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The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of greenspace patterns on cooling effects from urban greenspaces. Greenspace has been argued to have significant potential to mitigate urban heat island effect in urban areas, and thus to reduce risks to human health and wellbeing intensified by global warming. Based on remote sensing data and subsequent spatial analysis carried out for Taipei Metropolis, this paper argues that greenspace features lowering temperature within greenspaces are not necessarily to have explicit cooling contribution on surrounding built environments. For mitigating urban heat at the area nearby greenspaces, greenspace size, shape and greenness may have limited effect, whereas increasing greenery at greenspace edges and enhancing greenspace cohesion are more effective means of extending cooling benefits. In turn, findings from Taipei Metropolis suggest urban planners ought to: consider relative locations in the city when designing a cooling intervention; work to preserve large greenspaces; extent greenery at greenspace surroundings and find means to connect existing cool islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As relative stability returns to many parts of Syria after ten years of armed conflict, several cities are beginning to restore urban life through planning interventions and reconstruction projects. However, unbalanced urban growth, partly due to the presence of internally displaced persons (IDPs), presents significant challenges for major cities. Yet, the odds of the returning decision are reduced due to several challenges such as lack of infrastructure, inadequate public services, housing shortage, and social barriers. This paper outlines how Syria can develop more liveable, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable places in the post-conflict phase. It projects four scenarios, each with varying numbers and characteristics of returning refugees and IDPs. Next, it compares the returnees' potential residential patterns and urban concentration to Zipf's Law, a normalised distribution of 'ideal' city sizes. The paper proposes polycentric development approach for the best chance at balancing development, sustainability, and mass returns in the recovery phase. It is concluded that the effectiveness of post-conflict administration of spatial development will affect the Syrian exiles' behaviour, both the number of those who decide to return and the spatial choice for those who actually return. • Polycentric Development as a spatial planning approach for post-conflict recovery. • Future plausible scenarios of residential patterns for returning refugees and IDPs. • Post-conflict administration of spatial development affects returnees behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper investigates differentials in key socioeconomic attributes and environmental conditions and the resultant effects on environmental health in the Lagos Metropolis. A comparative study of Ikoyi, Dolphin Estate and Obalende, three contiguous neighbourhoods (low, medium and high density) is done. Issues examined include housing and environmental conditions; socioeconomic characteristics such as age, gender, income, household size and level of education were also considered. The major similarities and differences were identified and their implications on public health within each subset were determined. The study shows that socio-economic attributes and indeed aspects of the built environment tend to interact with and magnify health disparities; Average monthly income was US$833, US$500 and US$150 in Ikoyi, Dolphin Estate and Obalende respectively. Household access to safe water was ranging from 71% in Ikoyi to 28% in Obalende hence the high incidence of sanitation ailments there. The paper concludes by suggesting measures to mitigate identified disparities and aid the evolution of a more equitable and healthy Lagos. These include the integration of urban planning and public health and the enforcement of basic sanitation regulations in the study area. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Latin America is a highly urbanized region characterized by remarkable inequality levels, also reflected in an uneven distribution of opportunities, making socio-economic segregation quite visible. Since the individual possibility to travel and therefore access to urban opportunities strongly depends on socio-economic status and the distances to overcome, highly unequal patterns of mobility and accessibility emerge. The continuous expansion of Latin American cities originates specific mobility-related inequalities visible in periurban areas, which tend to lack some key urban opportunities and public transport services usually available in cities. Due to established and new patterns of territorial segregation, these areas may generate new forms of marginality in relation to mobility, posing challenges for public action and territorial governance. Our paper considers if and how periurban areas experience different forms of mobility-related inequalities in three Latin American metropolises in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia (São Paulo, Santiago, and Bogotá, respectively). We do so by examining the differences among urban core and periurban zones based on four elements: socio-demographic features, access to the public transport system, spatial continuity, and functional dependence. Our analysis shows that the three metropolitan regions have different structures: while Bogotá and Santiago appear to be more dependent on the urban core, São Paulo shows more autonomous and self-sufficient periurban zones. The analysis also highlights different forms of peripherality, defined by differentiated mobility patterns and modal choices that suggest that city-specific lines for public action might be needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the modern metropolis, the coverage of community hospitals is getting larger and larger. But high-level hospitals treating serious and sudden illness are still kind of scarce social resources. Shenzhen is the forefront of China's reform and opening up, its solution to the problem of medical allocation can be used as a reference for other cities. In this paper, we assume that primary, secondary and tertiary hospitals are main places for treating major diseases in Shenzhen, and analyze each sub-districts' spatial accessibility to them based on travel time and spatial difference within the city. A kernel density two-step floating catchment area method (KD2SFCA) is used to calculate how many medical resources each sub-district could share, in which the travel time from residential district to hospitals is used as an important parameter in evaluating the accessibility between suppliers and demanders. According to statistics of travel time by both driving and public transportation, the impedance function in KD2SFCA is modified and actual data of Shenzhen is used to fit its parameters, which could better simulate the attenuation trend of hospital service capabilities over the travel time. The spatial accessibilities are calculated under different travel modes and multiple time thresholds, and then spatial autocorrelation analysis method is used to analyze the spatial correlation of residents' accessibility to these medical resources. From both analysis of spatial accessibility and spatial autocorrelation, distinct variations in spatial distribution of high-level hospitals could be observed: of which the south and central parts of Shenzhen have significantly higher accessibilities, while the eastern and western regions are relatively lower. In particular, 12 sub-districts gain quite lower scores than others, showing that constructions on high-level hospitals should be strengthened further. In conclusion, the spatial configuration of high level hospitals in Shenzhen is not well balanced, Further optimization is urgently needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finance represents a major barrier to real estate development in Ghana and constraints responsible remain unknown. In order to gain insight into this important social/economic issue, a positivist tradition of thinking via the survey approach sought to uncover, explain and rank these constraints using the Relative Importance Index. A total of 53 questionnaires were distributed to real estate developers within the Kumasi Metropolis of Ghana. The survey reveals that real estate developers predominantly use debt financing including short-term bank loans, mortgages and hire purchase. Finance is constrained by five main factors: i) legislation; ii) macroeconomic barriers; iii) collateral barriers; iv) inadequate risk assessment and diversification mechanisms; and v) a dearth of financial mobilization mechanisms. This paper provides a practical reference for the targeting of policy interventions to overcome these constraints and to catalyse the development of finance for real estate infrastructure delivery. The work is also useful to the Government, banks and capital market regulators who seek to develop the capital market to provide appropriate financing options. These options may include real estate investment trusts (REITs) and risk reduction/diversification platform via derivatives. Future research is proposed which seeks to explore practical innovations in designing tailor-made real estate financing options that meet the needs of real estate developers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethiopia has experienced rapid urbanization over the past three decades. Several cities expanded rapidly and many satellite towns sprung up around the major cities. The high rate of urbanization and urban growth resulted in high demand for urban land, mainly for industrial, commercial, and residential purposes. In order to meet the demand, an enormous amount of land has been made available for urban use, mainly through land conversion. However, we know very little about how efficiently cities use urban land. This paper investigated the urban land use efficiency (ULUE) of sixteen cities in Ethiopia. Remote sensing data (Landsat 7/8) was analysed with ArcGIS to assess spatiotemporal land use changes between 2007 and 2019. Built-up environment footprints were computed from Google Earth imagery. The ratio of land consumption to population growth rate, and the rate of urban infill were assessed. The findings revealed a prevalence of urban land use inefficiencies in all cities. In most cities, the rate of land consumption far exceeds the population growth rate. Densification (urban infill) is low and slow. A considerable part of the converted agricultural land sits idle within the built-up area for many years. Low ULUE is what fuels urban sprawl, fragmentation and informal settlements. This study emphasised the need to implement urban policies and practices aimed at improving ULUE. Improving ULUE is imperative to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals; ensuring sustainable urban land use; addressing land prices and housing shortages; protecting farmland and ecosystems; tackling land hoarding, urban sprawl and informal settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global urbanization has produced a number of metropolises with complex urban spatial structures. Compared with monocentric cities, these metropolises typically have multiple urban centers/subcenters (UCSs). The formation and development of UCSs is driven by physical, economic and human-activity-related factors. The planning of UCSs can significantly affect the future development of a city. Considerable research has been conducted to investigate the different morphologies and functions of UCSs. Mixed findings have been reported for the identification of UCSs, which is mainly due to the ambiguity of their conceptualizations, variety of data types, different spatial scales, and diverse identification methods. Therefore, existing approaches must be evaluated to clarify their use in different social, economic and environmental contexts. In this study, we conducted a systematic literature review of 70 journal papers published from 1990 to 2020 with respect to the concepts, data, analytical units, and methods used to identify UCSs. By comparing their strengths and weaknesses, the critical issues of these methodological frameworks are identified. The findings suggest that the preferred path for identifying UCSs is one that is objective, context-appropriate, theoretically supported, and based on data. • The identification of urban centers/subcenters (UCSs) is essential for urban planning and policy making. • Methodological frameworks for identifying UCSs were compared regarding concepts, data, analytical units, and methods. • A preferred path to identify UCSs should be objective-oriented, context-derived, theory-supported, and data-considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban spatial structure and mobility patterns co-evolve. A fundamental process that underpins the emergent structure of cities and commuting patterns is location choice with respect to housing and employment. Consequently, location choice models constitute important sub-components of land use-and-transport-interaction (LUTI) and urban growth models. This paper documents the development and application of the Metropolitan Location and Mobility Patterns Simulator (METLOMP-SIM). METLOMP-SIM is a geospatial agent-based model that simulates how urban structure and travel patterns co-emerge, as a function of the location decisions of heterogeneous households and individuals within a spatially-explicit urban context. After specifying a generic conceptual model that identifies the model's structure, entities and agents' decision-making framework, METLOMP-SIM is implemented using the Kumasi Metropolis in Ghana, Sub-Saharan Africa as case study. Overall, the implemented model demonstrates that the encoded micro-scale behaviour of households and individuals are able to mimic some macro-scale residential and job location patterns, and patterns of home-work trip flows that closely match patterns in the case study metropolis. The current model represents property and job market dynamics in both their 'formal' and 'informal' manifestations, making it potentially relevant to dynamic, agent-based LUTI model development and applications in Sub-Saharan African cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increase in the size of the urban population of the world and the extensive urbanization in the peripheral areas of metropolises is one of the emerging phenomena of the twentieth century, and for several years has become the implicit theme of urban and regional studies. Since the beginning of the 20th century, many attempts have been made to conceptualize these emerging phenomena, which in some cases, the multiplicity of these concepts, have led to confusion in the definition and understanding of the phenomenon. The present paper uses a meta-study strategy to study 19 concepts related to the spatial territories of the peripheral areas of metropolises, according to the parameters of spatial structure, functional structure, and semantic structure, and we, respectively, categorized them in three types: a) A contiguous peri-urban/intermediate peri-urban/rural peri-urban; b) An independent, productive, regular, sustainable peri-urban/dependent, destructive, disturbed, unstable peri-urban, c) An objective and subjective peri-urban. Obviously, this research, with an emphasis on the distinctive characteristics of the three typologies, can be an important step towards a more comprehensive understanding of these spatial territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]