from the federal to the communal level, advancements in public participation, and the involvement of environmental considerations in the decision-making process. We also studied the evolution of planning tools, which originated in the socialist period but remains in use today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This study examines the influence of commuting time on resident's happiness across urbanization rates. • The influences of neighborhood and city-level built environment on resident's happiness are revealed. • People own a strong mental endurance of commuting in areas with high urbanization rates. • City-level built environment only influences happiness in areas with low urbanization rates. Although the relationship between commuting time and residents' happiness has been widely investigated, few studies have examined how the connection varies with urbanization levels. Using 7,774 individual samples across China, this study employs a multilevel ordered logit model to examine how commuting time is correlated with residents' happiness. The effects of both the neighborhood and city-level built environment are revealed. Our findings show that commuting time is an essential factor correlated with residents' happiness and the correlation varies across urbanization levels. People from cities with high urbanization rates (>70%) have a strong mental endurance of commuting time, whereas commuting time is more influential on residents' happiness in cities with low urbanization rates (<50%). For the effects of the built environment, residents' happiness is significantly associated with both levels of built environment in cities with urbanization rates higher than 50%. Conversely, residents' happiness is only significantly correlated with the neighborhood built environment in cities with urbanization rates lower than 50%. Hence, to enhance residents' happiness, urban planners and policy makers should consider multi-scale built environment characteristics and improve the public transport services according to local urbanization levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores public participation and its impact on urban structures in Southern Africa. Often, public participation stands in opposition to existing legislation and prevailing urban policies. Using textual analysis and case studies of Harare, Zimbabwe, Johannesburg, South Africa and Luanda, Angola, this study concludes that the urban fabric and structure of Southern African cities are in a state of instability. The rise of public participation–"right to the city"–has given way to "cities of rebels" in which citizens react or rebel against urban policies and legislation. These forces threaten sustainable urban morphology and service delivery, complicating the roles of urban planners and managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen disagreement on urban policies and planning decisions is both ubiquitous and fundamental to democracy. Post-political debates debunk the 'consensus approach', which is grounded in Habermasian communication theory, for circumventing disagreement. This article presents a counter argument. Our analysis of the highly institutionalised and consensus-oriented Dutch planning framework shows that this system does not necessarily prevent effective voicing of disagreement. The empirical material demonstrates that consensus is not a pre-defined and static outcome but a dynamic and sensitive process in which urban planning is an instrument. We conclude that planners could facilitate consensus through accommodative roles that address disagreement by taking an adaptive, proactive and more human stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Shrinking cities” is a well-established term in academic discourse, describing cities in distress. Using the notion of spatial or territorial stigma (Wacquant, Slater, & Pereira, 2014), this paper raises the question of whether the term “shrinking cities” may be unbefitting to the policy discourse of planning and community development, at least in the American context. The necessity of considering this question is due not only to the traumatic legacy of American planned urban shrinkage and urban renewal in poor, minority communities, but also to the potential ramifications that the social construction of spatial stigma by journalists, politicians, planners and academics may have on these communities in the era of austerity urbanism. The vast symbolic power, due to the symbolic capital that specialists in symbolic production wield, gives reason to ponder whether ‘shrinking cities’ ‘urban shrinkage’ and cognate terms contribute to territorial stigmatization, since in the naming of social groups, cities, or regions to reveal a socio-spatial reality, such reality "begins to exist as such, for those who belong to it as well as for the others" (Bourdieu 1989: 23). Examining images and web content tagged to Detroit, this paper also explores the digital production of territorial stigma through the Internet's social imaginary and aims to raise awareness of the potential ramifications of shrinking city scholarship “for” or “against” austerity urbanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cemetery planning in high‐density urban areas is essential for more equitable societies in Latin America. This paper addresses the implementation of a cemetery master plan in Bogotá to explore the effects of public policies. I argue that tensions between the ‘city of the dead’ and the ‘city of the living’ demonstrate how politicians and planners increasingly envision public cemeteries as urban infrastructure rather than public space, making it more difficult to manage cemeteries as a public good. This paper engages with debates about urban planning in contemporary Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the emergence of the concept of ‘urban resilience’ in the literature and to assess its potentials and limitations as an element of policy planning. Using a systematic literature review covering the period 2003–2013 and a combination of techniques derived from narrative analysis, we show that diverse views of what urban resilience means and how it is best used (as a goal or as a conceptual/analytical framework) compete in the literature. Underlying these views are various (and sometimes diverging) interpretations of what the main issues are and what forms of policies or interventions are needed to address these issues. Urban planners need to be better aware of these different interpretations if they want to be in a position to use resilience appropriately and spell out what resilience can bring to their work. The review also highlights that the notion of urban resilience often lacks adequate acknowledgement of the political economy of urbanization and consequently does not challenge the status quo which, some argue, is socially unjust and environmentally unsustainable. As such it runs the risk to be seen as simply making marginalized urban communities more resilient to the shocks and inequity created by the current dominant paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In countries throughout the developed world, including Australia, large cities are growing while remote cities are shrinking. Unfortunately, planners in shrinking communities employ growth-oriented policies – influenced by neoliberal thinking – that have been found to be ineffective in addressing the effects of population decline. A growing number of researchers are calling for the adoption of so-called ‘declineoriented’ planning (which involves accepting future decline and actively planning for it) in shrinking communities. In this paper, the case study of Broken Hill is used to explore the limits of the ‘declineoriented ideology’. Firstly, Broken Hill’s planning challenges and strategies are outlined then the tension between growth-oriented strategies found in policy documents, and the actions of local officials, who are adopting elements of decline-oriented planning, minus the ideology is highlighted. It is argued that it is unlikely that local officials in Broken Hill will adopt the decline-oriented ideology anytime soon, calling into question the likelihood of ‘decline-oriented planning’ ever being wholeheartedly adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Use mobile phone signaling data to assess urban vitality. • Call for temporally and spatially varying policies for urban vitality enhancement. • The spatial distribution of urban vitality is clustered and polycentric. • Urban vitality varies considerably throughout the day. • The effects of metro accessibility are more evenly distributed on weekends. Urban vitality has long been a focus of urban planners and designers. This study portrays the spatiotemporal patterns of urban vitality in Chengdu, China, on weekdays and weekends and examines their relationship with a set of factors using spatial regression and geographically weighted regression models. The results reveal that the spatial distribution of urban vitality displays a clustered and polycentric pattern, which can be attributed to urban spatial structure. Urban vitality varies considerably throughout the day on weekdays and weekends, and it consistently decreases as the distance to the city center increases. Furthermore, weekday vitality is much more predictable (less random) than weekend vitality, indicating that human activity patterns present higher regularity on weekdays than on weekends. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), road density, the number of residential facilities, and land-use mix have positive influences on urban vitality on weekdays and weekends, while the distance to the metro station has negative influences. The influences of NDVI on urban vitality in the city center are negative on weekdays but become positive on weekends. The influences of the distance to the metro station are more homogeneously distributed on weekends than on weekdays. Finally, this study calls for temporally and spatially varying policies for urban vitality enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on urban planner Dave Godschalk with interchange between planners and citizens from all walks of life throughout the course of the process. It mentions objective of citizen participation as citizen power and perspectives of citizen influence and of social control and developed his own theory of citizen–government exchange. It also mentions involvement of community-based organizations in national urban policy.

Since 2008, cities in the Western world have been under stress due to pressures that have been labelled as the 'crisis' and its 'consequences'. Despite the fact that several years have passed, international planning debates have not fully highlighted what we have learned from this challenging phase. How and to what extent have these stresses and changes affected planning activities and knowledge? How are current reforms of national and local planning systems influenced by the crisis beyond its discursive appearance? How can we cultivate critical approaches and how can we pragmatically translate critical knowledge into practice during and after a time of crisis? This article outlines the broad questions that were addressed, under different perspectives, by the authors in the theme issue. The article serves as an introduction by, first, briefly reviewing relevant positions in the planning and urban studies debates and explaining the relationships between urban planning and the crisis; second, by presenting the papers in the issue and highlighting planners' roles, responsibilities and relevance in the crisis and in subsequent phases; and third, by calling for closer attention to the current signals of crisis in planning theory and practice, as well as by considering new responses derived from research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco-town developments have been the testing grounds to improve upon the urban policies and practices in the Northern and Western European countries since the early 1990s. It has been widely discussed as to whether or how they have helped transitioning of towns and cities into more sustainable systems in the larger urban context through educational, experiential, societal diffusion and changes in governance processes. The countries in different cultural and geographical contexts with rapid urbanization rates, seek to establish similar developments with relatively less knowledge of the contextual and procedural differences in the eco-towns' processes or the reasons for their varying levels of impact. This article was prepared to summarize and systematize the insights that have been obtained from ‘eco-town’ based urban developments implemented in the Northwestern Europe with particular emphasis given into the examples from The Netherlands, Sweden and Germany. The review of the relevant literature was conducted with the focus on: a. the context in which the demonstration eco-towns were developed since the emergence of planned communities in the early 20th century, b. the typologies, processes and frameworks through which the eco-towns were initiated, built, governed and evolved. The authors analyzed the wide diversity of frameworks and processes that have played roles in the relative successes and/or failures. The review provided insights into their procedures and the aspects associated with the diffusion of the lessons into the broader urban planning and development methods. The findings suggested that the political commitment, timing, financial aspects, physical qualities, stakeholder involvement and environmental planning were key elements in achieving the eco-towns' goals. Future research is recommended to critically analyze the impacts of these historically new urban development models and frameworks in order to create more effective approaches for achieving positive outcomes for all societies within ecological boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing polarity in perspective of the proliferation of home-based enterprises (HBEs) in both developed and developing societies. In the developing societies, for example, Nigeria, apparently because of shrinking formal sector due largely to economic recession, HBEs are becoming the mainstay and economic support mechanisms for households and communities disadvantaged by limitations in the formal sector. Responses by researchers, urban planners, and development experts to the global trend of HBEs have been mixed, analogous, and ongoing. This study investigates these debates with evidence from Ikot Ekpene Metropolis in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. Our aim is to examine the lifeline benefits and environmental issues of HBEs, deterioration and environmental distortion on the general scenery of cities. The study reviewed existing knowledge and understanding of the HBEs and made use of quantitative survey research design. We collected our data using mainly the administration of a set of questionnaires to HBEs operators and the residents using a systematic random sampling technique. Results show that, albeit respondents acknowledge HBEs have environmental downsides with an average high impact of 43%, they however, believe that the economic benefits are much more pronounced and dominant with an average high impact of 77%. The study therefore concludes that HBEs are more of lifeline than they are scenic distorter. Therefore, it is crucial that urban planning policy includes the HBEs operation to maximise its full potentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World Heritage Landscapes (WHLs) are receiving increased attention from researchers, urban planners, managers, and policy makers and many heritage values and resources are becoming irreversibly lost. This phenomenon is especially prominent for WHLs located in cities, where greater development opportunities are involved. Decision making for sustainable urban landscape planning, conservation and management of WHLs often takes place from an economic perspective, especially in developing countries. This, together with the uncertain source of funding to cover WHL operating and maintenance costs, has resulted in many urban managers seeking private sector funding either in the form of visitor access fees or leasing part of the site for high-rental facilities such as five star hotels, clubs and expensive restaurants. For the former, this can result in low-income urban citizens being unable to afford the access fees and hence contradicting the principle of equal access for all; while, for the latter, the principle of open access for all is equally violated. To resolve this conflict, a game model is developed to determine how urban managers should allocate WHL spaces to maximize the combination of economic, social and ecological benefits and cultural values. A case study is provided of the Hangzhou's West Lake Scenic Area, a WHL located at the centre of Hangzhou city, in which several high-rental facilities have recently been closed down by the local authorities due to charges of elitism and misuse of public funds by government officials. The result shows that the best solution is to lease a small space with high rents and leave the remainder of the site to the public. This solution is likely to be applicable only in cities with a strong economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] There are limits to what planning can achieve through intervention in land use markets. [•] Planning is found to be most successful when it is shaping urban growth and decentralisation and working with market forces. [•] Planning policies aimed at urban containment are fundamentally trying to stem market flows and so the probability of success is limited. [•] Planners need the motivation, understanding and means to work with the market to produce desirable outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compact development is a common approach employed to achieve sustainable urban forms; however, whether compact development leads to a quality of life (QOL) improvement remains the question. Revealing this dynamic is essential in the United States, where compact development has been advocated to transform the nation's alleged unsustainable lifestyle. This paper applies cross-sectional and longitudinal regression to uncover (1) the relationship between compactness and QOL in forty-four U.S. cities, and (2) the effect of "compacting" on eight Urbanized Areas (UZAs). The finding is that the correlation between QOL and compactness is significantly positive when cities become more compact but significantly negative when they are overly compact. Furthermore, most UZAs have experienced a significant increase in QOL as they transition from sprawl to a more compact status. For cities experiencing sprawl, it is reasonable to support compact development given the objectives of increasing QOL; however, to prevent the negative impacts of "over-compactness," policies should be aimed at suitable compactness. The paper encourages city officials and planners to focus on local conditions. Professionals should reconsider how they design cities with regard to a high quality of life, rather than focusing exclusively on urban form policies. • Regression is used to study American cities' compactness and quality of life (QOL). • The correlation is positive when cities become compact, but negative as over compact. • The urban areas often increase in QOL as they transition from sprawl to more compact. • The cities experiencing sprawl should support compact development for QOL improvement. • Policy can be aimed at fitted compactness to prevent the impacts of over-compactness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The population of the United Kingdom is ageing inexorably, a trend which requires policy-makers, including spatial planners, to be creative and innovative in meeting the needs of older people. The significance of place in the lives of older people has been demonstrated by many researchers (see for example Peace et al., 2006; Gilroy, 2008) and underlines that spatial planners must be age aware. This paper uses qualitative research with planning practitioners to explore the extent of their age awareness and the means by which the opportunities and challenges of an ageing population are factored into their work. This is examined in the context of the wide-ranging multidisciplinary literature on the spatial experience of older people, and concludes that a clearer articulation of the elements of older people's relationships with place would assist planners in unpicking this complex subject and building locally appropriate age-integrated solutions for our ageing population which reach beyond predominantly physical dimensions of the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leaders in planning and public health endorsed a set of shared principles to guide systems-wide food policy change. Yet, food system considerations are relatively new to planners. There is a need to examine the current policies and practices that may be hindering supportive local planning activity. Using Waterloo Region as a case study, in-depth interviews were conducted with key stakeholders. Findings revealed gaps in regional food system planning and policy coordination, and provincial food planning legislation. Legacy, industry and governance barriers were identified as challenges. The identification of barriers to food-related planning provides important opportunities to improve food access at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A shift in governing modes is increasingly leading to new conditions for professionals. In view of such change, there is a need for deeper awareness of how hegemonic power struggles and processes of identification are deeply interconnected. In order to illustrate how such processes shape the acting space of professionals, a critical reflection on changing conditions for English local authority planning 1998–2010 is presented. The analysis focuses on deconstruction of power as ability, authority and identity. The conclusion is that if society is to reconsider the value of local authority planners having influence, then it is time to introduce a new perception of the political into planning. Such a perception hinges on increased understanding within the profession itself of how power shapes acting space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author summarizes the most important lessons he has learned in more than 40 years of studying planning from the perspectives of planning theory, planning methods, and computer applications in planning. He suggests that planner's traditional -professional roles, models, and methods often fail to adequately consider alternative futures and unnecessarily restrict meaningful public participation. He proposes that these problems can be overcome, but not easily, by adopting more community-centered -approaches of planning with the public and using simple, easy-to-use, and -understandable models and methods. The author recognizes that following his advice in practice raises many difficult questions that he cannot currently answer. Research support: None. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The urbanism of the 1920s and 1930s was marked by the debate over the avant-garde and in Spain during this time there were two points of reference: those who (based in Barcelona, with Sert at the helm) follow the directions of Le Corbusier and those who, from Madrid, opted for German architectural influences. But there was even a third option: that of Secundino Zuazo (arguably Madrid's principal architect before 1936) who in 1926 – backed by a French initiative – organized a study to define the urban problems of the principal Spanish cities, find solutions and present them to the municipal governments along with the necessary financial backing. In 1929 Zuazo obtained – together with Herman Jansen of Berlin – first place in the Competition held for the extension of Madrid, supporting the Project at the same time with its own financing. From that experience, during the Spanish Civil War Zuazo was invited by the Venezuelan government to go to Caracas to put together a study of that city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]