Journal of Urban Planning and Development

Peri-urban areas are neither urban nor rural in the conventional sense; and their conditions and issues are different from urban and rural areas, which mix both with complexities. Nowadays, there is no uniform definition for these areas, nor is there an unequivocal method for delineating them. It is therefore essential to define the peri-urban areas, in order to develop appropriate policies to manage and address these complicated issues. Hence, this paper reviews and evaluates the literature and applications that encompass fundamental theories to answer critical questions. The paper finds that the peri-urban area is a transition zone between urban and rural elements and mainly has transitional, “vacuum,” or complex characteristics. It confirms that quantitative delineation has become the primary means for defining the ranges of peri-urban areas. The research suggests that the data and appropriate analytical methods of quantitative delineation should be selected, to refer to the local characteristics of peri-urban areas. Furthermore, the ranges of peri-urban areas can be delineated based on data collection and integrated analysis from the dimensions of social order, economic development, environmental resource, and administrative governance. Appropriate methods help improve the accuracy of defining these peri-urban areas, helping to supplement development strategies and decision-making processes.

Urbanization is an unavoidable force resulting in the directional change of metropolitan growth around the world, altering their structure and having a profound impact on the socioeconomic and environmental fabric of territories. The spatial phenomenon of urbanization is characterized by the rapid growth of built-up areas and random land-use conversion, mostly in peri-urban areas of the cities. This paper reviews spatial evaluation methodologies used in different studies to establish an appropriate approach to peri-urban spatial knowledge. It also reviews peri-urban transformations and spatial configuration assessment methodology. It summarizes the results into three categories: (1) spatial understanding methods, (2) spatial assessment methods, and (3) ambiguities and biases in the application of the methods. The report explains how studies have considerable ambiguities from this standpoint: (1) context of results, and (2) replicability of methodology claims. This study also concludes that the efficiency of the outcome depends on the correct use of a territorial scale of the study, digital urban sciences, and localized indicators for attaining a sustainable urban form. In addition, measures that can enable spatial manifestation to achieve sustainable urban form have not been developed for transitioning peri-urban areas, and all solutions have employed urban-centric indices. This study can help urban and regional planners understand peri-urban spatial planning techniques and fill the identified methodological gaps.

Since 2019, the year of the COVID-19 outbreak, many businesses have been shut down across different industries and geographical locations, and the construction industry is one of those that has suffered more than any other due to its volatile nature. This study emphasizes the impact of COVID-19 on project management within construction companies and the ways it has affected the completion of projects. The literature review was provided with effective theoretical information regarding the research topic by highlighting key concepts, theories, and models after identifying crucial aspects that resulted in cost and time overruns in the context of UK construction projects. This study has been conducted as a primary qualitative method to gather firsthand data employing interviews with five construction project managers from the UK. The researcher has discussed interpretivism research philosophy, the inductive research approach, and explanatory search design and has conducted purposive sampling. In addition, primary qualitative data collection and thematic data analysis have been discussed in this study. The research has identified 10 types of themes focused on the transcript, which were developed through interviews. Further, a detailed comparative discussion was made on three top themes, which were based on cost overrun, and time extension of construction projects during COVID-19. The interviewees have outlined the significant impact of COVID-19 on supply chain management and the labor force. The multimethod approach helps in understanding the diverse point of view across different countries and geographical regions and finally reaching a conclusion with a comparative approach.

The “Internet +” era creates many positive opportunities for people to lead a low-carbon lifestyle. However, in the existing literature, there are few studies on how users’ green awareness and behavior are affected. So this study aims to empirically test the effect of factors on green self-awareness and individual behavior change proposing a research model using the Ant Forest app. Through survey investigation, 220 valid questionnaires were collected. This study analyzed the data by using the partial least squares path analysis method (PLS method). The results indicate that environmental concern, sense of achievement, and social and entertainment have a positive influence on users’ awareness change. Meanwhile, social and entertainment as well as self-awareness change positively affect individual behavior change. The findings suggest that a well-designed “Internet + Green public welfare” model can enhance innovation combined with environmental protection and gamification and develop a public green behavior performance. In addition, implications, the limitation, and future trends are discussed.

In this work, we analyzed the locations of existing bus stops in the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) area and then calculated the walking distance in time in order to understand the accessibility for pedestrians. In doing so, we employed geographic information systems (e.g., spatial and network analysis tools) to generate accessibility models from bus stops at 5, 10, 15, and 20 min of walking distance. After generating the service area of bus stops on maps, we overlaid socioeconomic variables (i.e., age group, income, and bus-stop accessibility) to better understand the HRM public transport network. We found that population density was an important consideration in providing the number of bus stops in specific communities, which may be related to the facilities offered by the urban hierarchy. Furthermore, we established a relationship between transit stops and accessibility for people in age groups of between 0 and 19 (e.g., school-going children) and 65⁺ (i.e., the older population) so as to obtain an understanding of the time required for them to access the bus stops on foot. Overall, 77% of the population in the HRM was served by public transport within 5 min of walking; however, for the 65⁺ cohort, this number was higher (82%). A significant amount of the young population (23%) was served over longer distances than 10′ of walking. We summarize that our findings are critical for planners, practitioners, and researchers in order for them to understand the present transit system in place based on accessibility to the bus stops within walking distance.

Conventional studies suggest that administrative division adjustment (ADA) is an effective way to facilitate domestic regional integration, but the process and mechanisms of regional integration led by a top-down ADA have not been fully investigated. Using a data set including millions of land transactions and manually coded city–county consolidation records in China, this paper documents that the layout of land development moves closer to the city center after city–county consolidation. In comparison with industrial and commercial land, residential land is more sensitive and generates approaches to city center in the short term. Only after the formation of population agglomeration over a long period does layout change occur for commercial land. This dynamic process shows that regional integration featuring resource layout is more easily achieved through state-manipulated resource allocation, while integration that features economic activities requires a longer-term shift of population. We test two mechanisms, namely, county push factors and urban district pull factors, and we find that the county push factors are more likely to be the reason for layout change.

The emergence of commercial complexes in a city can improve the economic vitality of both the city and its surrounding environment, which impacts the surrounding housing market. This impact of commercial complexes on surrounding housing prices has been demonstrated by existing literature; however, the complexity of individual commercial complexes is often not incorporated, and the effect is usually studied from a static or single-object perspective. Based on new house transaction data from 2009 to 2018 and data on 54 commercial complexes in Hangzhou, China, in this paper, a time-varying difference-in-difference (DID) model was built. This model was used to explore the driving effect of commercial complexes on surrounding housing prices. The results showed that the following: (1) Commercial complexes exert a significant premium effect on housing prices within 1.0–4.0 km of the surrounding area. (2) The impact of the opening of a commercial complex on the surrounding housing prices is related to the distance between the two, but this relationship is not linear. (3) Compared to the first complex in the region, subsequent complexes are more likely to exert a driving effect on surrounding house prices. Among the first complexes, only those that led to the formation of a business district exerted a significant driving effect on surrounding house prices. (4) The proportion of retail in a commercial complex and whether the complex is located in a core area are the two factors with the strongest impact on the premium effect. A commercial complex in a noncore area or with a lower retail ratio will generate a higher attraction-added value.

Abstract

Smart cities are receiving attention these days for providing solutions to chronic urban problems and for acting as a new urban growth engine. The development of various technologies enables cities to collect a vast amount of data, obtain useful information and therefore make city operations more efficient and intelligent. However, the perspective in terms of data has often been ignored in designing a smart city, especially from the stage of planning city services. This study aims to fill the gaps in existing studies and develop a strategic framework that helps a systematic and analytical consideration of data perspectives in designing and managing urban services for smart cities. Based on the literature review and expert discussions, the developed framework consists of five categories of factors that correspond to three stages of city data management. The framework was applied to actual smart city services as a case study to validate its suitability. A total of 34 services were examined from the service plans of two representative smart cities in Korea. The case study results showed that an inconsistent consideration of data was made in many smart city services, which highlights the need for conducting a study of this kind. In addition, an expert survey was conducted to grasp the effectiveness and practicality of the framework, which generally gave positive reviews. The developed framework guides various stakeholders to design smart city services with a better understanding of the data and to establish a comprehensive plan for data-based smart city development.

Practical Applications

One of the most important success factors in recent smart city service planning is the utilization of city data. Urban data, such as traffic records, electricity usage, and various civic activity records, provide important insights into a city. Use of these data provides opportunities for more intelligent services and enables efficient use of urban resources. However, smart city service planning is a large-scale and complex ecosystem requiring long-term efforts. Worse, it is not easy to define detailed requirements for city data to make services smart in the early stages of planning city services. Therefore, it is challenging for urban designers to develop a systematic design based on a consistent understanding of data from the early planning stage. To fill this gap, this study proposes a framework that can support effective city data utilization in smart cities. The framework proposed in this study supports the simulation of the data requirements necessary for the desired services even in the early stages of urban planning when it is impossible to develop detailed data. It is designed to be easily utilized by nondata experts, encouraging a wide range of stakeholders to participate in smart city planning.

In the present study, the dynamics of built-up and population, and the distribution of the road network were investigated to assess the efficiency of land consumption in the Hyderabad Metropolitan Area (HMA) between the years 1975 and 2015. Statistical techniques, geographic information systems (GIS), and causation analysis have been adopted to quantify and study land consumption efficiency. For this purpose, the built-up and population data are obtained from the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) and road network maps are obtained from the OpenStreetMap (OSM) data set. To assess land use efficiency (LUE), the methodology provided in “SDG 11.3.1. Metadata” is adopted. From the results, it is evident that the average accuracy of the GHSL population layer between the years 1990 and 2015 was more than 90% and the absolute percent error of the GHSL population layer decreased with time. It was also observed that between 1990 and 2015 the HMA was stably moving toward sufficient land per person. Through correlation analysis, it was identified that there exists a very strong correlation between built-up, population, and road network density. The causation analysis using a novel coefficient of causation affirmed that changes in built-up and population are both caused equal changes on their counterpart and the built-up and population both influenced the changes in the road density of the HMA. From the findings of the current article, it is evident that the correlation and the causation analysis together give a clear understanding of the built-up and population dynamics.

Abstract

The compact city paradigm is an influential but debatable school of thought. In the current literature, the empirical findings of both sides of the debate are sometimes based on inapplicable types of cities, which leads to opposing perspectives and pieces of advice. Instead of judging whether a compact city is good or bad, this theoretical article focuses on the suitability of the compact city paradigm. It employs a counterfactual approach instead of analyzing the compact status quo. Through a qualitative content analysis, this article develops indicators of the form change rationales from 150 frequently cited academic works. Then, it develops a five-section framework that guides planners in organizing their thinking when they need to examine the suitability of a compact city approach to local contexts. It will help scholars and decision makers apply the real content of the paradigm but without considering it absolute.

Practical Applications

Not all cities are comparable with the cases of successful compact cities. If a city has different basic conditions, industrial conditions, and social conditions, it may not be able to achieve the same benefits by employing the same principles. The suitability of the compact city paradigm depends on the appropriate timing for the policy window, the region for compactness, and the degree of compactness for the trade-offs among goals. The problem of city limits, especially the exogenous and governmental conditions, should also be considered as a social context for choosing an urban form. When planners attempt to apply the compact form of previous successful cases to their cities, they may examine whether their cities have similar suburbanization rationales as these cases following the indicators summarized in this article. This will help planners to organize the related contextual conditions in a more systematic way, as well as better respond to the challenges of the compact city paradox.

Based on the concept of age-friendliness, this paper takes Harbin, a typical cold city, as an example to study the quantity and distribution of parks and squares in the main urban area through field survey and open data analysis, and analyzes its walking accessibility and public transport accessibility for the elderly. The results show that (1) the number of parks and squares is insufficient and the spatial distribution is uneven; (2) the walking accessibility of parks and squares is poor, more than half of the elderly in the block cannot easily reach the parks and squares, and the travel demand is difficult to meet; and (3) the overall public transport accessibility of parks and squares is good, but there is still room for optimization in the section from parks and squares to bus stops. The research results will provide a reference for the age-friendly urban planning community in cold cities.

Abstract

The relationship between urban spatial structure, economic activities, and the environment is complex and interdependent, yet there is a paucity of literature that examines green innovation from a macro perspective of the urban development mode. To fill this gap, this study employs panel data from 268 Chinese cities between 2008 and 2018 to investigate how a city’s capacity for green innovation is influenced by its urban spatial structure, specifically in terms of urban compactness. Our results demonstrate a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between the compactness of urban spatial structure and green innovation, which remains robust even when using instrumental variable estimation. We find that an increase in urban compactness promotes green innovation when the compactness index value is less than 4.49 (3.74–4.10 with instrumental variable estimate). However, beyond this threshold, agglomeration diseconomies begin to outweigh agglomeration economies, and a decentralized growth pattern becomes more conducive to green innovation. These findings suggest that indiscriminate deployment of urban polycentric development plans may hinder a city’s green innovation capacity.

Practical Applications

With the growth of urban population, the importance of urban environmental protection becomes more prominent. Therefore, should we stick with the compact urban development paradigm or transition to polycentric development to achieve sustainable urban growth? Using data from 238 Chinese cities from 2008 to 2018, we discover that adopting a compact spatial structure is more conducive to green innovation when the city population concentration has not yet reached a critical value, and that the latter structure is more effective when cities are overcrowded. Furthermore, we underline that for cities with difficult-to-extend metropolitan limits and excessive agglomeration, increasing institutional regulation might minimize the detrimental consequences of excessive agglomeration on city sustainability.

The aim of this research study is to illustrate the role of the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) and Leadership in Energy and Design (LEED) within low-cost urban housing projects through the analysis of multiple factors and motivations impacting the outcome of construction projects. The rate at which climate change is advancing demands that the construction industry change their practices to decrease the natural resources it consumes as well as improve the environmental efficiency of the world’s building stock. The introduction of BREEAM and LEED in 1990 and 2000, respectively, provided a system where buildings are evaluated on their energy performance. Issues, however, began to develop as research that illustrated the system’s drawbacks undermined its utility. In turn, the role of the green building certifications ought to be researched so that policy and stakeholder communication frameworks can be developed by contractors and designers to ensure the success of BREEAM and LEED projects. The research study was completed through a literature study of prior research as well as by the publishing of a snowball sampling-based survey questionnaire undertaken between practitioners, architects, engineers as well as researchers involved in the UK construction industry. The results of the survey were then collated using IBM’s Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) and then a confirmatory factor analysis as well as a correlation matrix was completed. The confirmatory factor analysis illustrated that the two most important factors were climate change and quality. Thus, contractors and designers ought to develop practical policies and stakeholder frameworks to achieve value for money for the market demographic. The results of this study hold potential to increase the application of BREEAM and LEED. The improvement of practice in low-cost urban housing projects will improve the accessibility of BREEAM and LEED housing projects and, in turn, the energy efficiency and sustainability of new building stock.

The daily trips of urban residents in different transport modes reflect the urban mobility pattern and the latent spatial structure of the city, which is seldom addressed in the literature. A network-based cluster model is applied in this paper based on multimode transit big data. Thus, the urban spatial form can be observed at different levels according to the travel modes and distance, differing from traditional geographic structures. This paper will identify the urban mobility pattern and the corresponding spatial form by taking the Beijing metropolitan area as a study area. Origin–destination data at the traffic analysis zone level were collected, covering shared bike, bus, and metro. The results show that the metro trips reflect the single-center feature of Beijing. However, the multicenter development trend can be revealed by bus and shared-bike data. This paper finds that shared bike supports the establishment of subcenters as a new transport mode. The urban spatial form presents a complex feature of multiple levels and spatial diversity due to the comprehensive effect of multiple travel modes. The study results can provide a basis for the planning of transit network and urban equilibrium land use and development.

The development level of urban–rural integration is an important prerequisite to the investigation of the evolution of urban–rural relations. In this study, we use a hybrid method to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution of the urban–rural integration development levels of 27 central cities in the Yangtze River Delta for the period between 2003 and 2018. The results show that the urban–rural integration development level (urban–rural integration degree) in the region has significantly improved during the research period; yet, the imbalance between cities is still prominent. Areas with a high integration degree are concentrated in the central and eastern parts (including Suzhou, Wuxi, Nanjing, Shanghai, Changzhou, and Hangzhou), and the degree decreases in surrounding areas. The main influencing factors (the corresponding influence degree value) are the ratio of nonagricultural employment (11.86%–12.91%), urban and rural unemployment insurance coverage (11.87%–12.78%), and urban and rural endowment insurance coverage (10.24%–11.27%). Urban space expansion, urban and rural Engel coefficient, and dual-contrast coefficient are concentrated between 6.32% and 7.89%. The strategy-oriented development suggestions are put forward based on the SWOT strategic analysis map for further development. The research results of this paper can also serve as useful tips for achieving urban–rural integration in other countries and regions.

Educational facilities are an important part of public service facilities. The scientific planning of educational facilities is conducive to the optimal allocation of educational resources and the equalization of educational services. In view of the insufficient supply and uneven spatial distribution of urban educational service facilities, this study adopted an improved two-step optimization method to maximize the equality of school accessibility by optimizing the spatial location and service capacity of urban primary schools. First, the improved p-median model was constructed, and the Teitz–Bart algorithm was used to solve the model to site new primary schools. Second, a quadratic programming method was used to optimize the service capacity of new primary schools. Finally, the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method was used to analyze and evaluate the accessibility of population centers to schools before and after the site selection and service capacity optimization of new schools. The results show that the improved two-step optimization approach can effectively determine the best locations and service capacity of new schools to improve the spatial accessibility of schools and realize the fair distribution of educational resources.

This study was aimed to form an approach for regional tourism cooperation based on the mechanism for diagnosing the polarization of the tourism market. The research methodology was grounded on the categorization of the markets of the world’s tourist regions, territorial structuring and hierarchization of the world tourism space in the context of polarization, and the formation of regional cooperation orbitals. This allowed distinguishing the countries forming the core and periphery of the global tourism market in 2019–2020 and thus determining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this sector’s development. As indicated by the study results, in 2020, the majority of the analyzed states (and all regions, in fact) belonged to the deep periphery. In turn, the core of the world tourism space was formed by the states of Europe, the United States, and China. The scenarios for cooperation of countries and regions under the developed orbitals were defined as effective in ensuring success and increasing the competitiveness of the tourism sector. The created orbitals allow one to analyze the country’s position in the global tourism market, determine possible cooperation partners, and explore strategic development trajectories.

Abstract

The synergistic development of metropolitan areas led by megacities is considered a driving force in achieving regional coordination and the high-quality development of urban agglomerations. Extant studies have often neglected the spatial structure of metropolitan areas under the guidance of megacities. This study sought to explore the radiation effect of central cities, the development capacity of metropolitan subcentral cities, and the intermediary role of metropolitan hub cities in the metropolitan area. Based on the modified gravitational model and social network analysis, we constructed a spatial connection network of the Shanghai metropolitan area with districts and counties as the basic research units and analyzed the characteristics from two perspectives: network hierarchy and network structure. Our results indicated the following: (1) The connection strength of the metropolitan area decreased from the center of the network to the periphery. (2) The polycentric pattern was gradually forming, but a significant gap remained between the radiation range and capacity of central and subcentral cities. (3) The clustering phenomenon in the metropolitan area was significant, and the degrees of internal connection and external radiation ability of each subgroup differed. (4) The core–edge structure as obvious, but its intermediary role in the network was relatively weak. Our findings revealed the spatial relationship pattern of metropolitan areas led by megacities and have implications for formulating scientific policies to promote the coordinated spatial development of metropolitan areas and the high-quality development of urban agglomerations.

Practical Applications

A high-quality urban agglomeration is highly significant, and coordination and balanced development among cities has become a pressing need. In recent years, many scholars have researched how to improve the quality of urban agglomeration development. The construction of metropolitan areas—the basic unit of urban agglomeration—plays a strategic role in urban agglomeration. Accordingly, analyzing the spatial connection networks in metropolitan areas led by megacities is necessary. In response, this study explored the network hierarchy and structure of a notable metropolitan area led by megacities, the Shanghai metropolitan area, to uncover valuable findings about the radiation effect of central cities, the development capacity of metropolitan subcentral cities, and the intermediary role of metropolitan hub cities in promoting the coordinated development of metropolitan areas. These findings offer useful insights for policymakers seeking to promote the coordinated spatial development of metropolitan areas, optimize their spatial structure, and promote high-quality urban agglomeration.

In the new era, the Chinese government has implemented a strategic arrangement of high-quality development and a dual circulation development pattern, which injects new content and driving force into China’s new urbanization. To reveal these changes, this paper constructs a quadrilateral diamond structure model of urbanization development dynamics of four-dimensional force + institutional force + innovation force, based on the comprehensive connotation of urbanization. Then the standard variance method and global principal component regression model are applied to empirically analyze the urbanization level and its development dynamics for Chongqing, a typical representative city of strategic importance in China, from 2000 to 2018. The results show that the following. (1) The urbanization level and all subsystems in Chongqing have shown a significant growth trend, of which the population and social subsystems have been maintaining relatively high growth rates, mapping the urbanization from a traditional efficiency-first economic growth model to a comprehensive benefit maximization model, focusing on people’s livelihood and sustainable development. (2) The urbanization of Chongqing in the new era is an endogenous growth-oriented model driven by administrative, market, intrinsic, exterior, innovational, and institutional forces. This reflects the diversified and contemporary characteristics of the driving forces of urbanization in the new era, as well as the rationality and superiority of the institutional arrangement of the Chinese government. (3) The quadrilateral diamond structure model, which is based on the endogenous growth of the two forces of institutions and scientific and technological innovation, reveals the regional attributes and contemporary characteristics of the driving forces of urbanization in the new era. It can illustrate the Chinese experience for world urbanization research, and provides basic material for the world to understand and explore the characteristics and patterns of China’s urbanization development.

Based on the traditional difference-in-differences (DID) model, this research establishes a two-stage DID model to investigate the impact of a subway on the suburban economy. A parallel trend analysis and placebo test are applied respectively to verify the robustness of the estimated results regressed by the two-stage DID model. The heterogeneous effects of a subway announcement and opening on different industry sectors are further analyzed. The study results indicate that the introduction of a subway is able to significantly promote the development of the suburban economy. Moreover, the impacts of a subway announcement and opening on different industry sectors are heterogeneous.

Abstract

Sidewalks represent a fundamental part of the infrastructure in cities, allowing equal and barrier-free access for everyone. However, while pedestrian accessibility is a frequent concern in developed countries, it receives little attention in developing regions. Regarding studies on pedestrian infrastructure, the characteristics of the sidewalk that are considered are also varied, as well as the aspects mainly focused on by such research. Moreover, the perception of the target user group, especially of people with disabilities, can be an important topic in this area. In this context, this paper presents a systematic literature review of sidewalk assessments, focusing on accessibility, to answer the following research questions. In which contexts are sidewalk assessments carried out? Which aspects and elements are usually considered? Are people with disabilities included? We noticed that sidewalk assessments have been a recent study topic, but with less focus on the Global South. Besides accessibility, walkability stands out as a research focus, and the sidewalk elements most addressed are surface conditions and width. Finally, the perceptions of people, especially with disabilities, are scarcely considered, demonstrating an important research gap.

Practical Applications

The sidewalk is a very important element of the city. It should allow walking, with accessibility for everyone. However, there are three things to consider: (i) sometimes the importance of an accessible sidewalk is not recognized in developing countries; (ii) the different characteristics and aspects of the sidewalk are considered differently between different studies; and (iii) the opinions of pedestrians, especially of people with disabilities, are not always present in evaluations of sidewalks. Thus, the aim of this study is to develop a systematic literature review to better understand how the sidewalks are evaluated in different studies, especially considering accessibility. In the study, the previous three findings were confirmed, with the conclusion that (i) evaluation of sidewalks is a recent topic of study, but mostly in developed countries; (ii) accessibility, walkability, and safety are frequent topics in sidewalk assessments, with surface conditions and width being the most evaluated characteristics; and (iii) few studies consider the opinions of pedestrians with disabilities. These three findings indicate topics that need to be better studied and focused on in urban planning.

Urban renewal is one of the most important topics in urban studies. However, this topic still does not receive a systematic review by bibliometrics to reveal the current situation. Therefore, the study collected data from the Web of Science core collection and applied statistical and co-occurrence analysis to recognize the productive academic entities of crucial journals and publications and the relationship between references, journals, and keywords. Results show that China receives the most attention currently, while the United States began related research as a pioneer, and the international scholarly collaboration in urban renewal is uneven. However, global academia gradually focuses on sustainability and energy utilization. Furthermore, there are four hotspots: the practices and theories in urban renewal, environment protection, future energy utilization, and the urban environment’s impact on individuals. The study can assist related stakeholders in recognizing the foci, research trends, and knowledge base to understand urban renewal better.

Most of the Indian cities that follow a centralized model of sewerage systems are facing several challenges in its effective implementation and operation. Decentralized systems are identified as a viable alternative to centralized sewerage systems in various studies, mainly because of their water recycling prospects and building resilience. However, there is a lack of studies that compare centralized and decentralized sewerage networks considering real-life data. To bridge this gap, the present study considers Ludhiana, India, for conducting a detailed economic comparison based on the network’s capital costs for both systems. The decentralized systems show almost similar capital costs as the centralized system in this study. Hence, both systems can be adopted based on capital cost. However, the study shows that decentralized systems offer more water recycling opportunities, making them preferable to centralized systems. The study also emphasizes that the choice of sewerage systems should be context-specific to fetch maximum economic and environmental benefits.

Abstract

Urban green space is an essential green infrastructure and spatial guarantee for sustainable development in Shanghai, China. Additionally, its spatial layout’s rationality directly influences the city’s disaster prevention and reduction effect. To use the buffer analysis method, this study selected the ArcGIS 9.0 software platform for making a quantitative analysis of disaster-proof green space service capacity in downtown Shanghai based on relevant construction standards and specifications. The results showed the following: (1) the distribution pattern of disaster-proof green space in downtown Shanghai is less homogeneously distributed in the central area but more homogeneously distributed in the edge area; (2) the service area of all disaster-proof green spaces in the central urban area of Shanghai accounted for 85.07% of the total area, with a service population of 12,516,600. Less than 15% of the area was still uncovered, meaning 2,196,700 people were unserved. These results suggest that the buffer radius of disaster-avoidance green space reaches 400 m. It covers the largest area and serves the largest population, accounting for more than 50% of the central urban area. The mismatch between urban green space distribution and population distribution patterns affected the service effect difference of green space for disaster avoidance. Therefore, new urban green spaces, stadiums, school playgrounds, and other open spaces could be added to enhance the (emergency) urban disaster avoidance ability of central urban areas; (3) the whole central urban area should form an urban mesh disaster avoidance system by combining points, lines, and surfaces with emergency and temporary shelters as first-level disaster avoidance points, fixed and central shelters as second-level disaster avoidance points, urban branch roads and secondary roads as disaster avoidance channels, and expressways and main urban roads as disaster-relief channels.

Practical Applications

Urban green space is an essential green infrastructure and space guarantee for sustainable urban development. The rationality of urban green space layout directly influences urban disaster prevention and reduction. With the acceleration of the current urbanization process, urban population size and building density are increasing, and the open urban green space enjoyed by residents is sharply reducing, making it difficult to realize the disaster avoidance function of urban green space. Therefore, a quantitative analysis of urban green space disaster prevention and disaster avoidance function has become essential for domestic and foreign urban green space disaster prevention and mitigation work. The evaluation of the disaster avoidance function of urban green space in this study can provide a crucial scientific basis and theoretical reference for urban planners to rationally lay out urban emergency shelters (green space) and formulate effective emergency disaster reduction countermeasures.

Urban vitality and neighborhood satisfaction are areas of great interest within the field of urban studies, as a measure of the attractiveness of a city and as an evaluation that residents make of their living environments. Using survey and geospatial data from the Longitudinal Social Study of Chile (2019) and the JANE Index (2021), this study performs regression analysis to examine the relationship between urban vitality and neighborhood satisfaction. Through a set of variables that evaluate the neighborhood such as safety, connectivity, green and recreational areas, cleanliness and beauty, proximity to the main activity, and proximity to commercial areas, we analyze the relationship with six conditions for urban vitality. These conditions are features objectively measured from the built environment, which provide information about concentration of people and buildings, diversity in land use, contact opportunity provided by the urban fabric, presence of old buildings, accessibility to the public transport, and the distance to large infrastructures that act as border vacuums for people. The results show that most conditions for urban vitality are significant predictors of neighborhood satisfaction. Not all components of urban vitality, however, are positively associated with higher neighborhood satisfaction, as attributes such as concentration and satisfaction with green and recreational areas in the neighborhood are in fact negatively correlated. Conclusions show the importance of including subjective factors in projects meant to transform the built environment in search of increased vitality.

China’s rural revitalization strategy has created higher requirements for equalizing public services in towns and villages. In this regard, big data has been used to evaluate the accessibility of public service facilities in villages and towns (PSFVTs) to improve the spatial fairness of public services. Taking Suining County, Xuzhou, China, as an example, this study used point-of-interest (POI) data and accessibility analysis to establish a framework to evaluate the accessibility of different types of services and travel modes. The results revealed significant differences in the accessibility of PSFVTs. Specifically, the accessibility of the county center and each town center decreased for surrounding villages and towns located at the boundary areas. Among the three modes of travel, walking accessibility was found to be low, and riding could basically meet the travel needs of villages and towns. Driving exacerbated inequalities in rural residents’ access to external services. Based on the results, Suining County needs to add walkable facilities for the elderly and children to improve the servicing capacity of regional facilities. This study can provide a reference for allocating public service resources and service equalization in villages and towns.

Streets provide necessary infrastructure in cities, but urban residents rarely have the opportunity to choose a good street and avoid a bad one. Therefore, it is crucial to construct safe and beautiful streetscapes for users, especially pedestrians. This work explores the impact of streetscape characteristics under both daylight and night-time conditions, extracted from photographs, on the perceived safety and aesthetic appreciation of pedestrians in Xuzhou, China. The results show the following. (1) Perceived safety and aesthetic appreciation in the daytime are significantly greater than at night. (2) The higher the percentage of buildings and motor vehicles in the photographs, the lower the perceived safety. The higher the percentage of vegetation, the greater the aesthetic appreciation. (3) Illuminating pedestrians’ immediate surroundings is conducive to improving the perceived safety of pedestrians. Finally, this paper suggests improvements to the perceived safety and aesthetic quality of streetscapes in the daytime and at night. These can be used to facilitate improved city streetscape design. However, these results should be used cautiously as the use of photograph-based analysis may not fully reflect the in situ situation.

With the large-scale implementation of China’s ex situ poverty alleviation relocation (ESPAR) policy, China’s poverty-alleviation migrants (PAMs) have increased significantly in a short period of time. The majority of the literature has indicated that the changes associated with resettlement in, for example, livelihood, living environment, and living standards have improved the lives of the PAMs. However, a few researchers have studied PAMs’ subjective well-being (SWB) after relocation. Taking the PAMs in Anshun City, Guizhou Province of China as an example, this work used interviews and questionnaire surveys to investigate the well-being of PAMs under three resettlement models––resettlement in nearby villages and townships, resettlement in county seats, and resettlement in cities. Through a multiple linear regression model, we analyzed the SWB level and influencing factors of PAMs, and the differences in SWB under different resettlement models. The results show that: (1) the overall SWB level of PAMs is relatively high; (2) living conditions and public services, livelihoods and housing, lifestyle, and social networks all have significant impacts on the SWB of PAMs; and (3) the SWB levels of the migrants resettled in county seats is the highest, followed by resettlement in cities, and resettlement in nearby villages and townships. We also put forward relevant guiding suggestions, hoping to provide references for the sustainable development of future ESPAR projects. Moreover, we hope that this work has guiding significance for improving the mental health of PAMs and constructing healthy living cities for PAMs.

This paper analyzes the relationship between tourist attraction appraisal and local environment improvement. Using a panel data set of 150 top tourist cities in China from 2004 to 2019, the paper adopts a two-way fixed effects model to test the impact of 5A-level tourist attraction appraisal on local environment improvement. The main conclusions are given as follows: First, 5A-level tourist attraction appraisal can motivate local governments to improve the local environment. Second, the environmental improvement effect of 5A-level tourist attraction appraisal is influenced by a city’s tourism resource dependence. In cities with higher tourism resource dependence, 5A-level tourist attraction appraisal is more conducive to improving the local environment. Third, 5A-level tourist attraction appraisal has caused stronger environmental improvement effects for natural tourist attractions than for cultural tourist attractions. These results highlight that urban planners should pay attention to the mechanism of tourist attraction appraisal to improve the urban environment, while promoting economic development.

Spatially equitable educational facilities play an important role in narrowing the gap between social strata. This paper, taking the example of Lanzhou, aims to classify households into different social strata by the hierarchical cluster method and analyze their spatial feature to identify the strata attributes of the community and calculate the spatial equity of educational facilities within different strata by constructing a fairness index model. We verify the positive correlation between social stratification level and educational equity, which has been largely ignored in previous studies based on basic education facilities. The results indicate that the spatial differentiation trend of social strata in Lanzhou shows that a circle structure of the center belongs to the upper social stratum and the marginal areas belong to the lower social stratum. Urban villages in the urban fringe are an important area of social stratum differentiation. Different social strata have significant differences in terms of access to educational facilities. The spatial fairness of educational facilities from high to low is the wealthy and the elite class (WEC), the middle class (MC), the low class (LC), and the lower class (LEC). The higher the social class level is, the greater the equity difference. The lower the social class is, the smaller the difference. The equity of educational facilities within the WEC and the MC is obviously better than that of the LC and the LEC. The spatial distribution of educational facilities among social strata is unfair, and at the urban edge, there exists an obvious weakening phenomenon of spatial justice and social equity.

This study investigates neighborly relations affecting mechanisms in participatory regeneration, based on cases of three typical types of urban neighborhoods in Shanghai: traditional Lilong residence, work-unit compounds, and commodity estates. We find that participatory regeneration affects neighborly relations through the collaboration and the physical improvements of the communal space. Although collaboration and physical improvements positively contribute to the enhancement of neighborly relations in traditional residence and work-unit compounds, neighborly relations are similar between neighborhoods with and without participatory regeneration because they have intense existing neighborly relations. Although the physical improvement of the communal space tends to decrease neighborly relations, the overall neighborly relations in commodity estates with participatory regeneration are stronger than the comparison group due to the contribution of collaboration. This study emphasizes the vital role of collaboration as affecting neighborly relations in commodity housing and generates practical implications for urban regeneration strategies in commodity estates and in urban planning in future.

The governance of urban shrinkage has recently become an important topic for geographers and urban planners. However, a comprehensive exploration of the various spatial problems and governance paths in shrinking cities remains a huge gap in urban shrinkage governance literature. Building on the review and induction of extensive literature, this paper constructs a theoretical framework for the spatial governance of urban shrinkage from four perspectives: conceptual connotations, influencing factors, paths, and effects. By field investigation and policy interpretation, it takes Jixi City as a case, a coal-based shrinking city in China, to explore the policy response of the government and their effects. We find that the spatial governance of Jixi is a process of multisubject participation and multielement integration focusing on various spatial issues, which confirms the rationality of the analytical framework. Also, there are both similarities and differences in the spatial governance of urban shrinkage between Western countries and Chinese. This study enriches the theory of urban shrinkage governance, shows Chinese characteristics in urban governance, and provides governance enlightenment for other shrinking cities.

Walking is proven to be one of the most sustainable transport modes with significant health and environmental advantages, thus improving people’s quality of life (QoL) and the city’s liveability. Moreover, pedestrianization is emphasized to have substantial economic benefits in reducing congestion, accident, and health costs. It is important to study what motivates a visitor to visit pedestrianized urban streets, which can help extend such initiatives for an improved QoL. Motivation is considered a key driving force to interpret an individual’s behavior. This paper tries to identify the motivational factors of visitors of a pedestrianized urban street in India, measure their satisfaction level, and revisit and advocacy intention. A questionnaire survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 518 respondents. The latent constructs were identified using structural equation modeling to investigate empirically the causal relationships among the factors considered. The study’s findings can help understand the push and pull components that motivate citizens to visit the pedestrianized street. This gives a valuable insight to the city planners that the QoL can be improved by providing such vibrant pedestrianized streets in a city where citizens can walk freely. It also helps build community feelings, and citizens take pride in living in such cities.

China has experienced rapid urbanization in the last few decades. In this context, housing demolition becomes a challenge involving people’s livelihood during the process of urban renewal. As a legacy issue, the governance of informal housing is imminent. Small-property-rights housing (SPRH) refers to long-term, large-scale informal housing built on collectively owned land in China. Although Collectively Owned Land Price Assessment Guidance stipulates that SPRH cannot be demolished forcibly without compensation. However, Land Management Law states that compensation standards depend on local governments, resulting in unfair compensation. By integrating the first-difference model (FDM) and the boundary-fixed-effect model into the hedonic pricing model, this study proposes a model of demolition compensation of SPRH based on market value standard, which takes state-owned land compensation standard and residential land floor price into account. Using the case of Nanjing, this study estimates whether Xingdu Garden’s demolition compensation deviates from a reasonable level. The results indicate that compensation is reasonable. Residents can take advantage of compensation to purchase affordable housing, and generous subsidies have significantly improved their living standards. FDM can also offer technical support for assessing the rationality of informal housing compensation. These findings, providing a reference for urban renewal and social equity, can be applied to other cities.