Journal of Urban Planning and Development

Ecosystem services (ES) and landscape architecture (LA) research have received increasing attention since the important role of landscape sustainability has been developed. Yet bibliometric and visual analyses of the scientific literature in this field are still scarce. A total of 5,689 publications related to ES and LA research were systematically analyzed and visualized, including basic characteristics, research topics, hot spots, and frontiers, using CiteSpace in the Web of Science core database from 2000 to 2020. Literature cocitation analysis finds 15 cocitation clusters that reflect the research intellectual base. Keyword cooccurrence analysis reveals the top five high-frequency keywords. Analysis of burst detection reveals the research frontiers: integration studies of ES and biodiversity, the application of ES methods in agricultural studies, new technologies and tools that are constantly applied, and the implication for landscape management and decision-making progress. This paper aims to provide a reference for the integration of ES and LA research.

Metros constitute an important form of public transport in large cities throughout the world. Because metro transport encompasses long distances and large areas, many metro passengers must transfer to other transport modes to complete their journeys. This paper will review the recent literature on metro-related transfers and will summarize and discuss the key findings and issues regarding transfers between metros and other transport modes. A considerable number of studies in different countries have explored transfer behavior, the influencing factors that are related to metro-related transfers, and travelers’ perceptions of and satisfaction with these transfers. The paper will discuss the characteristics of travel behavior that is associated with metro-related transfers and could provide important implications to improve travelers’ perceptions of and satisfaction with these transfers. In addition, it will offer recommendations on aspects of the built environment that could facilitate transfers between metros and other travel modes. The paper could provide policy guidance for the integration of public transit and active and private transport and could be valuable in directing future research in this field.

In the field of modern urban logistics, the development of door-to-door freight transport through rail–road combined transportation is a necessary approach to achieve modernization and smartness of railroad freight transportation. As the last step of door-to-door rail–road joint transportation, station-to-door transportation determines the quality and efficiency of services. Meanwhile, the operation time of goods assembly is uncertain in the freight center station, freight handling station, and in transit, which largely limits the efficiency of rail–road combined transportation delivery at the stage of station-to-door. To address the aforementioned problems, we proposed a forward-looking matching strategy (FL) that jointly considers the set of goods orders that can be fulfilled in the current decision stage and the set of goods orders that can only be fulfilled in the future stage to improve the matching effect. Then, we built a two-stage stochastic dynamic programming model that jointly considers matching between goods orders and distribution path optimization. At the same time, we simplified the complex model by using a Bayesian approach to update the goods’ operation time in real time. Finally, we designed an improved differential evolution algorithm based on order similarity and distribution for solving the optimization. The algorithm we designed reduces 34.69% in transportation cost and 31.37% in waiting time cost compared with the actual delivery plan implemented.

As urbanization has matured in many areas, interest in qualitative values such as residents' residential satisfaction, social capital, and subjective well-being (SWB) has increased. However, few studies have investigated the influence of different urban environments, including housing types, on residential satisfaction, social capital, and SWB. The present study compares residential satisfaction, social capital, and SWB levels of two different housing types: high-rise apartments and low-rise dwellings. To this end, the authors analyze the large-scale survey data collected from 20,000 residents in Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea, using structural equation modeling. The analysis found that the satisfaction level of apartment residents tends to be higher, but their social capital level tends to be lower than their counterparts in low-rise dwellings. Because residential satisfaction and social capital dimensions are positively associated with the dimensions of SWB, the model identified apartments' positive indirect effects via residential satisfaction and negative indirect effects via social capital on subjective well-being. The results imply countervailing effects of apartment developments on residents' SWB: although offering more satisfactory residential environments, high-rise apartments may discourage social capital formation. These results call for urban planning and policy approaches that encourage social ties and interactions, thereby eventually improving residents' SWB.

In this paper, a new strategy based on the use of factor analysis (FA) with the varimax rotation technique was proposed to assess the effects of spatial variables on the visitation of nine typical public squares. These public squares are Times, Duomo, Oldtown, Red, Taksim, St. Peter’s, Grand Place, Trafalgar, and Rynek Glowny. This study aimed to measure the effect of the built environment on human choices and offer recommendations for more successful planning and design studies in cities. Data of the spatial variables were collected and processed by using a factor analysis model to extract the ranking of the effective spatial variables on the people’s choices who visit public squares. By applying the FA model, when considering the rotated loading factors, it was observed that the first factor accounting for 81.00% of the total variance would be sufficient to reveal the effectiveness order of spatial variables on the relevant public square’s visit. This study showed that the FA model could provide an opportunity to identify the most important variable affecting the human preference (or people choice) of a square and to create better planning and design ideas for squares. The results obtained from the FA application to spatial variables proved that the amount of green area within the square and the amount of green area surrounding the square are the most important variables affecting the people’s choice of a square.

Aging has led to a series of problems in eldercare throughout the world, with focus on the quality of the daily living environments for aged people. Community public spaces are essential for the daily life of elderly people; however, many of such spaces are becoming unsuitable for use, because most communities were built in an era when aging had not yet acquired the dimension of a serious problem. Macao has shown a pronounced aging trend, and as most aged people living in Macao hope that their community public spaces will meet their daily needs, constructing public spaces for quality eldercare in the aging communities of Macao could improve the sense of belonging and the happiness index of residents. This study investigates the Iao Hon Community of Macao, a community with a serious aging phenomenon. The syntax method was adopted to analyze the integration value, connectivity, selectivity, and intelligibility of public spaces in the Iao Hon Community from the perspective of the aged residents. A satisfaction evaluation system was then created to assess public activity spaces. The degree of satisfaction of the aged people with the community public spaces was evaluated via field survey and analyzed using the importance-performance composite method. The physiological, psychological, and behavioral factors of the aged residents were considered for a comprehensive examination of community public spaces. The findings of this paper enrich the literature on the construction of public spaces for quality eldercare in old communities, and relevant strategies for constructing such spaces are proposed.

Polycentric urban networks (PUNs) have been found to be an important factor for urban economic growth. This study is based on a PUN analytical framework and features agglomeration effects and network externalities. We examine the relationship between PUNs and industrial structure upgrading, using a data set of 108 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China from 2005 to 2017. We find that the PUN is associated with an increase in the industrial structure upgrading index, but small cities benefit less from the network. In reference to spatial political economics, new structural economics, and product space theory, we build an analysis framework to explain the mechanism. The main channel is a positive effect of encouraging the spatial flow of factors, promoting regional integration, and enhancing urban innovativeness. This research has significant policy implications for discovering alternative avenues to reform the manufacturing industry and enhancing regional economic development efficiency from a spatial perspective.

Based on an increasing amount of attention paid to explore why building information modeling (BIM) application levels are so low and what are the obstacles that hinder the further application of BIM, a range of existing studies began to explore BIM from different research perspectives. However, these studies only focus on a single perspective to explore this issue in isolation, ignoring the correlation between them. Therefore, by reviewing the hot perspectives of in-depth discussion on this issue in the existing literature, the present study focuses on exploring the quantitative relationships between BIM definition, BIM capability maturity, integrated project delivery (IPD), BIM diffusion, and moral hazard. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted using data from 295 questionnaires to empirically verify our research model. The results show that the perfection of BIM technology, BIM process, and BIM policy have a positive association with BIM capability maturity. In addition, these three factors can be used as mediating variables to affect the relationship between the other two factors and BIM capability maturity. Moreover, BIM capability maturity has a positive impact on the realization of IPD. Specifically, BIM diffusion was found to positively moderate the relationship between BIM capability maturity and the realization of IPD, while moral hazard plays a negatively moderating role. The findings of this research contribute to lay a theoretical foundation for discussing how to improve BIM capability maturity from the perspective of BIM definition, as well as the influence of BIM capability maturity and BIM-related promotion and hindrance factors on IPD, an ideal project transaction model. Understanding these in-depth underlying interrelations can contribute to fully realizing the real implementation of BIM and improve the acceptance of IPD, and ultimately realize the transformation and upgrading of the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations industry and the construction of smart cities.

This paper discusses how geographic features affect the level of social trust in a region. Using individual-level survey data from China with more than 40,000 observations, the authors find that social trust is higher in cities that are located at the border of provinces. The ruggedness of the traffic route between the city and the capital city of the province is added to the empirical model as an instrumental variable for further analysis. This solves the measurement error and the omitted variables problems in the baseline empirical model. Results of the two-stage least least-squares estimation show that the level of average social trust is still higher in the border cities. The mechanism explaining the empirical results is that the population in China has tended to migrate from the border cities to nonborder cities. This leads to residents in the nonborder cities having multiple cultures, which increases the probability of misperception in the coordination of daily life. Consequently, misperception among groups with different cultures lowers the level of social trust in the nonborder city.

Developing countries with fast-growing economies have experienced rapidly increasing vehicle ownership, rates of utilization similar to those of developed countries, and worrisome levels of pollution from private transportation. This is especially true in large metropolitan areas in China, where a significant percentage of the population can now afford to own a private vehicle and to use it to satisfy household mobility needs. For this study, we proposed an econometric approach to jointly model private car ownership and use patterns, and estimated greenhouse gas emissions based on data collected in Beijing prior to the implementation of the license-plate lottery policy. Our analysis derived major market indicators; the elasticity of demand for cars with respect to income was estimated to be 0.48, while the elasticity of vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT) to fuel price was −0.17. Among the effects considered, it was found that family income and the ownership of a transit pass significantly affect vehicle ownership, increasing fuel costs reduce VKT, and the density of bus and metro stops has a small influence on both vehicle ownership and use.

More and more recent studies have come to realize that the emerging industries not only occur within a city but also are impacted by the city network. This study uses a shift-share analysis (SSA) method to measure the evolutionary characteristics of the esports industry in 26 cities of the Yangtze River Delta region from 2004 to 2018. The study found that the esports industry showed a process of spreading from the central city to the surrounding small- and medium-sized cities. This phenomenon was also impacted by factors such as technological diffusion, knowledge sharing of enterprises in the city network, complementarity between industries, and common market. This study further explored the influencing factors of the esports industry’s evolution in the city network through the econometric model, and the results showed that technology spillovers and market integration effects have a significant positive effect on the esports industry’s growth. This study verifies that the evolution of emerging industries in small- and medium-sized cities can benefit from a city network. Industrial clusters within cities and city networks are complementary and jointly promote the development of emerging industries. This study expands industrial development from urban inside to city network, which provides a broader perspective for urban and regional industrial planning. Furthermore, this study provides technical support for regional development planning and reminds urban decision makers to need to establish horizontal industrial linkages in city networks to achieve integrated regional development.

Multimodal transportation serves diverse needs and enhances the efficiency and fairness in travel. Despite the increased demands in multimodal transportation development, there lacks a comprehensive framework and associated quantitative methodology to assess the level of diversity of a multimodal transportation system. To this end, the objective of this study is to develop a comprehensive framework to assess the diversity of a multimodal transportation system from both physical infrastructure perspective and travel behavior perspective. From the physical infrastructure perspective, the functional richness and evenness of each transportation mode in an area are calculated and aggregated into one diversity measurement using the entropy weight method. From the travel behavior perspective, the diversity of travelers’ behaviors in an area is quantified based on the number of trips made by each mode using the entropy method. The proposed framework was implemented in a case study of the city of Hartford, CT. The physical infrastructure diversity and travel behavior diversity of multimodal transportation systems in six zip code areas of Hartford were calculated and compared. The case study results showed that the physical infrastructure diversity and travel behavior diversity revealed similar trends in most areas in the case study, with some exceptions which could potentially be explained by sociodemographic factors of different areas. The proposed framework could help transportation planners and decision-makers in obtaining a holistic understanding of the diversity level of a multimodal transportation system, considering urban planning strategies to enhance diversity in travel.

There is an increasing need for active transportation infrastructure throughout the United States, especially in rapidly developing urban areas. In places with current and historical agricultural developments, such as in the Intermountain West, canal corridors offer ideal locations for siting shared-use paths because they are linear, flat, and have an interlaced presence within communities. The purpose of this study is to summarize the challenges of establishing canal trails and provide valuable insights and tools that can be used to resolve those challenges, using Utah as an example. To accomplish this, the study applied qualitative methods by reviewing various case studies of past canal trail projects and interviewing stakeholders for future projects. The study found that land ownership, maintenance, safety, liability, funding, and privacy are the main concerns of stakeholders involved in canal trail projects. Each of these concerns are discussed in detail including common solutions to overcome them. The main tools used in successful projects include long-term planning, stakeholder collaboration, iterative design, and active public involvement. The study also provides insights on canal trail design, including trail widths, trail types, and possible corridor cross sections.

The objective of the current Ethiopian lease proclamation is to ensure efficiency and transparency in land delivery and to enhance the revenue generated to the state through the transfer of land by tender. However, there are various challenges in relation to access to urban land in Ethiopia that adversely affects the business environment. Thus, this study is aimed at identifying the determinants of urban land lease price using artificial neural networks (ANNs) and hedonic regression methods. The data about land lease price have been collected from the Addis Ababa city land transfer office. After coding and editing, the data have been processed in statistical software. Based on a significance threshold larger than 0.05, it was discovered that the three variables in the hedonic regression model (HRM) have no effect on the price of urban land leases. In the instance of the ANN, all variables have an effect on the price of Addis Ababa’s urban land leasing. When the results of the two methods are combined, all of the variables have an impact on the determination of Addis Ababa’s urban land leasing price. The ANN outperforms the HRM in terms of model prediction.

Growth in travel demand exacerbates the road network vulnerability. This study aims to explore how the source of travel demand, that is, the land-use spatial layout, impacts road network vulnerability. Based on the interaction between land use and transportation, this study develops a new raster-based road network vulnerability assessment model and employs a logistic model to quantify the correlation between land use and vulnerability. To assess the raster-based vulnerability, this study uses the change in the total travel time for all O-D pairs before and after the disruption of all intersecting links and nodes within the geographical extent of a grid. The central city in Wuhan, China was selected as the case study which was divided into 2,096 grids of uniformly shaped and sized cells. Highly vulnerable areas showed a centripetal distribution trend and were mainly concentrated in the areas around the bridges, expressways, and arterial roads. The logistic model revealed the statistical results that the closer to residential land, public service land, and water area, the higher the vulnerability. Intensive density and land-use mix increase the vulnerability of road networks. High-risk road links were identified for adapting strategies by overlapping the congested road maps with the vulnerability results. Police implications were summarized to mitigate road vulnerability. This method provided technical support for prioritizing the improvement of road network resilience.

Chinese cities have experienced large-scale urban expansion since the 1978 reform and opening up. During the rapid development, rural villages have been absorbed and transformed into urban villages. Urban villages influence residents’ lives and the housing market. However, studies on such interaction are not comprehensive. Although renewal plans have been executed in many Chinese cities, little empirical evidence on the effect of renewal was raised. Most studies obtained an average effect while neglected the varying influences of urban villages on people from different social classes. Thus, the real mechanism of the effect of urban villages and the renewal remains unclear. Therefore, this study uses the hedonic price model, the difference-in-difference model, and the quantile regression model to explore the impact of urban villages and the renewal. The empirical results show that: (1) from the overall perspective, urban villages show negative externalities on the surrounding housing price – housing price drops by 0.005% with every 1% closer to urban villages and decreases by 0.023% with every 1% increase in the scale of urban village; (2) from the social perspective, the effect of urban villages presents significant social heterogeneity – residents of higher-priced housing are more negatively affected by urban village accessibility and scale; and (3) urban village renewal positively affects surrounding housing price and compensates the negative externalities of urban village accessibility and scale. In addition, such compensating effect is significantly higher on higher-priced housing than that on lower-priced housing. The implications of this study help the government to carry out renewal plans orderly, help developers to make targeted investment strategies, and help homebuyers to make suitable purchase decisions, contributing to the sustainable development of cities.

Urban rapid development has created poor open spaces and fewer outdoor learning environments for children. This issue highlights the quality design of urban public and open spaces that can significantly help children’s healthy growth and development. The urban plaza is one of the potential urban open spaces that positively affect the development of talent and creativity in children and develop their physical, social, emotional, and cognitive skills. As public art is an encouraging landscape medium, integrating public art in urban plazas can aid substantially in achieving this goal. The lack of a decision support tool for designing inclusive learning environments at urban plazas has persuaded us to develop the children-oriented urban plaza design (COUP) Toolkit. The COUP Toolkit is a universal tool that can aid design professionals and children’s therapists in assessing and evaluating the impact of urban plaza design on children’s skills growth. By applying the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method, it was found that the Urban Oasis type of urban plaza contributes the most to skills development in children (W_Alt.3 = 0.336), compared to other types (i.e., street plaza, corporate foyer, transit foyer, street, and grand public place). The COUP toolkit has 14 features for designing the urban plazas embedding the public art. Applying AHP indicated that performance art (W_2.2 = 0.106), interactive instrument art (W_2.3 = 0.106), and spatial composition (W_1.1 = 0.103) are most vital in the design of a children-oriented urban plaza. The COUP toolkit was validated through a case study, the Musical Swings (i.e., 21 Balancoires) urban plaza in Montreal, Canada. The COUP toolkit is a rating system and proposes four grading labels based on the scores earned during the assessment process: gold, silver, bronze, and not-certified. The COUP toolkit determined that Musical Swings is ranked as silver; hence, it needs minor improvements, particularly in providing fountains (WSM_C2.5 = 0.57) and wading pools (WSM_C2.6 = 0.60) to create a proper learning environment for children.

The centralization of cancer treatment centers in large cities results in transportation-related barriers to accessing high-quality cancer care. Although evidence suggests limited access and long-distance treatments negatively affect cancer outcomes, the literature remains uncertain about the effect of built environment attributes on treatment consequences. This study examines the effects of geographical accessibility and built environment attributes on improved cancer outcomes. A cross-sectional survey of cancer patients in the United States (2019) was conducted to collect data related to those patients who received radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatments, including their travel-related patterns to health care providers. We employed geographic information systems (GIS) to geocode patients’ home and healthcare provider locations to identify travel distance to care providers. In addition, the residential built environment attributes, including density, diversity, distance to transit, and street design, have been measured. To explore the research assumptions, we employed structural equation models (SEMs) and tested the effects from key variables on cancer outcomes as well as interaction effects among the posited variables. Results from the SEM indicate that patients living in neighborhoods with long distances to transit and the long distance to the closest hospital are more likely to have longer travel distances to radiotherapy providers as well. Moreover, as the travel distance to radiotherapy providers increases, the frequency of radiotherapy trips reduces. However, long travel distance to radiotherapy providers is positively associated with greater tumor-free years. For chemotherapy, travel distance to the closest large hospital increases travel distance to the chemotherapy provider, however, neither built environmental measures nor travel distance significantly affects tumor-free years. Only travel frequency to chemotherapy providers slightly increases the tumor-free years for cancer. Thus, traveling the remoter distance to radio providers may enhance the opportunity of access to higher volume hospitals with advanced treatment quality and surpass the potential downsides of longer travel distance. The results have great potential to help policymakers and urban planners make informed decisions on how designing-built environment to enhance equity access to cancer treatments and improve patients’ health outcomes.

This paper tests China’s three-dimensional intergovernmental competition in terms of land leasing. Using the land-leasing data of China’s prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2019 collected from China Land Market, and with the help of the dynamic spatial Durbin model, we show that in the land-leasing behavior of prefecture-level cities in China, three-dimensional government competition does exist and that the influence coefficient from high to low is the government competition of different periods in the same region, shown as horizontal government competition and vertical government competition, respectively. In particular, China’s government competition and regional economic development show a clear correlation. We find obvious heterogeneity: in the eastern region, the government competition for land leasing started earlier and has now begun to transform. However, the three-dimensional government competition in the western region lags behind the national level. Therefore, urban development should emerge from the mindset of blindly focusing on the expansion of urban areas, paying more attention to the guiding role of urban planning in urban development and promoting cities on the path of sustainable development by improving the efficiency of land use.

In the context of economic globalization and social integration, the openness of the economy and the inclusiveness of the population play key roles in the development of regions and cities. Based on panel data from 259 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2013, the present study explored whether openness and inclusiveness exacerbated the level of urban pollution. The research constructed econometric models and found significant spatial autocorrelations for three pollutant emissions. Economic openness had an inverted U-shaped effect on the discharge of industrial wastewater but an inhibitory effect on the emission of industrial sulfur dioxide and industrial smoke. Population inclusiveness also significantly reduced the emission of these three pollutants. The present study showed that openness and inclusiveness did not exacerbate pollution but contributed to an improvement in the urban environment, which provided important guidance for pollution control and development planning in cities.

Low-density urban sprawl is reducing the quality of urbanization, especially in China. Improving the population aggregation degree is an essential means to solve the problem, and in this process, the central urban area plays a vital role. It is necessary to explain the population’s spatiotemporal distribution mechanism and analyze the potential of population aggregation. The study took the central area of Tianjin, China, as an example, and the working framework focused on the comprehensive perspective of the urban built environment, which was divided into four dimensions (spatial construction intensity, spatial function characteristic, spatial accessibility, and spatial ecological quality). A geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model was first applied to determine the spatiotemporal relationship between the urban built environment and population-density distribution, and then, an urban-population aggregation-potential evaluation model was constructed through bivariate local spatial autocorrelation to analyze the potential for population aggregation. The results showed that spatial construction intensity and function characteristic indicators had the most significant impact intensity and were the main influencing factors, with spatial accessibility and spatial ecological quality indicators as subsidiary factors. Each index had the heterogeneity of influence in both time and space simultaneously, which was manifested in the spatiotemporal nonstationarity of the correlation coefficient. Most of the high-population aggregation-potential areas in the study were single-type high-potential areas, accounting for 37.78%, and were dominated by building density. Based on the mechanism and potential results of population spatiotemporal aggregation, the study provided new planning advice for Chinese cities to achieve better space utilization and sustainable urban development.

Human life that is collective and diverse on the one hand, but complex and chaotic on the other, is largely experienced in metropolitan cities owing to a significant amount of migration. Istanbul can be defined as a city that constantly witnesses massive influxes of migration and ultimately becomes socially heterogeneous. It was hypothesized in this study that the multilayered urban character of the city affects the perceptions of city-dwellers, especially children. As such, the study focused on the perceptual differences of children living in socially diverse urban settings, and a comparative analysis was conducted to reveal the children’s environmental perceptions regarding their nearby home environments. This case-study-oriented research was conducted with 11-year-old children from two subcommunities both located in the periphery of Istanbul: one from a gecekondu settlement on the fringes of Istanbul, and the other, a planned residential settlement (PRS). The methodology was based on the representations by the children since this methodology has the potential to present an understanding of spatial perception through both quantitative and qualitative dimensions. A representation of children’s houses with their immediate surroundings was requested from the children so that two different cognitive map datasets were obtained regarding two diverse subcommunities. Significant results were obtained in the study, in which gender and settlement type were used as independent variables. As a result, it was revealed that the girls were more inclined to draw their own rooms, were more focused on indoor spaces and were further apt to draw the domestic appliances. When the results were evaluated depending on the settlement type variable, it was revealed that those living in PRS represented indoors more and were specifically focused on their own rooms, while those living in gecekondu settlement tended to draw domestic appliances and outdoor spaces more.

Ambient smells can affect behavior, attitude, and health, and play an important role in the overall perceptual experience. However, the research on the perceptual experience of urban open space is mainly focused on the visual dimension, with few studies investigating smellscapes, except in terms of the negative aspects of odor pollution. As a result, the method of effectively planning the smellscapes of urban open space is still limited. Therefore, the present study investigated the smellscape of the traditional Zhuanxin Market in Kunming, China. The subjective smell perception scores of 200 evaluators were obtained using the smell prism method, and the classification of smellscapes in the traditional market was established using a hierarchical clustering method in two years. A sensitivity–coordination matrix was constructed using the smellwalk method and integrating smell combination, smellscape sensitivity, and coordination. The smellscape was divided into four zones: critical zone, preserve zone, secondary improvement zone, and main improvement zone. Moreover, corresponding suggestions for smellscape protection, promotion, and management were presented. In this way, an effective method for the zoning and planning of smellscapes in urban open space spaces was formed. This study provides a new perspective on olfactory research for overall urban perceptual experiences and has important implications for protecting urban smellscape heritage, creating restorative urban environment experiences, enhancing urban space quality, and improving living experiences.

Functional urban areas represent integrated urban contexts whose territories are economically interconnected. They, therefore, include a central city and all the municipalities that make up the commuting area for work reasons. The economic energies and settlement transformations that characterize these territories have been consolidated over time. The current geographic conformation, as defined today, does not provide information on each municipality’s rank (role) in the overall functioning. In this perspective, the work presented examines the demographic and urban dynamics that have affected the FUA of Milan in the last 60 years and then evaluates the presence of possible homogeneous geographic clusters (hot and cold spots) through spatial correlation techniques. Statistic validation was performed through the ANOVA and subsequent posthoc analysis (Tukey–Kramer method). Results show a new configurational asset within the FUA of Milan, which could provide a new key to interpreting the territory, aimed at identifying homogeneous areas to adopt new and more effective forms of strategic planning.

This study presents a design proposal based on the concept of developing a smart, livable, and sustainable historical city center for Ulus District in Ankara. In recent years, Ulus district has been subjected to a quite radical and irreversible transformation process involving a lot of demolition, reconstruction, and refunction activities. Urban development with such high density has created several problems for the environment, in addition to causing the area to lose its distinctive physical and functional aspects. A holistic approach, accompanied by the support of advanced technologies and their modern applications, appears to be a necessity for achieving the long-term goals of urban sustainability. To this end, this study provides significant insights into ruling local political practices and strategies in order to support policymakers in achieving their local aims on smart city initiatives.

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is characterized as compact, mixed-use, and pedestrian-friendly development around transit stations, aiming to balance land use and transportation, enhance sustainability, and improve public transport accessibility. There are various TOD assessment methods; each target one of these goals. This paper proposes a comprehensive approach that addresses TOD goals in a multistage assessment. In the first stage, we identify station areas' typology using weighted node, place, and tie indices based on the correlation between land use and transportation. Then, feasible station areas for enhancing density and diversity are selected using a canonical score. In the second stage, station areas' typology is defined by sustainability criteria and a TOD index. Then, the efficiency of selected station areas for compactness is assessed using Data Envelopment Analysis. Finally, public transport accessibility is optimized for these stations in the third stage. We investigate the effects of weighting indicators of the node–place model in the first stage and aggregation methods in the second stage. We conduct a feasibility and efficiency assessment for the typology of station areas in Metro Montreal. This study attempts to advocate a holistic perspective for TOD assessment with a case study implementation.

The analysis of factors influencing urban rail transit (URT) passenger flow is often a precondition for establishing prediction models. Much past analysis has focused on correlation analysis and does not draw on research on causal mechanisms. In this paper, a novel causal inference method based on transfer information entropy (TIE) is proposed to determine the causality between influence factor and URT passenger flow. As a comparison, the matrix correlation coefficient (RV₂ coefficient) is used to analyze the correlation. Taking the URT system in Xi’an, Shaanxi, China, as an example, the factors that may affect passenger flow are introduced and the causality and correlation are calculated. Compared with correlation analysis, the causal inference method can be used to derive the interactive relationship between influencing factors and passenger flow. At the same time, the causal inference method has greater adaptability to the type of passenger flow and the scope of influence. The result can be used for the theoretical support of transit-oriented development (TOD), and can also provide a reference for road traffic planning.

Since March 2020, the COVID-19 disease has become a global concern, and its concentration has been primarily in urban settings. Previous research suggests that multidimensional factors allow understanding the distribution of the disease but has limitations such as having nonhomogeneous units as the object of study, not incorporating changes in sanitary control measures over time or the absence of mobility variables. To overcome these shortcomings, we investigated the association between socioeconomic, demographic, and built environment factors with infection rates in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, one of the most compact and mixed-use environments in Europe. For this purpose, we use spatial regression models at five different stages that capture variations in sanitary control measures. Our results indicate that before the lockdown, infections were concentrated in high-income areas, but once it started the pattern shifted toward areas characterized by overcrowding, with more people who did not have the opportunity to telework, as well as nursing homes. Although commuting time also maintained a positive association with infections, the use of public transportation was not observed to have a direct impact. Contrary to what was speculated at the beginning of the pandemic, density was not shown to be a decisive factor in explaining infection rates; therefore, the results suggest keeping the focus on the quality of housing to avoid intrafamily infections but particularly in those where elderly dependents live. Likewise, public transportation can maintain its benefits for the most vulnerable urban populations as long as minimum safety measures are guaranteed in its interior.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the institutional foundations of the black market of “minor property rights housing” (MPRH), the informal housing supply in transitional China. The emergence of MPRH has stemmed from China’s dualistic land system where rural land owns collectively but the conversion of rural land into urban land use is monopolized by the state. The dualistic land system is compounded by a dualistic household registration structure—the Hukou system in which citizens are restricted to either farm or city household, but unable to switch freely. Consequently, the land property rights and central–local fiscal relations exert intrinsic influences on MPRH’s suppliers—the grassroots governments. On one hand, the coercive policies to strictly regulate rural land usage expropriate the rights and opportunities of farmers and grassroots organizations to participate in the land market. On the other hand, the current fiscal system has prevented grassroots governments from obtaining land revenue. The state, however, has no control over all attributes of collective-owned land due to transaction costs. Grassroots governments and peasants can manipulate some attributes of land property rights to minimize the loss. Accordingly, the rise of MPRH reflects the rational choice of grassroots governments and farmers to mitigate institutional constraints. However, as an institutional arrangement with multiple functions, MPRH also has important effects on income redistribution. In other words, village cadres take advantage of their power to manipulate collective land for rent-seeking activities. This reflects the inefficiency of MPRH.