Journal of Urban Planning and Development

As the basic unit of residents' living conditions, the programs and research into public facilities around a community are conducive to people's livelihood and social harmony. In this paper, Dalian, one of the livable cities in China, is selected for this research: (1) due to its unique geographical location and topographic features, the spatial distribution of the quality of living for residents in the main urban area is uneven, communities with residents with a high quality of life in Dalian are distributed in flat and developed areas around the major transportation routes, (2) the urban population of Dalian is increasing every year and community construction remains around the high-quality community that is near the traffic trunk line. Meanwhile, the proportion of the number of high-quality communities is: Xigang>Shahekou>Zhongshan>Ganjingzi; (3) the historical development of coastal cities affects the spatial layout of traffic, functional areas, and population in the region, as well as future planning and development. The types of public facilities in the traditional residential areas are complete and serve the residents. The spatial distribution of residents with a high quality of life is centered around this area, which decreases gradually outward. This paper will make a preliminary small-scale and targeted exploration of the quality of living of residents in the main urban area of Dalian and will combine the experience from the construction of public facilities for social equity in China and abroad to improve the construction of public resource materials that are needed by residents in urban areas, which will provide a foundation for research into improving the urban living quality and spatial equity.

A growing number of megacities have been experiencing changes to their landscape due to rapid urbanization trajectories and travel behavior dynamics. Therefore, it is of great significance to investigate the distribution and evolution of a city's urban functional areas over different periods of time. Although the smart card automated fare collection system is already widely used, few studies have used smart card data to infer information about changes in urban functional areas, particularly in developing countries. Thus, this research aims to delineate the dynamic changes that have occurred in urban functional areas based on passengers' travel patterns, using Beijing as a case study. We established a Bayesian framework and applied a Gaussian mixture model derived from transit smart card data in order to gain insight into passengers' travel patterns at station level and then identify the dynamic changes in their corresponding urban functional areas. Our results show that Beijing can be clustered into five different functional areas based on the analysis of corresponding transit station functions: multimodal interchange hub and leisure area; residential area; employment area; mixed but mainly residential area; and mixed residential and employment area. In addition, we found that urban functional areas have experienced slight changes between 2014 and 2017. The findings can be used to inform urban planning strategies designed to tackle urban spatial structure issues, as well as guiding future policy evaluation of urban landscape pattern use.

This study aims to explore the success in the urban design endeavors of Turkish cities throughout the years, which is mostly distinguished by a variety of city plans. The criteria for walkability will be the focal point in the exploration of urban design success levels. A hybrid [fuzzy logic + space syntax analysis + geographic information system (GIS)] method, which is not commonly used in current research, will be used as the method for this study. Five cities will be selected as samples and an expert group of 49 people formed. The analysis will be according to the determined criteria and various results were obtained. The results show that Turkish cities' success levels in walkability is very low. Therefore, these results show that Turkey should question its spatial planning decisions. The design of cities is shaped according to the needs of motor vehicles and priority for pedestrians is seldom considered. This shows that negative conditions persist in Turkish cities for urban design standards. This study could be applied to different cities with its methodology and content. Therefore, it could contribute to the improvement in the urban design level of cities and help to ensure that walkability becomes the priority in these designs.

A city is like a creature that grows through its relationship with the surrounding area, rather than growing alone. Therefore, the situation of a city cannot be assessed by a simple increase or decrease of the dichotomic urban sustainability/competitiveness/decline evaluation index that does not take into consideration the relationship with the surrounding area. This study proposes an evaluation model for urban growth stages that interprets the classical urban growth theory from a modern perspective and applies this to the Seoul Metropolitan Government area to verify the validity of the model. The model reflects the general characteristics of urban growth from the viewpoint of dynamics, and takes into account the relationship with the surrounding area, to overcome the limitations of the existing urban evaluation techniques. The main results of the study are as follows. First, the evaluation method of urban growth stage could evaluate the urban situation and the growth level, because it considered the intrinsic properties of the city. The city is similar to an organism that grows in ecological terms through connectivity with the periphery. Second, the evaluation method is based on the time series analysis from the dynamic perspective; therefore, the growth history of the city could be understood. Third, because the evaluation method is based on long-term data, it was possible to evaluate and predict areas where urban decline, urban backwardness, and urban shrinkage occurred. Fourth, the evaluation method could comprehensively evaluate the urban growth stage in terms of population, economic and industrial, and physical environment, and could classify various types according to urban growth characteristics.

New Town construction is gaining popularity in China owing to the rapid development of urbanization. However, it is a long-term and systematic project with multiple risks, plagued by shortage of funds and narrow financing channels. Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are considered an effective mode to solve the problem of insufficient government funds and experience, and are increasingly being applied to implement infrastructure projects worldwide. Although new town construction in PPPs can relieve the government's debt pressure, private sectors still lack confidence in this approach. Therefore, from the perspective of private sectors, this study identifies 23 investment risk indicators from six aspects through a comprehensive literature review, field research, and risk assessment meeting. These six investment risk aspects include policy and legal, market, financing and design, natural, construction, and standard and contract. Then, this paper uses the project grading tool to design and score problems for 23 evaluation indicators. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method is applied to determine the weight of each risk aspect. At the end, the mixed center-point triangular whitenization weight function is used to determine the investment risk evaluation grade. The results are expected to serve as a reference and provide inspiration for the private sectors of New Town construction in PPPs.

The importance of the presence of women in urban spaces, because they are half of the world's population and must enjoy full citizenship rights, is obvious; therefore, recognition and understanding of the requirements for their presence in urban space are considered to be one of the most essential principles during the planning and design of public urban spaces regardless of gender inequalities. Designing the appropriate structure for neighborhoods with a gender equality approach is a factor that affects the increased presence of women in urban spaces and neighborhoods, a generalization that could be extended to the whole city. Therefore, people's presence in neighborhoods will be investigated in this study with respect to the functional components that influence gender equality from women's perspectives. The objective of this study is to assess the most preferable functional components in urban neighborhoods that increase the presence of women. In addition, to prevent the creation of single-gender spaces, the objectives are to identify effective criteria regarding the presence of women in neighborhoods and ranking neighborhoods in terms of the importance of gender. This study will be carried out based on a descriptive analytical method and the required data will be collected using a Likert scale in the form of questionnaire items for two neighborhoods, which include Sarshur, Mashhad, Iran (old fabric), Isargaran, and Hejab, Mashhad, Iran (new fabric). The results of this study indicate that the Isargaran-Hejab neighborhood is in a better situation than the Sarshur neighborhood. Between the functional components, the relationship between land use and urban form had the highest impact with an average score of 6.40 on the presence of women and the quality of behavior (activity compatibility, time, and space) with a mean of 2.13 had the least impact on it. In addition, based on Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, with a value of 0.473, the presence of women has a significant relationship with gender justice, which increased with the increase in gender justice in the neighborhood.

Bicycle mobility as a sustainable form of transportation has been increasing, particularly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, evaluating bicycle friendly areas, including communities and universities, across the United States is valuable. The League of American Bicyclists organization has a certification for bicycle-friendly universities (BFUs) and bicycle-friendly communities (BFCs). This research investigates existing BFUs and BFCs based on a spatial and frequency analysis of factors to understand trends in bike-friendly certification across the country. The results show that the majority of BFCs and BFUs fall within a megaregion boundary with the highest density in the Great Lakes and the Northeast. In addition, the majority of BFUs are located within BFCs. Using a Geographic Information System, the BFUs and BFCs are mapped and compared based on density, proximity, as well as demographic, climate, multimodal systems, university-specific, health, and land use factors, in order to determine commonalities in existing bike-friendly areas.

Approaching nature is one of the common demands from citizens. City parks are the most available urban green space (UGS) that provide spaces for people to enjoy nature, which increases their degree of health and releases mental stress. This study will concentrate on the question of what features of UGSs influence the final overall health and well-being of the respondents. This study will use social investigation and statistical analysis. The results show that the majority of green space users are middle income and well-educated. The key features of the green spaces that influenced the overall health and well-being of the respondents was the accessibility to lawns or water bodies. In addition, fitness facilities could increase the overall effect, but this effect was not as strong as the accessibility to lawns and water bodies. Greenways and walkways provide isolated special spaces that increase calm, relaxation, vigor, fitness, and proactivity. Low levels of noise indicate a quiet environment, which increased the mental well-being of visitors. In addition, vegetation diversity has positive benefits on the mental well-being of visitors. For the use of UGS, the distance between the park and the city center is the most decisive factor on the visit frequency and the length of each visit. Long distances result in low visit frequencies and each visit lasts a longer time. This research is valuable and could guide the future design and planning of UGS.

Transportation interventions influence land use patterns of the city and transport activities of the people. For example, construction and improvement of transportation infrastructure (e.g., road, rail, road widening) improve the accessibility for the people to transportation facilities and thereby influence surrounding residential property values. Many studies have investigated the impacts of transportation infrastructure on property values using a hedonic price model (HPM). However, there is inadequate evidence of the relationship between transport infrastructure and property values in the developing context, such as in Khulna Metropolitan City, Bangladesh. Thus, this study has empirically investigated the impact of accessibility to transport infrastructure on residential housing rent using the HPM approach. For performing the analysis, data (e.g., property value, structural attributes, locational attributes, transportation, land use characteristics) were collected from a household-based questionnaire survey by Khulna Development Authority (KDA), Khulna City Corporation (KCC), and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). A linear regression model (LRM), semilog regression model (SLR), and stepwise regression model were used to determine the factors that affect housing rent. The results indicate that structural attributes (e.g., floor space, rooms) are the prime factors that influence monthly housing rent. One unit increase in floor space, drawing rooms, and bathrooms are associated with a 32.4%, 15.8%, and 11.4% increase in housing rent, respectively. Similarly, distance to the central business district (CBD) and major roads significantly affect housing rent. A one-unit increase in the distance to CBD and major roads is associated with a 17.3% and 13.7% reduction in housing rent. This study described that the exclusion of transportation attributes reduces model performance by 3.1%. Thus, transportation attributes have a significant influence on property value.

The development paths of smart cities are highly dependent on urban-specific contextual conditions. To be successful in managing smart city projects, it is important to understand the dynamics of urban development, which involve both controllable enablers (e.g., digital, physical, and human infrastructure) and immutable urban contexts (e.g., geographic, demographic, and structural variables) at the municipal level. Although many studies investigated the management-related dynamics intrinsically associated with the development of smart cities, they less considered the influence of urban contextual elements. Thus, it is still challenging to understand how contextual factors specifically affect the dynamics of smart city developments. To address this issue, the authors build upon structural equation modeling (SEM) to quantify the manageable dynamics of smart cities and to assess the maturity level of enablers and the degree of achievement of performance objectives in 50 smart cities. Then, the research analyzed the evolution trends of these evaluation scores under the influences of urban contextual variables. The results demonstrated the particular effects of economic development, geographical region, density, and size of smart cities on their maturation. This paper presents data-driven specifications that formulate the most favorable smart city developmental conditions to help practitioners to improve the planning of future smart city projects.

The Complete Streets movement has been steadily gaining attention in the United States over the last 16 years. Adoption of policies that encourage street designers to consider the needs of all users—and not only automobile users—have become more widespread, with over 1,400 US jurisdictions formally embracing Complete Streets policies. The promised benefits of Complete Streets policies are far reaching, but rigorous studies proving these benefits are rare. This paper reviews the state of the practice of Complete Streets and some attempts to catalogue the outputs and outcomes of Complete Streets projects, and analyzes case studies to determine best practices.

All over the world, governments, policy makers, and practitioners are searching for proper routes and corridors to invest transportation infrastructures such as new railways, highways, and multimodal ways. Although it is one of the important steps of development, finding a suitable route for new transport infrastructure is a complicated and conflicting task for of various reasons. Possible social and environmental impacts on society and increasing cost and technical pressures on decision makers are some of these reasons. Taking into consideration aspects of different evaluation criteria, a geographic information system (GIS)-based multicriteria solution approach is proposed in this study. Potential high-speed rail (HSR) routes in Turkey are considered as a case study. After gathering and processing the related GIS data, weights are assigned to each criterion by using the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process in order to indicate their relative importance. Then, the additive ratio assessment method is applied to carry out the multicriteria (13 technical, social, and demographic criteria) evaluation and selection of the suitable alternatives (among 20 HSR routes) under given circumstances. It was found that the corridor from the west part of Turkey (from İzmir and Manisa) to the Marmara region (Kocaeli and İstanbul) had the highest priority, followed by the corridor from Ankara to Kayseri. HSR trains could potentially reduce the journey times to Kocaeli and İstanbul from İzmir and Manisa, as compared with driving, by 46% and 45%, respectively. The results of this study can be used to evaluate potential HSR corridors/routes or similar transport infrastructures in other countries.

With the acceleration of urbanization and the development of urban rail transit (URT) in China, an increasing number of metropolises have begun to apply transit-oriented development (TOD) theory in URT planning. However, spatial mismatches between residences and jobs, unbalanced traffic infrastructure utilization, and environmental pollution persist. Moreover, studies of regional-scale TOD theory are lacking in China. In this paper, an integrated model based on TOD theory is presented that optimizes land use and transportation simultaneously for a region covered by URT in China under New-type urbanization, aiming to achieve sustainable development. A max–min ant system (MMAS) algorithm integrated with the Frank–Wolfe and Dial algorithms is proposed. Jianzhou New Town is taken as a case study to validate the effectiveness of the model and algorithm. The superiority of the scheme of this integrated model is shown through comparative analysis. This research provides a new concept for governments and planners about the integrated planning of urbanization and transportation. In addition, this research extends TOD theory to employ an improved multi-objective planning model.

Pedestrian crosswalks are not always placed at optimal locations, and some crosswalks cause walkers to detour from their shortest routes. Some walkers run the risk of jaywalking to avoid detours, and it becomes the cause of fatalities and serious injuries. However, it is not easy to find systematic procedures to identify preferred locations of pedestrian crossings at the network level from the pedestrian viewpoint. This study proposes a method for identifying high priority crosswalk locations in urban road networks by assessing measures such as total travel costs and network connectivity. The total travel costs were calculated using conventional shortest path algorithms and network connectivity was measured by employing a modified Dial's algorithm (1971). Application of the proposed method to a test network showed that total travel cost was a suitable metric to identify appropriate crosswalk locations and connectivity clarified priority among candidate crosswalks. The proposed method is useful to help plan better pedestrian environments in urban road networks by providing crossing locations in the viewpoint of pedestrians.

Limited freight loading space provision in city centers increases illegal loading behaviors such as double parking or parking in bicycle lanes or sidewalks. Such traffic violations have caused concerns among urban planners, engineers, and the public about localized congestion and safety impacts on delivery workers and other road users. Despite the importance of these issues, research on the planning processes that determine freight loading provision is very limited. Our study addresses this gap by reviewing the zoning code requirements for loading zones in the 20 largest US and the four largest North Carolina cities and interviewing professionals about loading zone policies and practices. We discovered significant variations in offstreet loading requirements across large cities; in some of them, such as Los Angeles and Houston, the requirements are so low that most small buildings in city centers are exempt from any required loading space provision. While onstreet loading spaces are currently an important supplement to offstreet ones, interviews with transport planners revealed that the provision of onstreet loading spaces is often ad hoc and based on requests by local businesses. The findings can help transportation planners and engineers better understand how the accommodation of urban freight delivery demand links to urban planning zoning requirements for offstreet loading zones and practices around onstreet loading space provision. The empirical results suggest a localized spatial mismatch between freight loading demand and overall loading supply given the current zoning systems. Such mismatch, which contributes to congestion delays for freight and people as well as road safety impacts, calls for special attention from policymakers by revising offstreet loading requirements in zoning codes and considering proactive processes to ensure adequate onstreet loading zones in high-demand areas.

In the Asian region, the financial burden for the development of transportation infrastructure is always a huge challenge for the government. Therefore, private investment was encouraged to attend the public-private partnership form. This study aims to evaluate the impact level of key barriers to Public-Private Partnership (PPP) transportation projects based on the perceptions of respondents in Vietnam. Twenty-nine key barriers were selected and classified into six barrier groups, namely social and political barrier (b1), legal barrier (b2), financial market (b3), procurement process (b4), implementation risk (b5), and management (b6). The fuzzy synthetic evaluation model was then used to assess the impact of key barriers on the success of PPP transportation projects. The result showed that project management and social and political barriers are the two most important barrier groups influencing PPP projects. Along with this, the overall index is between medium and high with a value of 3.51. Notwithstanding, investment in PPP transportation projects in Vietnam still contains risk. A comparison between Vietnam and selected Asian countries was conducted to provide a better understanding of obstacles to PPP projects in the Asia area. It helps investors make good decisions to avoid risky projects and prompts governments to reduce constraints in PPP projects in order to attract private investment.

An improved real option pricing model that incorporates the depreciation effect for two-stage redevelopment projects will be demonstrated to estimate the redevelopment project values in a wide range of scenarios. Based on a stochastic differential equation, numerical analyses will focus on new factors that influence the expected exercise time, that is, depreciation rate, the annual increase in average building age, building age of the targeted property, and the average building ages in the same region. The depreciation rate is the most influential factor in this model. More importantly, this study will summarize three exercise strategies that cover all combination of the parameters. In some cases, with a low capital return rate, or high depreciation rate, or both, the traditional simultaneous exercise strategy based on the optimal demolition price-to-cost ratio is not feasible. Instead, either a sequential exercise or simultaneous exercise that is based on the optimal rebuilding price-to-cost ratio is the best choice. Detailed procedures on how to adopt the best strategy will be demonstrated. The acquisition price of the old property proved to be sensitive to the depreciation rate and the capital return rate within a certain range. To apply this model properly, the feasible time interval for the traditional simultaneous exercise strategy and the depreciation rate should be estimated accurately.

The high rate of population growth in the 21st century is causing mass migration from rural to urban settlements. Rapid urbanization in developing countries generally follows unregulated growths, urban sprawls, and inefficiencies in city planning. With the trend of rapid growth in developing countries, it has been very difficult to maintain an environmentally sustainable and socially resilient policy framework. This study proposes an urban development policy framework for sustainable planning in developing cities by coupling geographic information system (GIS) geospatial zonal analysis with strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) model. The hybridized approach incorporates critical issues such as disaster impact, slum settlements, infrastructure deficit, and noise pollution in urban planning. A case study of the city of Delhi was taken to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed framework in developing cities. The novelty of the study is that it proposes a highly flexible urban development plan based on the integrated GIS and SWOT-AHP methodology that is specific to the needs of developing economies and developing cities. The methodology also puts a strong emphasis on disaster prevention and response in the urban development plan. Results from the GIS–SWOT-AHP model can be used for region-based urban planning that prioritizes regions needing critical attention and directs the development of the city toward a sustainable future.

Bicycling for transportation improves health, reduces pollution and congestion, and produces economic rewards for communities. This paper presents a targeted update and appraisal of the current literature on the factors that influence bicycling for transportation. This is a systematic literature review. Inclusion criteria included peer-reviewed research published in English that reported on qualitative or quantitative findings. Studies were included if they reported on: (1) adults, (2) presented findings that were specific to bicycling for transportation (separate from walking, or overall active transport, or commuting), (3) were cross-sectional or observational (not experimental), and (4) examined the influences on bicycling behavior. Following a final manual review by the authors, 102 (out of an original 773) studies met the search criteria. The findings are organized using the ecological model as a framework. At the individual level, the research identified demographic characteristics, health and physical activity, and psychological factors as significant influences on transportation bicycling, but these factors might be closely related to the context. At the social and cultural level, limited available studies found that community norms and social support were significant, although these constructs lacked consistent definitions. At the environmental level, numerous aspects of the built and natural environment (in a range of scales) were identified as significant, but raised questions of scale and potential interactions with other levels of the ecological model. There is extensive literature on factors that influence transportation bicycling; however, future research is required that simultaneously considers multiple influences at multiple levels, via multiple potential pathways. For communities that want to increase transportation bicycling with specific interventions, maximizing their impact will depend on understanding the individual, social, and physical contexts to determine the most appropriate approach.

Large-scale artificial forests have replaced original land cover types such as arable land, garden land, evergreen broad-leaved forest, and Pinus khasya forest. In particular, the widespread introduction of Eucalyptus has caused great changes in land-use patterns and affected ecosystem service functions. How to rationally allocate land, improve the land utilization rate, and ecosystem service functions in a limited land area have become research hotspots. This paper mainly studies the land-use optimization in Lancang County, a large-scale eucalyptus-introduced region, by using the gray multiobjective dynamic programming (GMDP) model and the ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm. The maximization of social, economic, and ecological benefits is used as the quantitative structure optimization objective in this model, while land-use suitability and spatial compactness are used as the spatial optimization rules. The results show the following: (1) The economic and ecological benefits are significantly improved after optimization compared with those of the current situation and the integrated land-use planning in Lancang County (i.e., the overall plan hereafter or the overall planning of land use by government departments). The social benefits are lower than those in the current situation and overall plan. (2) The suitability of the land-use spatial structure after optimization is improved to some extent compared with the land-use structures of the current situation and overall plan. In particular, the suitability of urban construction land is significantly improved after optimization. (3) The patch density (PD) index of each land-use type is significantly reduced after optimization. The fractal dimension (FRAC) indexes of urban construction land and natural reserves are increased compared with those in the current situation and in the overall plan. The compactness index (CI) of land use increases after optimization, and the degree of land-use fragmentation is improved significantly. (4) Land transfer is greater for arable land, garden land, forests, and natural reserves after optimization. Compared with the overall plan, more high-quality arable land and forest resources may be protected. In conclusion, optimized land use is conducive to promoting the rational use of land resources, socioeconomic development, and environmental protection in eucalyptus-introduced regions.

The refuge function of urban parks is regarded as a place of refuge for urban residents after natural or man-made disasters and refers to survival justice. Limited research has given an account of the definition and measurement of the refuge function of urban parks. This study will propose a novel evaluation framework that will comprehensively measure the potential and invisible inequality through the access to parks for residents' refuge and will make a comparative analysis in multiscenarios, respectively from the wall effects, multiscales, different traffic modes, and supply and demand aspects. The results provide several insights that might be of great significance to the adequacy and spatial equality evaluation of urban parks for refuges in cities. The least-cost distance (LCD) model was employed to measure the minimum time cost (MTC) as accessibility for potential and invisible equality analysis. The spatial and statistics comparative analysis in multiscales suggested a considerable inequality in accessibility by different traffic modes to parks for refuging in Wuhan urban center area, China. By assessing whether the MTC for residents that reached the nearest park increased, the results confirmed that wall effect increased the invisible inequality. In particular, the invisible equality caused by wall effect of refuging was relatively greater at a finer scale and more apparent by walking. In addition, the wall effect was related to the socioeconomics of the MTC for residents that reached the nearest refuge park, which was relatively short in medium economic level areas. The findings might remind urban planners to plan and construct urban parks that consider refuge capacity and contribute to reducing the vulnerability of cities, and then help urban residents deal with natural or man-made disasters in future.

Historic conservation is closely connected with the phenomenon of partial shrinkage in the rapidly developing megacity of Guangzhou. Nine jiedao (subdistricts) including 14 historic conservation areas in old Liwan were selected to observe the shrinkage phenomenon from four aspects, namely, the population growth rate, population aging, economic growth, and vitality of public life. The relationships between old Liwan and changes in the city's development strategy and between conservation policies and urban renewal operations were explored by tracking three stages of shrinkage. Findings show that shrinkage in jiedao with HCAs in growing megacities was not caused by historic conservation but one of the results of complicated relationship. This study played a vital role in clarifying the partial shrinkage in the historic conservation areas in developing Asian megacities at the microscale while providing a reference for urban planning and policy making.

The greatest challenge that the human society is facing in the 21st century is climate change. Climate change debates advocate that although urban areas largely contribute to climate change they also play an important role in addressing it. This research puts forth an effort to identify whether statistically significant relationships exist between carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and urban planning policies, as well as between CO₂ emissions and gender. In this regard, this research investigates whether urban planning policies in master plans have an impact on local CO₂ emission levels. As a first step, a qualitative content analysis of the policy framework of sampled master plans that were involved in the sample was undertaken and climate change mitigation indexes were developed by assessing the sampled master plan’s urban policies against climate change mitigation evaluation protocols. Later, using climate change mitigation, the impact of urban planning policies on local CO₂ emissions, while controlling for socioeconomic characteristics, was examined by undertaking regression analysis. This research develops empirical evidences that analyze the impact of urban planning policies on CO₂ emission levels, thereby contributing significantly to the urban planning and public policy field. This research highlights that master plans are effective tools in promoting low-carbon regions through urban planning thereby mitigating climate change. This research emphasizes urban planning as a policy tool for mitigating climate change and has an implication for mainstreaming climate change mitigation in local urban planning.

The transport system in the traditional integrated planning theory focuses on road transport, takes vehicle travelers as the main service object, and lacks the research on the integrated planning of public transport system and land use system. Evaluating the joint development effect of P&R (Park and Ride) and TOD (Transit-Oriented Development) is one of the bases of integrated planning of transport system and land use system near metro stations; however, it remains difficult to come up with an evaluation indicator system and calculating methods reflecting the characteristics of transport systems and land use systems. Aiming at the joint development issue of P&R and TOD near metro stations in the urban planning field, 24 indicators are selected and three comprehensive evaluation methods are proposed to judge the joint development level of metro stations from two dimensions: P&R characteristics and TOD characteristics, followed by entropy wright method and expert scoring method being combined to obtain the comprehensive weight values, P&R characteristics being subdivided into P&R facility service level, and metro service level. TOD characteristics consisting of density level, diversity level, and refinement level. Through field investigation, API interface, and APP data acquisition, the characteristic datasets of P&R and TOD near metro stations are obtained in one megacity (Chengdu, China), and then three combined models are tested. Furthermore, four category results of joint development are analyzed and sorted: A-class, B-class, C-class, and D-class near metro stations. Development characteristic and environment features of each category stations are summarized to provide theoretical and practical guidance for the joint development of P&R and TOD near metro stations in other similar megacities.

Based on the district-level data for Shanghai, China, from 2004 to 2015, the factors that influence residential land leasing by the district government and residential land leasing price under public land ownership will be studied. Officials from the Departments of Planning and Land Authority in Shanghai, China, will be interviewed to obtain reasonable influencing factors, which will be used as the variables in the mathematical models. Then, a hedonic model will be used to discuss the relationship between residential land leasing price and the influencing factors, and the mathematical model for total residential land leasing area will be presented based on the ordinary least square (OLS) method. Whether the price and total area of residential land are correlated with land characteristics, district-level economic development, political tenure, city and district centers, public schools, and local public goods, will be analyzed. The regression results show some factors that the government concerns about when leasing residential land under public land ownership, and how residential land leasing prices are influenced by these factors. The policy implications for the government and people for residential land leasing are presented, and these could be applied to other large cities in developing countries.

Local governments and scholars in China have recently proposed and developed community-based comprehensive service facilities for older adults in response to population aging and greater service needs of older adults in urban areas. This study proposes a method to identify the ideal distribution of such facilities by combining the nested ecological model of aging in place as the theoretical foundation with a geographic information system as the methodological tool. The findings indicate that many essential services, particularly health care and places for socialization, are lacking in urban areas when walkability and accessibility to public services are considered. The findings also indicate that the downtown and main factory areas with higher population density have a higher need for developing community-based comprehensive services facilities for older adults. The proposed method shows strong potential for locating service networks and provides useful information for policy development, urban planning, and architectural programming.

Although nonmotorized transport (NMT) offers economic, environmental, and health benefits to individuals and communities, understanding nonmotorized travel behavior is a challenging task due to complex interactions of a wide range of factors. While behavioral models offer a conceptual framework to understand human behavior, their use in the study of travel behavior in developing countries is still in its infancy. This study uses three behavioral models—the theory of planned behavior, the theory of triadic influence, and the ecological model of health behavior—to identify potential factors influencing intentions and behavior toward the use of NMT by middle-income working adults, inhabiting the Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) area of Bangladesh. A total of 720 middle-income working adults (aged between 18 and 65 years) were randomly selected and interviewed at major commercial and retail business areas of the CCC. Multiple linear and binary logistic models were developed to quantify the extent of the influence of different factors on nonmotorized mode choice behavior. Results indicated that personal factors (proximal) such as attitude, subjective norm, and behavioral control influence respondents’ intentions and motivation in choosing NMT. However, the current use of NMT was less controlled by intention, while factors associated with the social, cultural, and built environment had (distal) significant influence. The findings of this study could assist urban planners in adopting structural and nonstructural measures to promote NMT use.

From the perspective of city dynamics, the spatial matching relationships between urban green space (UGS) and population are of great significance to the construction of an eco-livable city. In this study, Xi’an was taken as an example based on the big data of Google images and a Baidu heat map. The spatial matching relationships between UGS and the population were explored by using the coupled coordination model through the service capability index and population density index. The results show that there is a higher coupling degree, a lower coordination degree, and a larger spatiotemporal heterogeneity in coordination type between UGS and population in Xi’an. The reason for this is that many factors including urban spatial structure, expansion mode, functional differentiation, distribution pattern of large-scale ruins and relic sites, and urban planning management and control each have significant impacts on the spatial matching between UGS and population. Therefore, for the dense urban habitat, it is necessary not only to consider the spatial differences of job-housing and urban location conditions but also to actively protect the existing UGS, improve its accessibility, and enhance its quality. The dynamic evaluation of spatial matching between UGS and population is based on big data, which can maximize the utility of UGS resources in the dense urban habitat and provide theoretical guidance for spatial optimization, planning, and design.

This study explores how strategic planning may help avoid unnecessary increases in the transportation impacts of growing urban delivery services. Restaurant meal delivery (RMD) is studied as an example to demonstrate how the preferred method and local impacts of delivery vehicle trips may vary by neighborhood characteristics (e.g., restaurant density and service areas, customer demand, and delivery driver availability). Instead of seeking route optimization solutions, this study developed a generic model to estimate the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per meal order for three generalized types of neighborhoods and six delivery scenarios that involve one or more strategies: (1) chaining customers; (2) chaining restaurants; (3) customers picking up orders at a designated location (instead of door-to-door services); and (4) crowdsourcing drivers. The results from the model implementation in Chicago showed that alternative delivery strategies can reduce the VMT per order from one-to-one RMD by 16.1% to 61.1%, and the reduction effects of these strategies are varied by neighborhood. Great reductions in VMT per order could be achieved when the delivery time was extended (e.g., from 45 to up to 90 min). Accordingly, this study recommended neighborhood-specific policies for delivery services (e.g., chaining orders in areas with clustered restaurants offering small service zones and crowdsourcing drivers in areas with clustered restaurants offering large service zones), incentivizing socially preferable strategies (e.g., subsidizing customers willing to accommodate longer delivery time), and the public sector’s role in coordinating among service providers for neighborhood-conscious services.

Geology forms the basis for underground space development. In mountainous plateau areas, developing underground spaces requires detailed analyses and appraisal. This study used the index scale analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to analyze the geological conditions and to propose an evaluation system suitable for Kunming, China. An evaluation model was established using mathematical principles, and a geological suitability evaluation of Kunming was conducted using GIS. According to the evaluation, underground space in Kunming considered suitable, medium suitable, unsuitable, and forbidden for development accounts for 37.81%, 20.38%, 17.61%, and 24.2% of its total area, respectively. Soft soil and karst topographies are the primary disqualifying factors, followed by groundwater and geological fault zones. Our results reveal that most of the underground spaces in the plateau area are suitable for development. However, there are areas where construction should be strictly regulated, such as those adjacent to geological fault zones. With this study, the superiority of the index scale method was demonstrated, and the consideration criteria of the evaluation system and indexes in plateau cities were proposed.

Over the last few decades, cities have been committed to building efficient, coordinated, and energy-saving transportation modes. As the most flexible and green travel mode, walking provides effective connections for various modes of transportation; therefore, it has received extensive attention from planners. A pedestrian network is a basic guarantee of walking, and its construction method has become a focus of many walking studies. However, due to the characteristics of flexibility and wide coverage, a pedestrian network often cannot be completely constructed, which causes problems with missing data in planning and research. This imperfect data has caused pedestrian network problems not to be effectively solved during the process of urban transformation. Taking Jinan's old city, Jinan, Shandong Province, China as an example, this study will use a variety of data to construct the real walking network (RWN) of Jinan's old city, which combines all the available roads in parks, squares, and residential quarters into the street network (SN). Compared with the SN, the RWN better reflects the real travel conditions of pedestrians. This study compares the common walking indicators of the SN and the RWN, which includes network connectivity and the service level of bus stops. The results show that there are significant differences between the RWN and the SN. The RWN that has more complete data is not significantly better than the SN, but the differences between the two will have an impact on the results of walking research. Therefore, RWN should be used in walking research. In addition, based on the comparison of the results, this study makes reasonable suggestions to improve the pedestrian system in Jinan's old city.

The urban green space ratio (GSR) is the ratio of the urban greening land area to the built-up area and is an indicator for controlling land use for greening in urban development in China. However, the statistical process for the urban GSR by field manual survey or remote sensing imagery visual interpretation is a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. While estimating the urban green canopy ratio (GCR) by spatial information technology has been wildly accepted in the industry. This research investigates the influencing factors between the urban greening land area and the urban green canopy area for exploring the quantitative relationship between GSR and GCR. The results showed that the urban street tree greenbelt is a positive correlation factor, while pavement and water bodies in an urban park are the negative correlation factors. Then, a calculation model of the urban GSR was proposed that will reduce the workload of green space statistics and achieve a high efficiency and accuracy for urban GSR surveys. This model would be applicable in the spatial mapping fields and the spatial planning fields.

Housing price is one of the most popular topics in urban studies. Among all the determinants of housing price, transportation accessibility is an essential factor that people often consider when purchasing a house. Using a semilogarithmic hedonic price model, this paper discusses the effects of structural attributes and accessibility of neighboring destinations on housing prices. The study area targets the core urban area of Dalian city, China. The data used in this study consist of sales prices of commercial apartments and houses and the geographic coordinates of corresponding residential areas. Estimation results of the hedonic price model show that structural attributes and accessibility to neighboring destinations significantly affect housing prices. The most influential factors to housing prices are the location of apartment or house, the nearby quality of higher education resources, and proximity to public transit service. These findings are significant for real estate developers, urban planners, and transportation planners to better understand the real estate market and to promote transit-oriented development.