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In sub-Saharan African cities, community-driven development has emerged as a collective response to entrenched socio-spatial inequalities and inappropriate local development planning responses to the challenges of informal settlements. Social capital is considered to stimulate such community-driven initiatives. There are also claims that social capital can impede the sustainable development of informal settlements. Yet, none of these streams pay due attention to what forms of social capital and what urban social context social capital influences community-led informal settlement improvement. This paper sought to examine the influential role of bonding and bridging social capital on community-driven development (CDD) by comparing indigenous and migrant urban informal settlements in Accra, Ghana. Drawing on a quantitative study with 300 participants in two informal settlements and using a robust multi-group analysis, the findings revealed that bonding social capital had a positive effect on CDD (β = 0.27, p = 0.05) in the indigenous informal settlement (Abese Quarter) but insignificant relationship (β = -0.33, p = 0.36) in the migrant informal settlement (Old-Tulaku). Contrarily, bridging social capital had a positive effect on the migrant (β = 0.87, p = 0.05) but not on indigenous informal settlements (β = 0.07, p = 0.09). The paper concludes that the exploitation of social capital in bottom-up informal settlement improvement is more nuanced, and context-specific applications are imperative for research and practice. For policymakers and built environment professionals, the paper suggests leveraging social capital as a means (not ends) for building formal-informal collaborations through the co-production of bottom-up initiatives for inclusive and sustainable improvements to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives. • Social capital's role in community-driven development (CDD) is inconclusive and fragmented. • We examine the influence of bonding and bridging social capital in two contrasting urban informal settlements. • Bonding social capital positively affected CDD in the indigenous informal settlement but was insignificant in the migrant one. • Bridging social capital positively influenced CDD in the migrant informal settlement but not in the indigenous one. • Formal-informal collaborations are essential to maximize the positives of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing call for heritage management to decentralise and involve stakeholders outside of the sphere of governance. This research focuses on participatory conservation of heritage resources and the value of narrative in heritage conservation and tourism development. The case study is situated in the city of Makhanda, which was established in 1812 and possesses a significant number of individual built environment heritage resources and historic streetscapes. These urban features have been identified as assets to the city by various stakeholders and institutions, but they remain under threat. Utilising semi-structured interviews with owners of historic residential properties in the city, the paper argues that homeowners are an underutilised resource in the management of the historic urban fabric. The study found that homeowners held an appreciation for and identified the value of the historic features of their properties, and it argues that this appreciation can be harnessed in heritage management. Interviews revealed, however, that homeowners faced many challenges in managing and maintaining their historic properties and received little support in this regard. Citizen participation in heritage conservation was limited and a top-down approach to heritage resource management predominated. • Local built environment heritage resources linked to the character of the city. • The conservation of these heritage resources is threatened. • Residential property owners value historic buildings, but face challenges. • Property owners are not consulted, supported or empowered. • Top-down heritage management needs to shift towards citizen participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities in the context of what is considered as the Global South are experiencing rapid urbanisation through which various villages have been incorporated into the city and became Villages-in-the-City (ViCs). While ViCs are here to stay, little is known about their morphogenesis as they have generally been considered as part of the negative image of the city and the related planning policies often tend to merely focus on eradication. Deploying urban mapping as a key method and using the Google Earth database, this study explores the morphogenesis of ViCs and maps the incremental transformations of building footprints and access networks across three case studies in Hanoi city, Vietnam. The findings of this paper can inform the ways in which the built environment professions can engage with the upgrading and integration of ViCs. The outcome of this study also challenges the conventional narratives and constructed images that simply consider ViCs as haphazard and disordered settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to rapid informatization and increasing urban sprawl, currently, metropolitan residents are facing challenges regarding spatial imbalance between their home, workplace, and activity locations, which seriously affects the quality of life and subjective well-being of urban residents. However, only a few existing studies have analyzed the relationship between home, workplace, and other activity spaces of urban residents and the influence mechanism of spatial separation of the three locations. In this study, we used the mobile phone signaling data of the residents of Beijing for May 2019 to explore the degree of mutual separation of the three locations, based on the identification of the homes, workplaces, and main activity spaces of over 2.3 million residents in Beijing. Leveraging these data, we discussed the influence mechanism of activity separation, in terms of the built environment and socioeconomic factors. The results indicated that the degree of the home-workplace separation was the highest, followed by the home-workplace-activity space separation, and the home-activity space separation was the lowest. Notably, the three types of spatial separations had significant spatial disparities. Attribution analysis indicated housing price as the dominant factor affecting the spatial separation of the residents, while the accessibility and location also having important effects. Moreover, the interaction of these factors had a stronger explanatory power for the spatial separation of the daily activity spaces of the urban residents. This study is the first to estimate the degree of spatial separation among the homes, workplaces, and other activity spaces of urban residents and analyzed their correlation using geographic context factors. Our results can provide useful scientific insights to explore the spatial characteristics of the home-work-activity relationship with respect to metropolitan residents and optimize the spatial distribution of urban functions. • 2.3 million Beijing residents' homes, workplaces, and major activity spaces were identified based on mobile phone data. • This study is the first paper to estimate the spatial separation among the homes, workplaces, and activity spaces. • The separations of homes, workplaces, and activity spaces had significant spatial heterogeneity at the subdistrict scale. • Housing price is the dominant factor for the spatial separation, and accessibility and location also had important effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies nostalgia for the socialist period in Tirana departing from the city's post-socialist period frenetic urban developmental context. Informal settlements and semiformal additions characterized the post-socialist city up to the year 2000. In contrast, high-rise buildings and inner-city densification feature the later period. Such developments have worsened the urban dwelling quality and comfort, mainly due to the loss of public green spaces and sportive areas. The study aims to comprehensively evaluate nostalgia for the socialist city. To achieve this, the methodology employs sampling and surveying with Tirana citizens (N = 225). The sampling includes selection of Tirana dwellers from nine different housing typologies, who are deemed the most representative from the social class and citizenship point of view. The results show that most of the interviewees have expressed nostalgia about the lost built environment. Other forms of nostalgia reported were related to social values, and memories. A minority have not expressed any nostalgia, mostly those who are autochthonous Tirana dwellers. The form of nostalgia for socialist Tirana's lost built environment differs from forms found in other studies, defined as socio-political or cultural. It points out a nostalgia form that relies on the socialist city's positively evaluated built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]