Journal of Urban Planning and Development

The main objective of this work was to study the mobility patterns and characteristics of the city of Kuwait by implementing a detailed modulization of these patterns and characteristics. The goal of this modulization was to create a beneficial tool with which to objectively evaluate the different alternatives proposed in this research. The proposed model is an upgrade of the Third Kuwait Master Plan Review (3KMPR) metropolitan area and town center traffic models, but with updated socioeconomic variables, detailed representations of the street network in Kuwait, and new public transport proposals. It was found that there were enough socioeconomic variables on which to base the spatial correlation of the generations/attractions model. Furthermore, corridor accessibility assignment diagrams were created that showed the subgroup of the assigned trips that pass through a particular section. The diagrams showed that the network was balanced, with no clear focalization in the center area. Moreover, a nonrestrained assignment analysis was also conducted to identify the natural corridors used in a free-flow situation. However, the resulting assignment was similar to the calibrated network and was without any clear corridors, so it was not used as a helpful tool for the planning of the corridors. Finally, desire lines that reflect the wish of commuters to reduce their travel time when moving from the origin to the desired land-use attractions were generated.

The rapid growth of the older-adult segment of the population has a profound effect on urban development and the fulfillment of housing needs. The location of age-restricted communities that serve older adults aged 65 or older can influence accessibility to goods and services and further affect the health and quality of life of seniors. However, few quantitative indicators are available to judge whether the accessibility between these communities and neighboring facilities is appropriate. Therefore, this study presents a spatial analysis framework for age-restricted communities from a regional-local perspective. The regional analysis explores the spatial distribution of age-restricted communities, while the local analysis involves the accessibility measure of these communities to necessary neighboring facilities by type, age-friendly community identification, and a comprehensive accessibility evaluation. This framework is then applied to investigate three types of age-restricted communities in Edmonton, Canada. The results indicate that age-restricted communities are predominantly located centrally in the city, while population aging is not of a high degree in all of these neighborhoods. Some communities are regarded as friendly to older adults, but, excluding nearby bus stops and emergency medical services (EMS) stations, the options for different amenities among these communities are not diverse. The elderly in independent living communities tend to have better access to necessary neighboring facilities. The proposed methodology can be used for accessibility analysis of age-restricted communities for different stakeholders and can also lead to existing and proposed improvements to enhance age-friendliness in neighborhood design.

Higher average population density, which is a compact city ingredient, is one of the major characteristics of Indian cities. However, there will be an increase in urban built-up area in growing Indian cities, and gross densities may decline, resulting in sprawl. As an adverse impact, more land for urban use and more fuel for transport will be consumed. This study explored the possibility of handling urban densities to contain the expanding cities through compact city policies. It examined the recent changes in built-up areas and the pattern of population density in eight selected million-plus cities in India between 2000 and 2010. The spatial distribution of population within these cities was studied through density profile, density gradient, $H_{\mathrm{rel}}$, average travel distance, and dispersion index. This paper concluded that built-up area densities in a majority of the million-plus cities studied are increasing and the cities are perceived as becoming compacted. The patterns of changes in density distribution indicate that, in half the cities, the increase in density is largely in peripheral areas, and hence the cities are perceived as dispersing. The paper examined the possibility of allowing densities to increase in Indian cities.

This article focuses on the issue of a sustainable space-use in public facilities and beneficial arrangement of services. Uncorrelated facility planning and service programming as well as environmental factors cause discrepancies between space demand and space supply leading to space overuse or underuse. To enhance the functional and economic efficiency of public facilities, a conceptual framework, which is a planning and evaluation tool for decision support, is presented and discussed in examples. The framework consists of two decisive elements: space-use analysis and service compatibility analysis. The first one aims to determine the degree of space utilization in multiple public buildings while the latter reports on how services are related to each other in terms of their compatibility. The article explains these concepts in detail in examples.

We focus on the location choice behavior of new residents in the urban system using the reference-dependent theory approach. Reference-dependent theory offers an alternative analytical framework for the study of residential location choice behavior. This problem is formulated as bilevel programming in which the upper-level programming model is of household residential choice behavior with a combination of the reference-dependent theory and a discrete choice model, whereas the lower-level is a multiclass stochastic user equilibrium model. Here, the heterogeneity of households/travelers and the stochastic character of traffic networks are carefully taken into account. The multiclass stochastic user equilibrium condition is formulated into an equivalent variational inequality problem. Furthermore, an iterative algorithm combined method of successive averages has been adopted to solve this bilevel model. In numerical experiments, we illustrate the effect of different highway toll strategies and different reference points on the urban spatial structure. Finally, some interesting conclusions are obtained.

The actual contribution of neighborhood sustainability assessment (NSA) tools to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in urban precincts is still unclear. This paper discusses the limitations and potentialities in the use of an NSA tool, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND), in the context of São Paulo, a developing country’s megalopolis. It describes a multistep study that involves understanding and analyzing how the tool responds to (1) the sectors of GHG emission of a community-scale carbon footprint tool, Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC); (2) the GHG emissions of the municipality; (3) the strategies of the Municipal Climate Change Policy; and (4) the climate change related strategies of a local LEED-ND-certified precinct. Results show that although LEED-ND addresses the GPC’s main sources of GHG emissions and the strategies of São Paulo’s climate change policy, there is still a need to either improve or better integrate NSA with other tools in a systemic and contextualized approach that does not apply them in isolation.

Rural–urban fringes are places undergoing dramatic shifts in people–place relationships worldwide, but relevant studies have yet to sufficiently reveal the change mechanism. This paper aims to use sense of place (SOP) as a framework, together with both quantitative and qualitative approaches, to reveal the changing people–place relationships in the rural–urban fringes of Beijing, China, during the past 10 years. Four rural–urban villages representing different urbanization intensities were examined. The findings demonstrate that the overall SOP of local residents has grown during the period of dramatic urbanization. However, the more intensely a place is urbanized, the lower its SOP is rated. Place dependence in general is the only consistent predictor of SOP, which demonstrates the success of China’s urbanization at poverty reduction and environmental improvement. The dissolution of social bonding and the unsuccessful transition of place identity during urbanization are also revealed. This study sheds light on the varied influences of Chinese urbanization on rural–urban fringes while confirming the importance of a multidimensional understanding of SOP and the impact of perceived changes during urbanization.

The US housing price run-up and its subsequent collapse are considered by many to be central elements in causing the global financial crisis. This paper aims to estimate housing bubbles in 140 US cities by identifying the origination and termination of the bubble, during the period from 1989 to 2017. The study introduced the generalized supremum augmented Dickey-Fuller (GSADF) test, an innovative and powerful bubble detection method, to evaluate the regional US housing bubbles. Estimation results show several important findings. (1) Forty-five out of the 140 studied cities had existing housing bubbles. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale had 8 bubbles, which was the largest quantity. Nine cities had one bubble, which are Northern New Jersey–Long Island, Richmond, Honolulu, Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice, Boise City–Nampa, Pensacola–Ferry Pass–Brent, Ocala, Atlantic City, and Barnstable Town. The bubble duration of Northern New Jersey-Long was the longest, ranging from 1999 Q4 to 2007 Q4. (2) The time period of bubbles can be divided into three stages based on its beginning time and duration. There were 48 bubbles at the first stage from 1992 to 2002, 85 at the second stage from 2003 to 2008, and 12 at the third stage from 2009 to 2017. The housing bubbles were mainly concentrated in the second stage. (3) Significant regional disparity can be observed in the bubbles. The 45 cities where there were bubbles were divided into three groups according to the population. Urban population is positively correlated with the average duration of the bubble. The lessons drawn from the US contribute to an in-depth understanding of the market dynamics and evolution patterns of housing bubbles.

The neighborhood concept was first introduced in the 1920s by Clarence Perry. This paper adapts Clarence Perry’s neighborhood concept and other neighborhood planning theories. It studies the land use dynamics of Fereej Abdul Aziz, one of downtown neighborhoods in Doha. The theory is reinterpreted to study three parameters: physical, mobility, and social aspects. The main objective is to empirically investigate the dynamics of existing land uses of downtown neighborhoods. The study aims at exploring types of land activities and their existing conditions in the study area. The findings aid in making land use guidelines for the downtown neighborhoods in Doha while considering preferences of the inhabitants. The study provides useful insights and efficient planning preference for land use changes in downtown neighborhoods that occur due to the rapid urban growth not only in Doha but also in other emerging cities.

The rapid development of Chinese megacities in the last decades have been mainly characterized by top-down planning and large-scale urban development and redevelopment, as well as by using place-making as a tool for city branding. This approach has also been used in other countries and has been constantly criticized for replacing old neighborhoods. In recent years, alternative development modes and participative approaches in urban regeneration practices have emerged in cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. This paper investigates participative urban regeneration cases in Yangpu District, located in Shanghai, and the Dalang subdistrict in Shenzhen. Both case studies are located at the urban–rural interface, where past industrialization processes have resulted in complex sociospatial conditions. The primary focus was to analyze the governance aspects in the cases, such as the enabling factors that allow the participative approach to emerge in these projects and their governance model. This paper concludes on the importance of civil society organizations and the incorporation of social objectives in emerging participative regeneration practices.

The measurement of cities’ holistic performance is complex but fundamental to conclude about the economic growth of regions and countries. In addition, the results of this measurement allow classification of cities through grouping them in clusters with homogeneous characteristics. In this connection, the aim of this study is to present a taxonomy for cities in terms of homogeneity and similarity for the geographical context analysed. The transversal study carried out covered all Portuguese towns and cities ($\mathrm{N}=308$), considering a wide range of dimensions, subdimensions, indicators and variables, and followed a quantitative research method. Through exploratory factor analysis (EFA), principal components analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), the results obtained determined the grouping of towns and cities in 12 clusters, which were classified in the taxonomy defined for cities’ holistic performance—excellent, high, average, and weak, according to their position in the various rankings extracted (composite indices of holistic performance, creative performance, intelligent performance, and sustainable performance). This classification by taxonomical profile of clusters is the main contribution of the study. Finally, other implications for theory and practice are presented, and suggesting relevant lines of future research.

This study aims to develop a new option pricing model within a two-phase real option framework to adjust underestimation due to depreciation in urban redevelopment projects (approximately 70% bias in a 10-year Urban Renewal Authority standard redevelopment in Hong Kong). The model is applicable to residential buildings owned by multiple residents. This discrete-time model introduces two novel features, namely, constant depreciation rate and annual increase of average building age. Option values are sensitive to the embedded assumption of annual depreciation effect in the market price statistics for reference (market indices or average prices), which facilitates good decision making for redevelopment.

As an innovative combination of conventional fixed-route transit and demand-responsive services, flex-route transit is a promising transit option that can address the travel needs of residents in growing low-density suburban and rural areas. This paper assesses potential demand and passengers’ service design preferences prior to the deployment of a flex-route transit service in China. Using the city of Nanjing as an example, a survey was designed and implemented that involves a series of stated-preference experiments in order to (1) examine travelers’ willingness to use flex-route transit services, (2) identify the most promising users, and (3) guide the service design and policymaking before actual operation. Three discrete choice models, namely multinomial logit model, nested logit model, and panel mixed logit model, are applied to describe the mode-choice process using the data collected from the survey. An orthogonal design is used to generate the stated-choice experiments among traditional fixed-route transit, private cars, and hypothetical flex-route transit. Walking time, waiting time, in-vehicle time, and cost are selected as alternative attributes, which vary across each choice scenario. The survey results show that nearly 78% of respondents are willing to try the flex-route transit service. Women, bike-share members, and people who are disabled, retired, or need to transfer to the metro are the target groups of the flex-route transit service. The choice model results also indicate that slack time between checkpoints and vehicle delays should be kept within a reasonable range when designing and operating flex-route transit services.

This paper addresses the problem of assessing quality measures of a public transportation line, including factors such as reliability, commercial speed, and ride comfort. Many mathematical models can simulate the behavior of a transportation system. However, these models might be overly expensive and difficult to deal with. In an attempt to overcome these limitations, a generalized stochastic Petri net (GSPN) model was developed and applied to a bus rapid transit (BRT) line in Recife, Brazil. The model yielded an explanatory power greater than 95%, and the difference between data obtained from a field survey and the results generated by the simulation was statistically insignificant. Based on this, we verified that the model is a useful tool for testing potential modifications to a system by means of simulation because it allows different operational scenarios to be quickly assessed. Moreover, the GSPN model is simple and practical to modify and implement. Furthermore, the model does not require deep knowledge of mathematical theories, making it useful for specialists of different areas, such as modelers and transport authorities, to communicate and trade information.

Historical centers of small towns are a unique example of public space. They are often the most representative feature of a town, as well as a tourist attraction, but they are also residential districts. The unique character of historical downtown areas has prompted the authors to evaluate the nature of interactions between members of the local community and public spaces using the example of a residential district in the historical center of a Polish town. Attempts were made to determine whether lower levels of anonymity and stronger personal ties in smaller communities influence the residents’ attitudes toward public spaces, preferred recreational activities, and willingness to participate in local modernization projects. Data for the study were collected during personal interviews (with the use of a questionnaire) and social consultations. Before data collection, public spaces were inventoried during a local survey. The results of the survey and consultations revealed that public spaces play an important role in the life of the local community (types and frequency of recreational activities) and that local residents were eager to participate in the process of modernizing their neighborhood. The surveyed community members recognized the significance of public spaces in improving the quality of local life and in building a sense of local identity. The potential of children (art focusing on neighborhood development) for social consultations and shaping proactive attitudes among the younger generation has been recognized. The results of this study could provide valuable inputs for planning and implementing schemes aiming to revitalize public spaces. A local community’s participation in the study guarantees that the implemented solutions will accurately reflect local needs. The presented results are relevant to other researchers because they describe the process of communicating with the inhabitants of historical centers of small towns. The research has universal implications, and the described methods can be used in other towns.

Urban streets are a prominent component of building environments that enable movement and characterize neighborhoods, offering the public spaces for social participation. Considering the increasingly aging society, this research focuses on the elderly fitness-oriented urban street design. First, collector streets, local streets, and commercial streets are targeted. Second, the elderly fitness-orientation level of the streets is estimated based on a factor evaluation model. Fifteen attributes pertaining to street features were classified into three factors: safety, legibility, and comfort. The results revealed that the collector street, Minde Street, has the highest elderly fitness-orientation level, while the commercial street, Zhongshan Street, has the lowest. Third, a face-to-face survey was conducted in Nanchang, a medium-sized capital city in Jiangxi province, China. A total of 498 valid data samples were obtained, including 237 elderly people (over 64 years old). To obtain what street features facilitate elderly mobility and to what extent, a structural equation model (SEM) was constructed to capture the relationships among individual attributes, the residential environment, evaluation of the street characteristics, and travel behavior. The results showed that sidewalks, crossing facilities, and traffic signage systems of the streets affect the travel decisions of the elderly to a great extent, compared with other street characteristics. Finally, based on the three aspects of safety, legibility, and comfort, useful strategies are proposed for elderly fitness-oriented urban street design. The study further confirms that the built environment at the street scale affects the travel behavior of the elderly.

China’s rapid urbanization has exerted long-lasting effects on socioeconomic development in cities and on the living conditions of urban Chinese. However, few studies have focused on understanding the effects of urban green space on health at the community level, which is an emergent issue for urban planning and policy makers. Based on a questionnaire survey conducted in 2016, this study aimed to investigate the effect of green space and green space planning on individual health in urban built environments, in addition to the effects of demographic and socioeconomic factors. The results indicated that the distribution, accessibility, and frequency of usage of green space, as well as individual demographic and socioeconomic factors (education, income, employment, and birth situation) are strongly associated with individual obesity and other related health issues (e.g., stress and suboptimal health). The results also showed that a higher percentage of male adults suffer from obesity than female adults and that older adults have a higher tendency to be overweight than others. Making changes in the built environment can motivate people to be more active in urban green spaces and maintain a healthy status. These findings have implications for urban planning and design for building healthy communities in the context of China’s new-type urbanization and healthy China policy.

Rapid urbanization accompanied with socioeconomic transformation in China has resulted in significant changes in urban–rural construction land and human–land relationships. Understanding the spatiotemporal characteristics of urban–rural construction land transition (URCLT) and rural–urban migrants (RUMs) is significant for the coordinated development of urban and rural areas. This research analyzed the spatiotemporal characteristics of URCLT and its decoupling relationship with RUMs in a case study of Hubei Province, central China, for the period of 2009–2016. The results corroborate the following: (1) the rapid growth of urban construction land and slow growth of rural construction land have resulted in the increasing proportion of urban construction land, (2) changes in per capita construction land indicate that urban construction land use is not intensive, and the extensive use of rural construction land is serious, and (3) the decoupling type of rural construction land transition and rural out-migrants is dominated by strong decoupling, whereas that of urban construction land transition and urban in-migrants is dominated by expansive negative decoupling. The relationship between URCLT and RUMs is not coordinated in most areas of Hubei Province. Such results provide an important premise for constituting feasible policies for urban–rural construction land regulation and sustainable urbanization.