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Turkey is vulnerable to disasters such as earthquakes, flood, and landslides. Millions of housing units are planned to be demolished and rebuilt in the next 15 years within the scope of urban transformation. The existing legal framework and implementations are hardly participatory and thus cause conflicts. The aims of this study are: 1) to address the weaknesses and strengths of urban transformation practices in Turkey critically with a focus on Istanbul, and 2) to develop a new participatory design model for urban transformation processes by making use of contextualised ICT-based participation tools and techniques. This paper critically maps and discusses urban transformation processes in Istanbul by tracing how these practices take place on the ground and considering the different perspectives of stakeholder groups. We present an applicable model that consists of a system of participatory actions, interaction environments such as an expert collaboration platform developed specifically for Istanbul’s urban transformation process.

Municipal Authorities (Assemblies) in Ghana have been unable to generate adequate revenue to effectively manage sanitation. To address this challenge, the Akuapem North and Ga West Municipalities have recently introduced a sanitation surcharge, which is collected through property rates. Using a mixed-method approach, this paper assesses the attitudes of policymakers and taxpayers towards the policy and the implications for its effective implementation. Qualitative data were collected through interviews with officials of the Municipal Assemblies while quantitative data were collected through a survey of 832 randomly selected property owners. The study revealed that policymakers’ de jure acceptance of the policy has not translated into de facto implementation. Although most taxpayers support the policy, a significant minority of them oppose it due to lack of trust in the Assemblies. Therefore, the Assemblies need to devise effective communication strategies, and enhance transparency in the use of revenue collected through the surcharge.

This paper contributes to the study of climate change and environmental justice with a particular focus on a Global South case-study in the São Paulo Macro Metropolis of Brazil. We also aim to contribute to mandatory critical dialogue between (anticipatory) governance and environmental justice. This study focuses on the rainy seasons from 2016 to 2019. We examine the incidence of 61 extreme precipitation events, as well as 47 deaths caused by rain events, considering their location based on vulnerability indicators. The correlations among these data allow us to reveal the socio-environmental patterns within the relationships between social vulnerability and deaths caused by general rainfall and, more specifically, extreme events. Based on this, we demonstrate that current infrastructure or its lack is one of the reasons why death tolls remain due to the absence of anticipatory governance.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports published within the issue which include urban transformations, earthen dwellings, and impact of urban agriculture on sustainability.

Planned after the City Beautiful Movement and Garden City Movement, Manila City and Quezon City, now among Metro Manila's 16 cities, did not result in the desired outcomes of their planners. The history of unfulfilled visions that began with Burnham's 1905 Plan for Manila repeated in similar fashion in Quezon City in its 1949 Frost-Arellano Plan. How do Metro Manila's public green spaces, as remnants of these plans, sustained specific visions for meeting human needs? To find answers, we focused on Rizal Park and the University of the Philippines (UP) Academic Oval – two public green spaces that remained from the Burnham and Frost-Arellano plans. Contemporary uses of these spaces suggest that the intermingling of the upper and lower classes as envisioned in these plans is limited; nonetheless, they represent endeavours by fairly diverse groups to actively satisfy human needs within and beyond how these spaces were initially designed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water, energy, and food are a key approach for addressing urban sustainability. The demand for those basic living resources will increase in the coming decades, jeopardising urban sustainability, especially in peripheral urban areas. This makes necessary to apply methods to improve social participation to better assess the availability of urban nexus resources (water, energy and food – WEF) for community's local development. Participatory Geographic Information Systems are powerful planning tool that aims to represent local knowledge, by applying geotechnologies and collaborative mapping techniques. This article explores the potential of PGIS for engaging youth in mapping the nexus in Novo Recreio, Guarulhos, São Paulo. aiming to raise socioenvironmental awareness, co-create knowledge, and determine potential improvements and solutions for local urban planning engaging youths. Outcomes showed that the youths mapped their socioenvironmental perceptions regarding to the WEF elements, and new proposals were developed, demonstrating that PGIS was a suitable method contributing towards improving local and regional urban governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brazilian trajectory has been marked by the evolution from sanitary approaches that prioritised outright slum clearance -prevailing until the mid-1970s- to the implicit tolerance of its permanency in urban areas and the subsequent design and implementation of upgrading programs aimed at the consolidation of slums and their insertion into the broader urban fabric. The Informal City and the Phenomenon of Slums: the challenges of slum upgrading and slum prevention. However, on the basis of our case studies we provide a set of hypotheses: out-dated demographic and social data to ensure an adequate planning of the intervention; deficient design of technical intervention proposals; territorial and demographic transformations occurring in slums between planning and interventions; and the difficulty to link slum upgrading and housing programs. Slum Upgrading beyond incubation: exploring the dilemmas of nation-wide large scale policy interventions in Brazil's growth acceleration programme (PAC) Keywords: Slum Upgrading Policy; Brazil; Growth Acceleration Program EN Slum Upgrading Policy Brazil Growth Acceleration Program 530 545 16 01/28/22 20211201 NES 211201 1. [Extracted from the article]

The removal of excreta or faecal sludge from full pit latrines – pit emptying – is essential to extend the life of the sanitation technology, especially for the millions of users living in the dense, urban areas of the Global South. Unfortunately, pit-emptying is rarely practiced due to factors related to accessibility, disgust, and importantly, cost. We examined the impact of two different types of vouchers distributed in Blantyre, Malawi, to understand if and how subsidies could increase the practice of pit emptying in low-income areas. We found that pit emptying businesses were able to game the system to charge more money on top of the discount in the first study in which 21% vouchers were redeemed from 252 distributed. In a follow-up study, 25% vouchers were redeemed from 400 distributed with more rigorous subsidy targeting and structuring. We discuss why complex drivers for subsidy adoption among low-income households require further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vertical farming (VF) is a new idea for supplying food inside the cities. Therefore, there is a lack of academic research concerning community acceptance (CA) of VF. This study aims to identify the CA factors of VF in Kuala Lumpur (KL). The results are based on interviews with experts as well as a questionnaire survey, that says eight factors, Perceived Benefit, Perceived Risk, Location, Demographic characteristics, Value and Belief, Trust, Fairness, and Knowledge are affecting the CA of VF in KL. Also, the results revealed that the analysis of the related literature was different from the significant factors. Then the underlying components of these factors were identified and a new framework was developed. The findings of this study could positively contribute to knowledge generation, stakeholder network establishment, new project implementation, and improvement of the general perception of VF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biking contributes to a better environment by reducing short car trips and improving public health. The street-scale built environment affects the appeal of streets to cyclists, and thus influences route choice behaviour. This study develops a stated choice experiment that systematically varies eight attributes of the built environment to examine preference structure differences pertaining to the street-scale built environment among cyclists in the context of access/egress trip to a metro station. The environment is systematically varied in terms of road length, average number of building floors, retail frontage, cycling facilities at intersections, bike lane width, greenery, lamp density, and crowdedness. Eight hundred and three respondents completed the choice task using face to face interviews in Tianjin, China. Results suggest the existence of two latent classes of cyclists that differ in their preference for the street-scale built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are patterns, outcomes, and factors emerging from the urban environmental sustainability actions? To what extent do the conditions of action arenas facilitate urban environmental actions? In this research, the community-level public space named 'neighbourhood activity centres' in Taipei City is observed and investigated. Besides the field observation effort, a data set is established with the combination of subjective and objective data sources collected from a questionnaire investigation (255 units of observations) and the governmental open data systems. After employing ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis, the author concludes that environmental friendly facilities (such as aquaponics systems), environmental tendency of the communities, exhibition of policies or regulations and action networks among participants, could facilitate the outcomes of urban environmental sustainability movement. However, the diversity among the participants negatively affects the relationships between some external factors and action outcomes. The divergence in actor preference increases the required transaction costs in the consensus process due to time-consuming communication and compromise. This study thus proposes recommendations, such as benchmark Lis and neighbourhood associations, as policy application that could enhance municipal implementation of sustainability policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores residents' choice to migrate from the city core to stay in close neighbourhoods, with the main objective to evaluate peoples' preferences. Find out the degree of influence of factors like gender, income, age, years of stay, family composition, ethnicity, and house ownership in determining the choice of stay. An interview and questionnaire were used to elicit information from household heads. The multinomial regression method was applied to test the hypothesis that, 'there is no significant relationship between choice of stay in neighbourhoods and given factors'. The study revealed that gender, income, years of stay and ethnicity have a negative contribution to the choice of stay, while age, family composition and house ownership have a positive influence. Hence, it is recommended that for sustainability, factors that increase densification to reduce mobility should be encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, low carbon policies are more important in developing countries such as Iran with an oil-based economy. The present study addresses Semnan as a major Iranian city and attempts to examine carbon emissions from residential buildings, industrial plants and motor vehicles with new methodology to analyse the interaction of urban design and carbon emissions. First, carbon emission sources were examined; then, the summarised models and methods based on background researches have been divided into two general categories of carbon emission calculation and simulation to be used in softwares based on the level of accuracy and nature of their sources. The results show that the increased penetration of carbon emissions into residential areas can be reduced by designs that conform to climate changes (such as block arrangements and orientations) to avoid the pollutant to enter and to reduce the need for energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land provision for low-income housing in sub-Saharan African cities generally and Lusaka specifically, is a significant challenge faced by planners and city managers, evidenced in the high prevalence of squatter settlements. As part of the solution to the problem of informal settlements, the paper has developed a set of recommendations for providing access to peri-urban lands under customary law for private commercial low-income housing, to reduce the need for informal housing in statutory urban areas. The set of recommendations were developed by exploring the necessary governance processes in the allocation of customary land using a partnership approach.

In the context of a globalised interdisciplinary moment, where boundary-crossing research collaborations are valorised, this paper considers encounters between multidisciplinary researchers. Presenting empirics and reflections from an international project where social scientists and engineers sought to collaborate, communicate and address complex challenges associated with sustainable urban development, we question a series of assumptions about interdisciplinary research. Importantly, we pause to consider the practical implications of doing this work. In particular, we draw attention to the spaces of interdisciplinarity, from the field to the lab and the meeting room, the role of researchers’ reflexivity and positionality, and the importance of being aware of the embodied, emotional realities of such work. In so doing, we call for more critical, evidence-based reflection upon the lived in/congruities of interdisciplinary practices.

Green infrastructure (GI) provides ecosystem services that aid in mitigating the effects of environmental sustainability challenges (ESCs) and improving the health of residents. However, the extent to which GI quality influences environmental challenges (ECs) in highly populated urban settlements in developing countries remains unclear. This paper examined residents’ evaluation of GI quality and its influence on environmental sustainability challenges in Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 1560 participants in a questionnaire survey. Results of descriptive and regression analysis revealed that the leading ESCs were greenhouse gas emission, waste management, and water quality and GI quality was rated poor by the residents. Availability of adequate, well-equipped green areas and parks had significant influence on ESCs in the study area. The study implies that to effectively mitigate the effects of ESCs more attention should be given to improving the quality and quantity of GI in Lagos Metropolis.

Electric bikes (ebikes) are an emerging technology that can partially mitigate many of the challenges facing the United States, such as improving mobility for the elderly and disabled, by mitigating diabetes and obesity, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Although ebikes have become increasingly common in the U.S., they have failed to gain significant market penetration despite their great promise. In this paper, we present the results of semi-structured interviews with 47 ebike users from around the U.S. to understand motivations and barriers to ebike use. Following prior research, our results suggest that cost savings and health benefits are the primary motivations behind ebike adoption, while lack of infrastructure is the primary impediment to ebike usage. Other barriers to ebike usage include shaming (primarily from other cyclists) and unwelcoming local policy environments.

The Free Café is a citizen-driven collective in the city of Groningen, the Netherlands that serves a free meal biweekly, using food that would otherwise be thrown away. While principally attempting to create a space where financial pressures and social status are lifted, the group also works to raise awareness about the environmental and societal impacts of food. Using Gibson-Graham’s community economies (CE) lens to analyse the Free Café, this paper aims to understand how urban citizen collectives are organised and governed, to better facilitate local action in food initiatives. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews, this research focuses on the daily practices, interactions, organisation and challenges surrounding the Free Café, to draw lessons about urban collective action and CE. Though findings indicate internal conflicts and contradictions, through sharing its vision and opportunities, the café is found to be valuable to food-waste awareness-raising and experimentation towards sustainable post-capitalist societies.

The paper examines agricultural livelihood effects of urban sprawl and farmers' response in peri-urban Kumasi, Ghana, involving in-depth interviews with sixty farmers (n = 60) and four key informants (n = 4). Greater Kumasi has expanded spatially over time resulting in arable land reduction in the peri-urban interface and affecting households in varying ways. This has evoked different responses from affected farmers including agricultural intensification, extensification, diversification and adoption of off-farm livelihood strategies. While some households made livelihood gains in their response, and some livelihood losses, others neither gained nor lost. A mix of livelihood assets, but more importantly human and social capital, were identified as key determinants of the outcomes of households’ livelihood strategies employed. To protect arable land from urban encroachment and reduce peri-urban households’ vulnerabilities the following policy interventions are noteworthy: effective spatial planning through institutional strengthening, legislative enforcement and widening market for agricultural goods and expanding non-farm jobs.

This paper explores how organised urban communities in Bangkok are planning for and responding to environmental and other crises, to identify approaches to fostering more sustainable, inclusive and resilient urban development. Lower-income residents may not have access to support systems such as disaster insurance, so being able to use existing assets can offer an opportunity for successful coping and adaptation strategies to future shocks. The study explores what actions are taken by lower-income residents to cope and adapt using their individual and collective assets in response to current and future hazards – especially in contexts where social capital is strong from a history of collective slum upgrading. It shows that such asset-based approaches can be an entry point for cooperation between these communities and other stakeholders, including local government, local NGOs and others, and there is scope to further strengthen asset-based adaptation approaches through legal and institutional measures.

In June 2013, widespread popular unrest unexpectedly shook Brazil whilst the FIFA Football Confederations Cup was taking place. Nicknamed as the ‘demonstrations cup’ by protesters, this was one of the greatest uprisings in the history of the country, with its effects still being felt and discussed nationally and internationally. Despite the general consensus on the more immediate causes that sparked the movement – such as the protests by the Movimento Passe Livre against a 20-cent bus fare hike in São Paulo, heavy-handed police repression and the use of social media – there still lacks a holistic explanation about the historical processes that formed the inflammable scenario that triggered those demonstrations and their rapid dissemination. Using quantitative and qualitative data related to recent urban socio-economic changes and civil society mobilisation trends, the present paper constructs an original genealogy of the June 2013 ‘demonstrations cup’. As a result, it indicates a unique confluence of multiple causal factors, such as the rapid and generalised erosion of real income in the Brazilian metropolises, the degeneration of political representativeness and traditional movements, the emergence of new mobilisation tools and the dissemination of anti-mega-events critical subjectivities – hence providing a comprehensive and empirically informed account.

Quality of life (QoL) in urban areas is increasingly finding prominence in practice. There are numerous studies interlinking residential built environment and QoL at the city level but very few at the suburban level particularly for neighbourhoods. This research aims to prepare an analytical framework and a mathematical model to evaluate neighbourhood QoL as a function of its varying built environment and spatial attributes. In order to demonstrate this, a study is carried out for seven neighbourhood typologies of New Delhi by collecting data for both objective and subjective dimensions. The database is then analysed using statistical techniques of comparative analysis, correlation and regression analysis. The research indicates that (a) Quality of life within a city varies substantially at the neighbourhood level, and (b) current planning standards provide static city-wide benchmarks which are not attainable by most of the Indian neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food price hikes globally re-energised investment in innovative strategies of food production including urban and peri-urban agriculture. Unfortunately, uncontrolled urbanisation have impacted gravely on food production in peri-urban areas in developing countries. This study was conducted in the Wa Municipalityto examine how peri-urban agricultural land use change impact on food security of farmers. A mixed methods study of inquiry with 235 smallholder farmers were used for the study. Questionnaires, interviews and historical information captured using the Geographic Information System (GIS) were used to collect the data. The results revealed that, hectares of agricultural land in peri-urban Wa over the last three decades has drastically lost its space to urban development through residentuial and infrastructural development. The study also found that agricultural land use change has resulted in food insecurity as the majority of the smallholder farmers were unable to meet their food needs over the last decade. The practical and policy implication of the study are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on evidence of the links between bluespace and public health, this study explores the governance of bluespace infrastructure to promote human health and well-being in Plymouth (UK). Using in-depth retrospective interviews and document analysis, this study focused on the role of governance in urban planning and development, specifically, the implementation phase of a bluespace infrastructure intervention. A deductive qualitative approach categorised content into themes related to pre-established water governance frameworks. Key findings from this study emphasise: the importance of health and welfare concerns around blue spaces as an incentive to getting started; collaborative stakeholder participation and engagement; the necessity of adequate funding; and the importance of continued monitoring and maintenance of urban blue space infrastructure. Based on reflective accounts of stakeholder experiences, the successes of the implementation process of the redevelopment are highlighted. More successful and sustainable bluespace interventions can be realised through ongoing considerations of effective water governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public spaces that include neighbourhood parks have a significant function in supporting and enhancing social life. They facilitate interaction between people and their environment, thus improving social connectedness and promoting residents' well-being. However, there were raising concerns on the under-utilisation of parks over the years where it has become a crucial part of the global urban agenda. To this end, comprehending place attachment is crucial to enhance the meaning, functions, and attraction of places. This qualitative study attempts to provide thorough contextual insights on the attachment process from park users' perspective. A sample of 28 park users was selected purposively within the neighbourhood of Precinct 9, Putrajaya, Malaysia. In-depth semi-structured interviews were performed face to face and later transcribed verbatim, then analysed through an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis approach. Two themes and five sub-themes emerged from the interviews. First is the park's attachment process, including emotional attachment, park's meaning, and functional attachment. Second is the cognitive aspect of park use, including attitudes and beliefs related to parks. Findings revealed that the process of park's attachment is interrelated while the functional attachment is the key concept to attract residents to the neighbourhood park and the trigger of the whole attachment process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the National Food Policy of Bangladesh, the urban slum dwellers are the most vulnerable group to ensure food security. Their condition has not been materially improved over three decades. In our study, we present the current food insecurity scenario in the slums of Dhaka city using the most recent 'Bangladesh – Urban Informal Settlements Baseline Survey' dataset of the World Bank. Afterwards, we analyse the determinants of the household food calorie gap by applying the Inverse Hyperbolic Sine transformed Double Hurdle model. The determinants are organised to represent the three pillars of food security (food availability, access, and utilisation) and all three pillars have emerged as significant factors in determining the food calorie gap. From our empirical results, we highlight some vital gaps in the National Food Policy and recommend broad areas of interventions for the betterment of the food security status among the slum dwellers of Dhaka. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The havoc caused by COVID-19 has further strengthen the case for greening cities and ensuring a quicker economic recovery much desired by various governments. To this end, the appetite for Distributed Renewable and Interactive Energy Systems (DRIES) as a preferred option to retrofit cities has grown amongst policy makers. However, DRIE sources are complex and disparate presenting challenges integrating into a unified system for urban retrofitting. Yet, integrating Building Information Modelling (BIM) and DRIES provide possibilities of effective assessment. Research of BIM applications at a city level is still very sketchy talk less in the domain of DRIES. This study investigates the opportunities and barriers of the application of BIM for the performance assessment of DRIES in the context of the transforming our environments into lowcarbon cities. A systematic literature review and case study review were used to achieve the aim of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The search for mechanisms that can bolster sustainable development governance is underway. Bilateral city-to-city partnerships (C2C) have been put forward as platform through which cities can strengthen sustainable development in urban landscapes. Here, we critically examine claims about the capacity of these international cooperative arrangements, originally designed and deployed as development aid delivery mechanisms, to promote sustainable development. Our systematic examination of the extant literature on bilateral North-South C2C in Latin America fails to provide sufficient evidence that C2C can deliver on its promise to promote robust governance, both generally and in the specific context of sustainable development. Instead, it seems that C2C is more likely to support than challenge entrenched practices which can weaken sustainable development governance. Identifying these tendencies is a first step in formulating strategies that may enhance C2Cs and other transnational partnerships aimed at improving urban sustainable development in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrian link-ways are important street facility for first-/last-mile mobility. This study compared pedestrians' walking experiences on sheltered/unsheltered link-ways by collecting their perceived walking time/distance. It is found that, first, pedestrians (51 along sheltered and 49 along unsheltered link-ways) generally walk at a faster pace along unsheltered link-ways as compared to sheltered link-way. Second, participants are found to more likely over-perceive walking times and distances (with odds of three to one) along unsheltered link-way than sheltered link-way, and with more extreme deviations on unsheltered link-ways. Third, sheltered link-ways accrued better Level of Service (LOS) ratings on factors such as weather protection, distance, accessibility/user-friendliness, comfort, safety and level of crowdedness. The study demonstrates value-add application of cognitive bias approach for examining the walking experience, and provides human-centric indicators to justify the provision of shelters to the link-way for the benefits of pedestrian users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) form a critical part of the infrastructure needed for sustainable transportation. Local governments are expected to play a key role in ensuring widespread adoption of PEVs by their residents. This study specifically investigates how large American cities have used the policy process to prepare for broader PEV usage. Based on a questionnaire sent to policy leaders in major American cities, this study investigates issues of building codes, city-utility relations, tax incentives for PEV users, and social equity. The study identifies and analyzes common and influential policies perceived as being most effective at advancing PEV adoption. Findings suggest that cities are either not preparing for PEVs at all, or are preparing in a very substantive and tech-savvy manner. Policymakers also highlight key areas of needed focus, and lay out ways in which regulators and electricity providers can aid in PEV adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Paris Agreement that put stronger emphasis on the development of climate change adaptation policies and on the definition of financing mechanisms, there is a patent need to track whether actual planning efforts are proving sufficient. This entails the development of assessment methods and metrics as plans are drafted and actions implemented. To this end, this paper explores the concept of credibility as a critical issue in climate policy and develops an Adaptation Policy Credibility (APC) conceptual and operational assessment framework for helping to allocate public funding and private investments, and for implementing and catalysing climate policy. Through a pilot testing in four early-adopting cities (Copenhagen, Durban, Quito and Vancouver), a clear potential for large-n tracking and assessment exercises of local climate adaptation plans is envisaged. The APC approach might also be useful to guide individual cities that aim to improve their adaptation planning and policy-making processes.

In this paper, we focus on the rationale for implementing the fare-free public transportation system (FFPTS) in Tallinn, Estonia, that took place on 1 January 2013. Through a series of interviews with relevant informants, we identify the main enablers and the FFPTS in Tallinn faced and the potential of such a system to contribute to the sustainable city development. Our analysis shows that the interlinking between local and national politics determines not only the type of initiatives implemented and the support they receive but also the degree of their success and their stability. We conclude that to be even more effective, it should be extended to the all potential users, not just to local registered residents as it has been recently applied in state-run bus travels in rural municipalities in Estonia. Finally, more restrictive private car policies should be considered to fuel a sustainable mobility transition and increase cities life quality.

Peri-urban land access in Tanzania is adversely embroiled in a dual system that is both formal and informal. Each system is driven by different actors with diverging interests. This paper aims at demonstrating views of the actors’ on the dual system in peri-urban areas. Case study strategy was employed in this study and mixed methods of data collection used. In-depth interviews, household questionnaires and document analysis were employed to collect data. Findings demonstrate that although the formal land-access system is unnecessarily bureaucratic, the associated benefits are worthwhile compared to the informal system. Despite the challenges of the informal system, it remains predominant because of multiple factors including the ability to bridge the gap of high demand for planned and surveyed land that the formal public sector has failed to meet. Thus, it is important for the government to address challenges in the formal land-access system through institutional and policy reforms. There is also need to coordinate and regulate the activities of actors involved in informal land-access processes, if effective land governance in peri-urban areas is to be achieved.

Public-private partnerships are often depicted as an effective institutional arrangement to improve urban services towards sustainable development. In sub-Saharan Africa, the involvement of private parties in municipal solid waste management is believed to bring in technical, managerial and financial capabilities, which municipalities generally lack. However, several studies revealed that access to privatised waste collection services is often unequal and disfavouring unplanned settlements. This research contributes to an understanding of the production of such socio-spatial inequalities and injustices through public-private partnerships by specifically looking at the everyday collection practices of formal waste workers employed by Hysacam, the private company in charge of waste management services in the medium-sized city of Bafoussam and elsewhere in Cameroon. Drawing primarily upon qualitative data, including participant observation, the paper shows how the weight-based collection target, prescribed in the tripartite partnership contract between the central government, the municipality and Hysacam that theoretically should cover the whole urban area, produced perverse incentives at various scales for uneven garbage collection in Bafoussam. More generally, this case study points to the importance of considering workers and their everyday practices, as well as incentives and accountabilities, for the design of sustainable and socially just solid waste management.

Sekondi-Takoradi has been a preferred city in Ghana for many individuals after the discovery of oil in the area in 2007. This paper sought to analyze the land-use/cover change of Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis between 1991 and 2016, and its implications on the sustainability of the city. A combination of GIS and remote sensing techniques were employed in the study. The findings of the study revealed a substantial land use/cover change over the period under investigation. Farmlands, open forests, and closed forests were converted into built-up areas. Furthermore, areas covered by water were also encroached by the built-up environment. These show evidence of unguided expansion of the physical growth of Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis. To address the situation, the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly in collaboration with public land and environmental agencies should undertake sustainable urban development initiatives such as urban growth boundary strategies and also encourage vertical physical land development to protect the city’s nature reserves.

In urban areas, green spaces and natural ecosystems can be a source of benefits to different socio-economic classes of residents, including those within unplanned informal settlements. Using a qualitative research approach, this study brings to light some of the existing green infrastructure (domestic gardens, informal parks, open spaces, stream with wetlands and the riparian corridor) in Kya Sands informal settlement in Johannesburg. It shows the way residents utilise green infrastructure and perceptions of their usefulness. The relevance of green infrastructure in the context of informal unplanned settlements became clearer. In the absence of state interventions, self-help initiatives in greening were observed in the study. Productive collaboration with the state and relevant non-governmental organisations is necessary for upgrading and to overcome limitations of individual initiatives within the community. The paper contributes to the growing body of knowledge on greening in low-income, informal and unplanned urban environments.

Measuring and comparing sustainable development levels of cities are essential procedures in creating and maintaining sustainable urban futures. This paper introduces a new urban sustainability assessment model: The Live-and-Work (LaW) City Index. It intends to enumerate/evaluate all targeted individual indicators in a simple, comprehensive manner, where all could be overseen solely, thus tracking their progress towards targeted values, assisting policymakers by providing an interpreted integrated sustainability assessment framework. The model incorporated all related domains affecting urban sustainable development; in a method that is further extended to gauge and rank cities’ performance. A functional form of aggregated indicators is derived to compute the overall index, illustrated in the form of a pie/radar chart. For proofing and calibrating the effectiveness and reliability of the model, it has been applied to three different cities. The results have shown that the model has the communicative advantage in comparative levels of different values.

This paper investigates sustainable urban aspects of the Great Bazaar of Tabriz (GBT) in Iran, classified as the world’s largest covered bazaar. Qualitative and statistical research methods employed to analyze the sustainable features of the (GBT) and compare them against four dimensions of the sustainable development model. The results of the public satisfaction survey employed, calculated using SPSS for the GBT, show that the majority of approximately 78% of the interviewees are satisfied with the bazaar’s environment, whereas a minority of approximately 16% declared that they are less happier with the environment. Accordingly, the ‘friendly atmosphere’ has the highest impact on satisfaction with approximately 92%, and the ‘role of trade unions’, with approximately 54%, is the lowest factor impacting public satisfaction with the bazaar’s spatial configurations. Historical and vernacular architectural elements are the main strength of the GBT; the lack of infrastructures to expand e-commerce activities is seen as a weakness; the potential grow number of costumer shopping at the GBT is identified as an opportunity, and international sanctions are interpreted as a threat. Finally, recommendations regarding a more comprehensive approach toward the sustainability of the GBT and the flourishing tourism activity in the Tabriz, in general, are presented.

This paper analyses the practice of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, through an interdisciplinary lens that combines the theories of right to the city, environmental justice and deliberative democracy. It examines the democratic and deliberative nature of the participatory process as well its social, environmental and ecological outcomes. While participatory budgeting has been widely studied and internationally recognised, it has rarely been assessed in its ability to bring about urban sustainability. This analysis demonstrates that it is principally the deliberative nature of the participatory process that has allowed it to have a positive impact on the urban environment. In doing so, this article proposes key recommendations to successfully replicate this mechanism in order to face the various environmental and social challenges of the Anthropocene and contribute towards achieving the sustainable development goals.

The present study aims to analyse the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of managing the Tehran Metropolitan to help comprehend the status quo as well as the challenges to the realisation of liveability indicators. The data were collected from numerous sources including literature review, library resources, public reports, interviews with urban executives and urban management experts, and questionnaires. The study opens a new window through which the main stakeholders and urban managers can understand the internal and external conditions of urban management as well as the challenges to liveability in the city. Seven critical strategies based on SWOT identification are presented with an emphasis on research results. Such strategies can promote the realisation of liveability and inform the future development of the city on a strategic level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The smart city movement (SCM) is spreading globally with increasing velocity. With its international allure, it has generated a burgeoning body of international literature, much of which forms what the current study refers to as a 'normalised discourse'. The international literature also includes a growing body of criticism that addresses hazards associated with this normalised discourse. The current study labels the collective product of this criticism as identification of the 'normalised problematics' of the SCM. In 2018, Singapore announced that 26 cities would form the ASEAN Smart Cities Network (ASCN). This article assesses the ASCN in terms of the SCM discourse and its normalised problematics through the Quintuple Helix frame of innovation economics. Our analysis suggests that the authoritarian nature of some ASEAN countries has serious implications for participatory and therefore socio-ecologically sustainable urban planning and governance, for the ASCN projects specifically, and for similar national and regional projects globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research assesses the differentiated impacts of urbanisation on communities of Bengaluru, who earlier inhabited agrarian and rural commons landscapes. Drawing on empirical observations from residents of peri-urban erstwhile villages of Bengaluru located next to lakes, we examine changes in their social-ecological practices, linked to the urban transformation of these landscapes. Urbanisation has transformed once-rural landscapes into fast growing urban areas at peripheries of Bengaluru. We show that impacts of urban transition are not homogenous or representative of uniform trends, but diverse, shaped by differing power relationships that manifest themselves within the Indian caste hierarchy. Urban transitions, while undoubtedly bringing about disconnects with the social-ecological landscape, have been disenfranchising in some aspects but emancipatory in other ways, liberating underprivileged castes from the worst practices of exploitation. We argue that urbanisation experiences vary, depending on the past and opens up prospects for challenging the received understanding of urbanisation, through individual experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, UN-Habitat projected the total population of the planet was about 7.632 billion. Fifty-five percent were living in urban areas in which more than 20 percent were said to live in slum areas. Within the era of increasing urbanization, and in the context of Habitat III, this article highlights planning innovation of the sustainability transition in urban informality in the Middle East. Three themes are raised. The first is to trace the recent academic debate on urban informality transitions in the Middle East. The second is to ask whether it possible to borrow new planning innovations from the Global North and apply them in the Global South and Middle East. Finally, the present work considers whether it is possible to link between the theory and the practice of governance of sustainability transitions and urban informality. It concludes that the configuration of urban informality in light of sustainability transitions would enhance the continuous sociotechnical and political transitions in the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The housing agenda shifted its paradigm from housing as basic needs to housing as rights. It became widely contested when 'affordable housing' entered the discourse. Contextualising it for Penang island within the 'Right to the City' principle, the element of place-making emerged which questions a person's right to construct one's own habitat, or is it constrained to decisions by powerful elites. This study attempts to make sense of place-making in Penang island's affordable housing schemes by dissecting voices from key stakeholders. The qualitative techniques used revealed that home owners are voiceless in the place-making process. A clearer affordable housing definition and a needs-based approach are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]