Journal of Urban Planning and Development

A compact city is a special urban form with inherent physical, social, and institutional constraints on greenery that obstruct the achievement of sustainability. In this study, Hong Kong is used as a case to assess the constraints and challenges related to urban green spaces (UGS) development in compact cities. Strategies to overcome these obstacles and improve the UGS conditions are developed. Opportunities to implement the strategies are then evaluated. Because compact cities have extremely limited space allocated for UGS on the ground level, strategies to optimize the layouts of green spaces and seek additional spaces above or below the ground level, such as vertical green surfaces or structures, green roofs, and podiums, are possible solutions. Measures to implement the strategies are summarized as (1) reorganizing the departments and offices related to UGS and clarifying their individual responsibilities to increase their efficiency; (2) encouraging citizen participation; (3) establishing proper legal basis; (4) forming a comparatively connected comprehensive green network of green sources and green sinks with ground-level green spaces, skyscraper farms, and sky gardens, all with optimal layouts; (5) maintaining and repairing UGS after construction; and (6) selecting species of plants that will thrive in specific green spaces. The compact form of Hong Kong provides many chances to implement these strategies. The study increases understanding of the critical factors behind the success or failure of UGS development in one of the most compact cities in the world and provides suggestions for strategic and policy-related measures for the provision and management of UGS in other congested areas.

As the residential building stocks in most developed cities are getting older, there is an urgent call for the management of the stocks in a more sustainable manner. Although redevelopment can completely revamp the quality of housing, this approach is far from perfect because of its negative social and environmental effects. In fact, timely maintenance can achieve sustainable housing stock management in theory. However, in a high-rise setting, a large number of homeowners are involved in the maintenance of communal building elements. Conflicts occur because of the divergent interests of different stakeholders in deciding on the way forward for a maintenance project, eventually holding the work back. Against this background, this study explores the relative importance of different criteria for decision making in the maintenance of multiowned residential buildings in Hong Kong. Through a literature review, a set of decision-making criteria were identified. The weightings of these criteria perceived by homeowners were evaluated using the nonstructural fuzzy decision support system. The results of the analysis showed that cost affordability of maintenance work and existing building conditions generally dominated the decision-making process. Practical implications for urban managers and public administrators in formulating the strategies to promote housing maintenance then follow.

Using Virginia’s statewide multimodal plan as a case study, this paper outlines an approach to evaluating policies that coordinate the transportation-related efforts of individual agencies. The approach entails identification of seven potentially promising multimodal policies, a case study quantification of impacts for two such policies, and recommended steps for implementation. The case policies evaluated were (1) using cost per kilogram of emissions eliminated to select among eight alternatives and (2) increasing density to reduce ${\mathrm{CO}}_2$ emissions. The case study demonstrates the feasibility of the outlined approach: Policy 1 increases efficacy by a factor of up to 3.7, and Policy 2 reduces annual ${\mathrm{CO}}_2$ by 1.5 million metric tons, showing that a comparison of diverse multiagency policies at a sketch planning level is productive. The paper shows that a multimodal planner’s role includes explicit identification of assumptions and quantitative methods that enable a comparison of diverse transportation investments given the typical lack of hard data early in the transportation planning process.

Network capacity is one of the most important ways to measure the transportation system’s capacity to accommodate traffic demand. This paper presents an approach to estimate the capacity of urban transportation network considering more realistic traveler route choices. Different from previous studies, this research introduces a set of determinants that may reflect realistic traveler route choices including not only travel times but also traveler preferences (e.g., road familiarity, road configuration). This study formulates the route choice model with the new set of determinants and incorporates it into the network capacity model. An improved iterative assignment approach is designed to solve the network capacity model in which unrealistic detours by travelers will be eliminated. The proposed model and algorithm are applied in a test network; numerical results have revealed that the proposed model is not only capable of realistically estimating the network capacity under various levels of service, but also identifying critical links that are neglected by traditional approaches. Research findings offer guidelines for transportation agencies in preparing better and more pertinent management strategies to accommodate various traffic demand situations.

In this case study, a methodology to determine the locations of municipal centers for eight newly established counties within the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality is presented. Both discrete and planar location models to solve this multicriteria problem is employed. A municipal center is the main facility in a county that offers residents a variety of municipal services, including issuance of licenses and permits, tax collection, and welfare services. Because many of these services require the individuals to make additional trips to other government agencies, the traffic generated between the municipal center and other government agencies should be taken into account when the municipal center is located. An approach to quantify this additional traffic and locate the center accordingly is proposed. An approach is also demonstrated by implementing it in one of the newly established counties in Istanbul, namely Ataşehir. The municipality administration has approved the methodology for determining the locations of all newly established counties and other government buildings in Istanbul.

Approximately 4% of the private buildings in Hong Kong are older than their design lives of 50 years. In addition to the engineering factor, the lack of timely maintenance and proper management has led to a serious problem of building dilapidation in the old urban areas. On account of the high-rise high-density urban setting in Hong Kong, the problem has engendered severe safety and health hazards for the local community. Although different ways of urban renewal or regeneration exist to revitalize the urban environment, it appears that redevelopment is most frequently used. However, the speed of dilapidation would probably exceed the economy’s capability of absorbing redevelopments. In addition, redevelopments have detrimental effects on the social fabric and create a large volume of demolition and construction waste that greatly surpasses the current landfill capacity in Hong Kong. A sustainable strategy for urban renewal is, therefore, urgently needed. This research aims to establish an existing profile of the building conditions in Hong Kong and evaluate the suitability of various urban renewal strategies for different buildings through the establishment of a structured building assessment scheme called the Dilapidation Index (DI). In total, 393 private residential buildings randomly selected from 4 districts in Hong Kong were assessed by using the DI. The results indicated that the assessed buildings in Sham Shui Po were more problematic than those in other districts. The results also suggested that physical conditions and management factors play nearly equal parts in differentiating the well-performing buildings from the dilapidated ones. The DI developed in this research is beneficial to different parties with an interest in the quality of the urban built environment because it can help people identify problematic buildings for further actions.

This study intends to explore people’s satisfaction with sidewalk environments and to examine its association with emotional perceptions and physical components. A perception survey was taken to evaluate the emotional perceptions of 20 sidewalk environments with 105 participants. Two perception factors were identified as harmoniousness and openness through factor analysis. Then, a path model was tested to examine the relationship among satisfaction, identified perception factors, and physical components of sidewalk environments. The path model demonstrates a good fit with the data. Furthermore, the results show that overall satisfaction is more strongly directly affected by perception factors than by physical components. The indirect effects of physical components on overall satisfaction through emotional perceptions are much more than the direct effect. This study provides a useful method to connect emotional perceptions and physical components of and overall satisfaction with the sidewalk environments simultaneously. With refinements of the perception survey, the method can be a powerful tool to inform urban planners and designers of what should be priority aspects when designing the sidewalk environment.

Urban transformation projects are discussed in terms of the level of realization of the aim targeted by the actors. Neglect of transparency in the project phases and insufficient participation of all actors give rise to problems that cause resistance of the actors, provoke social disturbances, and hinder implementation. To minimize these problems, this paper presents a method for objective evaluation of multiactor projects that encompasses questioning the achievement level of the initial project aims set by the project actors. For this process, this study used the analytic hierarchy process in two case studies, both in Istanbul, Turkey. As a result, the method and principle in this paper can provide a theoretical method to measure and supervise the multiactor project’s success in a way that more consistently realizes the transparency and accordance of the actors. To ensure a 60% achievement rate among all actors, or at least ensure a healthy settlement structure and preserve and renew the historic and cultural sites and local architecture, taking measures against natural disaster risks and improving urban living standards should be realized in these case studies.

The success of the world-renowned bus rapid transit (BRT) in Curitiba, Brazil, is based on the interdependence of public transport, road system hierarchy, and land use regulation. Notwithstanding the consolidation of this triple approach, the transport system is overcrowded, and in 2009, the city made a bid for a technical analysis of the economic feasibility and the determination of environmental effects of a subway infrastructure to be implemented along one of its mass transport corridors, the north-south one. However, a recent survey indicates that most of people using BRT do not actually live along these corridors, but primarily in the densely occupied peripheral districts of the city and the immediate neighboring areas of a much more populated metropolitan region. This paper searches to confirm a contraction between real urban performance and an ideal city proposed by its somewhat innovative and now 45-year-old plan that was elaborated according to, among other paradigms, high-density linear occupation to make public transport at the same time cheap and attractive for dwellers. This paper also intends to provoke a discussion on the paradoxical municipal managerial decision of, at the same time, enforcing a master plan establishing priorities in terms of public transport and not being able to combine the offer of its main structures for mass public transportation and the public implementation of low-income housing programs along them. Data used to explore these discussions are basically that referring to the use of this modal in the city of Curitiba and the location of municipal social housing programs between 1980 and 2010.