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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. 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the perspective of transportation infrastructure upgrading, this paper discussed the motivation behind industrial firms' pollution transfer to provincial borders. Using a panel data set of 41 cities in China's Yangtze River Delta from 2005 to 2020, this paper empirically tested the impact of intracity and intercity transportation infrastructure upgrading on pollution transfer through a two-way fixed-effects model. The results revealed the following: First, intracity transportation infrastructure upgrading forces local industrial firms to transfer pollution outward. Second, intercity transportation infrastructure upgrading accelerates pollution transfer to provincial borders. Third, in the central region, intracity transportation infrastructure upgrading does not significantly impact local pollution transfer. Intercity transportation infrastructure upgrading can aggravate border pollution, whether in the eastern or central regions. Furthermore, border pollution is more serious in the central region. The results have important practical significance for improving China's regional development planning and environmental governance system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the twenty-first century, with the development of urbanization, large-scale mine wastelands in peri-urban areas have become increasingly closely related to the daily lives of urban and rural residents. Adopting a reuse method that meets the health needs of these residents, restoration, construction of mine wastelands in the suburbs of cities, and the formation of high-quality healthy environments and service supply are in line with the demands of healthy city construction and sustainable development. In addition, they have received increasing attention from all sectors of society. Based on the main criteria for constructing a healthy urban environment, this paper takes the comprehensive remediation and construction project of mine wastelands in the Taiyuan Xishan Ecological and Cultural Tourism Demonstration Area as a case study. It uses on-site surveys and an open-ended web-based questionnaire. It focuses on researching the perceived health needs of urban and rural residents in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China concerning the main elements that determine health, such as the natural ecological environment, the construction of facilities and activities, and the local economic and industrial development. The results of 748 questionnaires that were completed by participants who effectively participated in the survey show that most participants preferred a comprehensive development model (86.6%) to reuse these areas. In addition, the specific needs of urban and rural residents for health safety, equity and quality, and healthy low-carbon industries should be considered. The differences in demand among groups of citizens due to different ages, living distances, levels of education, and occupations should be comprehensively considered. This paper demonstrates that a full understanding of the health needs of residents has great practical significance when improving the healthy environment and service supply level in mine wasteland restoration and construction and promoting the development of regional healthy city construction. Recently, the healthy environment and sustainable development of areas that host large-scale mine wastelands on the outskirts of cities have received increasing attention from all sectors of society. This paper suggests that during the reuse and construction of these areas, government management, development, and construction companies, planning and design organizations, and other departments that are involved in policy formulation and construction implementation should give full consideration to the perceived health needs of urban and rural residents in the host city, and to groups of residents of different ages, living distances, occupations, and educational levels, to form a high-quality and equitable health environment and services in the area. In addition, active public participation, on-site research, and interviews are essential for relevant departments to improve their understanding of resident health needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrialization and urbanization are significant facets of modernization. The asynchronous development of the two is closely related to the agglomeration of producer services. This paper constructed an asynchrony index to describe the development gap between industrialization and urbanization. Various spatial weight matrices were introduced to test the spatial autocorrelation of the asynchrony index. Applying spatial econometric models, we explored the impact of agglomeration of producer services on the asynchrony index from two aspects: diversified agglomeration (DA) and specialized agglomeration (SA). The following conclusions are drawn from the empirical findings, which are based on data from 31 Chinese provinces between 2008 and 2019: (1) the asynchrony of industrialization and urbanization exhibits the spatial autocorrelation increasing over time; (2) SA exacerbates the asynchrony, while DA alleviates the asynchrony; (3) SA exerts greater impacts in highly industrialized and urbanized regions, while DA exerts greater effects in lowly industrialized and urbanized regions; and (4) agricultural dependence and infrastructure level weaken the impacts of SA and strengthen the impacts of DA. Income level weakens the impacts of both SA and DA. The results of this study provide a reference for policymakers to adjust the industrial layout in a targeted manner to regulate the asynchronous nature of modernization development. Peace and development are the themes of the world today. Most developing countries are experiencing or about to experience industrialization and urbanization. The world reality indicates that the two are not always synchronized in countries due to resource and cultural differences. Producer services not only improve agricultural and industrial production efficiency but also bring population agglomeration effects like other industries. In the era of informatization, the producer services exert a profound impact on industrialization and urbanization through two agglomeration modes. This technical paper quantifies the asynchrony between industrialization and urbanization using data from 31 provinces in China and verifies the opposite effects of two agglomeration modes on asynchrony. In cities with different levels of industrialization and urbanization, cities with higher or lower agricultural dependence, and cities with higher or lower infrastructure levels, the impact direction of the two agglomeration modes shows stability, while the magnitude varies. Cities with higher per capita income tend to develop into consumer cities, where industrialization should lag behind urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's increasingly complex stock era, resilient community planning for uncertainty risks is important for building resilient cities and communities and for realizing the refinement, process, and systematization of planning. Therefore, this paper proposes the concept of community planning resilience based on resilience theory and explores a framework system for evaluating the planning resilience of renewal and transformation community by taking renewal and transformation future community planning of Zhejiang as the research object. At the same time, the technical path of realizing public participation in community planning is explored through the method, mechanism, and technical platform of fuzzy group decision-making. Finally, the feasibility of the aforementioned framework and approach is experimentally explored and verified based on a typical case of renewal and renovation of future community planning. In order to make community regeneration planning more planning resilient, this paper develops a community planning group decision-making study from the perspective of community planning resilience, which provides a new research perspective for the field of community resilience and provides a reference for community planning evaluation and the construction of resilient communities. Practical Applications: In China's advancing urbanization, major cities are grappling with diverse risks, necessitating urban planning and governance with heightened resilience to face unforeseen black swan events and foreseeable gray rhinoceros challenges. This urgency is particularly pronounced in community renewal, prompting a vital shift from rigid to resilient planning methodologies. To address this shift, this paper advocates for resilient community construction to be a focal point in both policy and practical implementation of community regeneration. A novel approach utilizing the fuzzy decision-making method is proposed to establish a comprehensive resilient community renewal decision-making technology support system. This system employs a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method, integrating an empowerment approach to simplify the complexities of a multicriteria index system. By mitigating the risks inherent in resilience planning, our approach enhances the scientific foundation and feasibility of decision-making in community renewal. A case study on the Future Community in Zhejiang Province validates the effectiveness of our approach, providing practical insights for constructing resilient community renewal models and system technology platforms. This research contributes to the ongoing exploration of strategies and technologies capable of addressing diverse challenges in urban development, providing references in enhancing urban resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the urban human settlements of 21 megacities and supercities from 2011 to 2020 in China and improve urban human settlements planning and management. First, the data envelopment analysis (DEA)–Malmquist–Tobit model is used to conduct a static and dynamic evaluation of the efficiency of urban human settlements and analyze the main factors that affect it. Then, the coupling coordination degree model is utilized to quantitatively evaluate the coupling coordination degree between urban human settlements and high-quality economic development. Finally, the GM (1, 1) model is established to predict each city's average input–output index during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. It is hoped that this paper could promote sustainable urban development. The empirical results are as follows: (1) the technical efficiency (TE) from CRS DEA of human settlements in China's megacities and supercities is low. Management and technology are the shortcomings in the development of urban human settlements; (2) total factor productivity (TFP) has shown negative growth. Technical progress efficiency (TC) is the key to improving the efficiency of urban human settlements; (3) urban infrastructure has the most significant role when promoting the efficiency of urban human settlements; (4) the coupling degree between the efficiency of human settlements and high-quality economic development is mainly high-level coupling. The degree of coordination is gradually rising; and (5) during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the investment in human settlements in both types of cities will continue to increase. With the continuous expansion of investment, the output will be imbalanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The business environment is a critical element in promoting high-quality urban economic development. To evaluate the quality of the business environment in Chinese cities, we first build a business environment evaluation system in this paper. Then using the entropy weight, Dagum Gini coefficient, β-convergence model, and Markov chain method, we evaluate and analyze the development level, spatial differences, and dynamic development patterns of the business environments in 278 cities in China from 2003 to 2019. Our findings reveal that the overall business environment level in Chinese cities is not high. There are significant differences in business environment levels between megacities, large cities, and small–medium-sized cities, and within-group differences and between-group differences are the main reasons for the differences in business environment levels. However, the contribution rate of within-group differences shows a downward trend, while the contribution rate of between-group differences shows an upward trend. In addition, the business environment levels in Chinese cities have spatial correlation, and the national and three major city groups' business environment levels exhibit strong absolute and conditional β-convergence processes. Finally, the business environment levels in Chinese cities demonstrate path dependence, which is typified by low mobility and makes achieving upward mobility challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 FROM AUTHOR]

Many cities worldwide are at the frontline of environmental challenges during their future planning. Navi Mumbai presents many opportunities to move a city toward sustainability. The land is scarce for development purposes in Mumbai, which has resulted in the creation of the suburban area of Navi Mumbai. As the latter has numerous water bodies and drainage channels, which lie in the ecosensitive zone, to stop organic development, the environmental suitability index along with the accessibility index needs to be assessed to promote future organized growth. The present study investigated the planning of the new areas and assessed environmental suitability and accessibility for various zones seeking future development. The analytical derivation of the environmental suitability index was based on the parameters, subindex, and attributes of environmental issues in that area. The parameters included (1) soil permeability, (2) water-holding capacity, (3) porosity, (4) properties of groundwater and marine water, (5) properties of air, and (6) noise. The entire area was divided into five zones for the current work. The analytical framework was a developed methodology of indices calculated from five monitoring stations obtained from the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Limited, India (CIDCO). The accessibility parameters of the transportation network were measured using alpha indices (α). Finally, a nondominated sorting algorithm was used to obtain final suitability based on the Pareto optimality condition. The development suitability of an area was obtained by computing the environmental suitability index and accessibility index. This computation decides which of the five stations is best for which type of planning. The study developed a dimension-wise suitability index for Navi Mumbai, aiming to streamline the planning process and integrate policies essential for planning to attain sustainable development for Navi Mumbai. During future planning, policymakers and planners have often ignored environmental aspects in ecofragile areas. Hence, planning for new development in ecofragile areas has often been haphazard, piecemeal, and organic. The framework adopted in this paper, combining the environmental suitability index and the accessibility index, intended to assess the area's health and prescribe future actions to reduce the negative environmental impacts of development and regulate the same. The paper showed how data on soil, water, groundwater, air, and noise can be used in a simple mathematical model to compute the environmental suitability index of an area. Similarly, graph-theoretic measures of the whole transportation network can measure the accessibility index of the area. Finally, the development suitability of the area can be calculated by combining the environmental suitability index and the accessibility index. The level of domination result signifies the most suitable station/node for different types of development. Based on the results, policymakers and planners can determine an ecofragile area's future land use development as required. This model can further be adopted by local governing authorities to plan for zoning, zoning regulations, and approval of a proposed development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessibility is a vital measure of convenience for seniors in accessing urban park green spaces (UPGS). However, current research on accessibility for seniors faces challenges in terms of the reliability of results, and existing categorization methods lack an exploration of accessibility equity. Consequently, there are limited references for city managers to formulate urban planning programs. In this context, this study focuses on Ningbo City, China, and establishes a framework connecting accessibility research and urban planning practices by (1) utilizing the smallest unit in urban planning and zoning regulations as the study's basis; (2) enhancing the reliability of accessibility results through improved input data for the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA); and (3) exploring accessibility equity by constructing an Accessibility Difference Index (ADI) and employing Hotspot Analysis and Pearson's correlation coefficient. The study identified blocks as the smallest unit for accessibility analysis by extracting centerlines from major urban roads. Additionally, the study controlled park division shapes using the Slenderness Ratio and incorporated Baidu population data and path planning time, resulting in more precise 2SFCA results. Consequently, the findings indicated inadequate accessibility in areas where seniors gathered and in the periphery of the study area. Public transportation can significantly improve accessibility equity. The results of the correlation analyses at 15 and 30 min supported this finding. Additionally, the results from the ADI revealed a left-skewed distribution in the assessment data on accessibility equity at 15, 30, and 45-min intervals. Therefore, the accessibility equity for seniors in Ningbo was insufficient. Finally, this paper proposes solutions based on the 2SFCA model, including enhancing the areas and quality of UPGS and optimizing the distribution of seniors. This study can inform urban planning by enhancing transport planning and improving minimum standards for UPGS in zoning regulations. This framework assesses the degree of equity in specific blocks and can guide equity planning in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History has shown that soil liquefaction could render buildings or infrastructures nonserviceable. It is understood that the soil liquefaction potential depends on the geotechnical engineering properties at the site and the regional seismicity in the surroundings, which are referred to as the geotechnical and geological factors in this paper. This research aims to explore their respective effect on soil liquefaction assessments. To investigate the effects, the (real) data from two cities in Taiwan were used as the problem sets, and the liquefaction factors of safety for the liquefiable soil at the sites were computed under different circumstances. The research found that regardless of the circumstances, the geological factor plays a predominant role over the geotechnical factor in soil liquefaction assessment. The sensitivity of the geological factor is over 95% quantified with the variance-based sensitivity analysis. Accordingly, one recommendation is that the practitioners should spend more effort characterizing the geological data in soil liquefaction assessment, which can obtain a more reliable outcome, which is the significance of this novel research. Practical Applications: The result of a soil liquefaction assessment depends on geological and geotechnical parameters. This research aims to quantify which is more predominant in soil liquefaction assessment. This transparent (sensitivity) study used the analytics called the variance-based sensitivity analysis. Using the accurate soil data in Taiwan and the geological models developed for the region, it was found that the geological factor is predominant in soil liquefaction assessment. Accordingly, when conducting a soil liquefaction assessment in the future, practitioners should spend more effort on characterizing the geological parameters, by which a more reliable outcome could be obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expanding sanitary sewer networks is vital for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for urban areas. Uncertain future design conditions threaten this infrastructure expansion; notably, climate change has been described as the biggest threat to achieving the SDGs. However, the literature on how climate change can affect sanitation is sparse, especially in low- and middle-income countries, where infrastructure is most needed. We created a simple hydraulic model that quantitatively examines how the uncertainty-induced threats related to urbanization, stormwater inflow, and climate change might affect designed sanitary sewers. Our sanitary sewer model allows a designer or operator to estimate how urban development (e.g., population growth, water consumption, and expansion of impervious areas), stormwater infow, or changing rainfall patterns (e.g., climate change scenarios) would affect the performance of a sanitary sewer network. We identified that the fraction of stormwater inflow entering the sanitary sewers is the most significant threat to urban sewers. Applying the model to three case studies in Brazil revealed that the fraction of stormwater inflow in sanitary sewers is at least 1.8 times more influential than the other considered uncertainties. Stormwater inflow collected in the sanitary system leaves the network vulnerable to extreme rainfall events, consequently leaving the design guidelines vulnerable to climate change, which may compromise their ability to achieve the SDGs. Our model quantitatively demonstrates the essential role that minimizing inflow must play in ensuring climate resilient sanitation and in maximizing the utilization of sanitary sewers. Practical Applications: Safely managing human waste is critical to the health and well-being of humans, especially in cities. Investments in resilient sanitation infrastructure can generate a significant return on investment in health-related benefits. However, if not accounted for, climate change effects can compromise the ability to provide safe sanitation. While 3.5 billion people still need sanitation infrastructure today, methods of expanding sewer systems amid climate change are unclear. In this paper, we provided a simple model that gives a designer or operator insights into the implications of how various sources of uncertainty (urbanization, stormwater inflow, and climate change) can affect the performance of sanitary sewers. Applying the proposed model to three regional capital cities in Brazil, we demonstrated that the biggest threat to urban sewers, even compared to urbanization and climate change, is the fraction of stormwater entering a sanitary sewer. When building or expanding sanitary sewers, inaccurate estimates of how much stormwater will enter the sanitary system can lead to sewage overflow, which might result in health, environmental, and economic hazards. Minimizing the fraction of stormwater that enters the sanitary system would increase the resilience of the sewer network against extreme rainfall events that would increase due to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to establish inherent concepts associated with urban resilience theorizing, which lacks the links to urban planning in a way useful to enhance the urban resilience of existing settlements, through a multidisciplinary approach and acceptance of the complex structure of urban resilience. Moreover, most of the literature addressing the subject refer to it through bland and perplexing terminology, making the subject of urban resilience difficult to practice in a contemporary urban planning scenario. This literature study-based paper reviews the concept of resilience and identifies its key components and its application to disaster and urban planning nexus while exploring the links between the 5 W's of urban resilience literature, namely, What, Where, When, Why, and Who. Based on this, the paper intends to establish the synthesized urban resilience characteristic concepts to lay out the directions for cities to move toward resiliency with a link to urban planning by working on the suggested linked attributes. Hence, the concept of urban planning is explored as a means of engaging and embedding urban resilience in a transdisciplinary process. The concepts of vulnerability and adaptive coping capacities are presented, interlinking the concepts of urban planning and urban resilience and supporting the suggestive attributes through past literature. Furthermore, the paper discusses the suggestive elements connecting the theory of resilience and urban planning and suggests the components encompassing vulnerability, urban planning, coping and adaptation, and urban governance as key factors for the urban resilience framework. Urban planning and governance have the potential to reduce vulnerability and enhance coping and adaptive capacities, thereby impacting urban resilience positively. The various attributes of urban planning can be explored to assess, impact, and influence the urban resilience levels (/ or correspondingly vulnerability and adaptive/coping capacities); hence, urban planning can be a potent tool to influence, affect, and strengthen the resilience of the urban system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facade-rendering mortars and their painting layers are constantly exposed to weather and, therefore, influence the hygrothermal behavior of buildings. The characterization and assessment of coating materials is fundamental, seeking adequacy in their selection, especially regarding moisture and temperature. Considering the exposure conditions of the facades, risks of damages, such as mold development, may be avoided by an assertive evaluation and selection among different types of paints. In this context, this paper experimentally determined essential properties related to the hygrothermal behavior of painted mortars and simulated their resulting performance when applied on exposed facades in three Brazilian cities in distinct bioclimatic zones. Hygrothermal simulations were carried out using the software WUFI Pro 6.6. Six different types of paints were studied, among which satin acrylic paint (SAP) led to the lowest water vapor permeability and matte polyvinyl acetate (PVA), silicate (SIL), lime (LP), and hydrated lime with white glue (HLG) paints led to the highest. Matte acrylic paint (MAP), PVA, SIL, LP, and HLG had similar impacts on the vapor transmission of mortar renderings. In the simulations, reference (REF) and LP specimens generally resulted in the highest water contents throughout the year, followed by SIL and HLG. SAP led to the lowest water content and a more homogeneous curve than the other paints. Among the studied cities, Macapá, which has the highest annual normal rainfall sum and mean relative humidity, also had the highest mean total water content values over time, followed by Porto Alegre and Petrolina. In general, no probable mold development is expected. However, caution should be taken when extrapolating the results for climate or construction conditions different than the simulated ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced manufacturing agglomeration (AMA) plays a significant role in supporting regional development, but few studies have examined it on a regional geographic space. In this paper, the relationship between AMA and regional economic‒innovative‒social coupling coordination development (EISCCD) was studied spatially at a fine-grained scale (500 m × 500 m), taking Liangjiang New Area (LJNA), China, as an example. The results showed that (1) the spatial patterns of AMA and EISCCD in LJNA were similar; (2) among the four different combinations, the economic‒social combination had the highest degree of coupling coordination and a more balanced spatial distribution; (3) AMA and the four coupling coordination combinations all showed significant positive relationships, with innovation playing a prominent mediating role; and (4) there was evident spatial heterogeneity in the relationship between AMA and ECICCD. These results demonstrate the possibility of building suburban subcenters with advanced manufacturing. These findings are beneficial for urban and regional planners to monitor the development status at different locations within cities, enabling precise construction and management of various facilities, enhancing land utilization efficiency, and aiding in the realization of a business-friendly and livable urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sewer system is a principal element of infrastructure in modern cities, accounting for massive amounts of public investments. Corrosion of manholes in the sewer system is a global issue, and millions of dollars are being spent on the maintenance, restoration, and replacement of deteriorated sewer networks. Concrete manholes in the sewer system are deteriorating due to the attack of sulfuric acid produced by microorganisms in a process termed microbial induced concrete corrosion (MICC), which reduces the lifespan of concrete sewer elements. The objective of this paper is to investigate the correlation between the gas- and liquid-phase sewer environmental factors and hydrogen sulfide concentration in the gas phase. The production, emission, and build-up of hydrogen sulfide gas in manholes is identified as a major cause of MICC in manhole shafts. The field study was conducted in more than 200 manholes in the City of Arlington (Texas, US). The data was collected every minute for 48 h to understand the trends of liquid- and gas-phase parameters such as hydrogen sulfide (H2S concentration), liquid and gas temperature, pH, DO, and relative humidity. The study also examines how gas-phase H2S concentrations vary with season; manhole design, including manholes' depth, slope, and presence of drop; and sewer flow conditions such as velocity and turbulence. Although no strong linear correlation was found between liquid-/gas-phase parameters, the manhole categories were found to play a significant role in H2S generation. The manholes with hydraulic jump generated the highest average H2S concentrations, followed by manholes with drops. High turbulence zones were observed in manholes of both categories, leading to H2S stripping from liquid to gas phase. The highest H2S concentration was recorded in summer, suggesting that higher liquid temperature resulted in increased bacterial activity, which generated greater liquid-phase sulfide. Greater Henry's law constants in summer, due to high temperatures, would have favored transfer of liquid-phase sulfide to the gas phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building simulation tools can empower architects to evaluate and optimize the performance of their designs. Therefore, it is essential to integrate building performance simulation modeling from an early design stage. A critical part of the simulated environment is the weather file. It is a compilation of 20–30 years of historical weather and hourly data on temperature, solar radiation, wind speed, and wind direction. The accuracy and contextual relevance of said data are of utmost importance to the integrity of the analysis. Current energy modeling weather files are unlikely to include any indication of risk from potential climate change. Hence, there is a need to incorporate climate change projections in energy simulations and prepare architects to understand better the evolution of design strategies echoing such climate change in different climate zones. This paper describes the process of using the CCWorldWeatherGen tool to morph Energy Plus Weather files of 17 North American cities in key climate zones into three simulated scenarios representing 2020, 2050, and 2080, corresponding to a 1.5°C global temperature rise. By simulating the impact of the morphed weather files on five commercial building models, this paper outlines a database echoing the projected climate change impacts within the selected locations and highlights the critical impact of passive design strategies in facilitating indoor thermal comfort while limiting energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel approach to intersection improvement planning utilizing telematics data from connected vehicles to generate performance measures for mobility, safety, and emissions. Congestion, crashes, and emissions are three major issues in urban areas, particularly at intersections, and agencies often struggle to prioritize improvement plans because of a lack of objective data. Traditional infrastructure sensors provide limited information at selected locations, but it is not feasible to deploy them at all intersections. The use of telematics data from connected vehicles provides a high granularity of information on driving events and trajectories that can be used in conjunction with vehicle emission modeling to efficiently generate performance measures for all intersections. In a case study of over 300 intersections in Arlington, Texas, the Pareto front method was used to evaluate and rank intersections based on multiple criteria. Intersections falling on the Pareto front were identified as having at least one outstanding (poor) performance measure and were required to be given priority for improvement. The results were cross-validated with historical crash reports and the judgments of city traffic engineers, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed framework in generating objective and reliable intersection performance measures. This approach has the potential to significantly improve intersection safety, mobility, and environmental impact, and can serve as a valuable decision-support tool for transportation agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building resilient urban atmospheric systems is of great importance to sustainable urban development. In order to clarify the impact of the cross-domain flow of pollutants on the resilience of urban atmospheric systems, this paper first defines the concept of resilience of an urban atmospheric system, characterizes the resilience based on the system performance in stages, and proposes a method to quantitatively assess the system resilience. Finally, a Petri net with a time-delay function is constructed to calculate the resilience level of each place under different pollutant emissions and analyze the impact of different pollutant emissions on the resilience of the places, taking the Guanzhong Urban Agglomeration as the research object. The results show that the resilience of atmospheric environmental systems in Tianshui, Pingliang, Qingyang, Linfen, Tongchuan, and Yuncheng is not affected by the cross-domain transmission of pollutants while the resilience of atmospheric environmental systems in Baoji, Xianyang, Xi'an, Shangluo, and Weinan was affected by the transboundary transport of pollutants in varying degrees. In addition, studies have shown that the cross-domain transport of pollutants does not always represent a negative impact on cities, and that transport at the right time can improve the resilience of urban atmospheric environmental systems, such as in Xianyang and Shangluo. The method provides a scientific assessment system for studying the resilience level of urban atmospheric systems from the perspective of cross-domain transport of industrial pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates a new water end-use disaggregation and classification tool that builds on existing end-use disaggregation studies and addresses the unavailability of code and data used by prior studies. The tool was developed in Python and can be accessed via any current Python programming environment. The base disaggregation and classification model for the tool was developed and tested on high-temporal-resolution data for a single home at which manually labeled end-use event data were also collected. The tool was then applied to four additional homes selected from a larger data set for 31 homes located in the cities of Logan and Providence, Utah, to demonstrate the generalizability of the tool. At homes for which no manually labeled end-use data are available, the tool's base model is extended through a self-learning procedure that trains the model for an individual home using end-use events identified at that home. Results from homes with different meter types and sizes are presented to demonstrate the ability of the tool to disaggregate and classify high-temporal-resolution data into individual end-use events. The results of this paper are reproducible using openly available code and data, representing an accessible platform for advancing end-use disaggregation tools. The tool can be adapted to specific research needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of disasters across the globe have prompted the creation of strategies for disaster risk reduction and resilience to save lives and property in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda (NUA). The 2030 Agenda calls for all development planning to simultaneously tackle disaster risk reduction and inclusiveness. This paper aims to remold urban planning for upcoming new towns in developing countries so that planners can be able to include indigenous knowledge systems in urban planning. The study was conducted in a new town, Gokwe, Zimbabwe, with a population of 8,118 from which a sample size of 229 was drawn using Cochran's sample size determination formula and the 30% rule. A mixed-methods analytic case study was conducted to evaluate the potential of the town's planning processes in preventing natural and human-induced disasters. The study used questionnaires, semistructured interviews, desktop sources, focus group discussions, and remote sensing. It analyzed the strategies, scope, and relevance of Gokwe town disaster risk-reduction strategies and their integration into town planning and development using six wards, from 1992 to 2020. The Urban Disaster Reduction Index (UDRI) model was applied based on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction indicators to measure the extent to which the town council's development planning can help to reduce disaster and foster sustainable development. The UDRI was calculated for the four Sendai Framework priority areas and proved that the council's disaster management is weak. The chief cause was found to be the town's development control regulations and the national urban councils act that excludes contributions from local communities and leadership, placing new town planning in the hands of bureaucrats, technicians, and politicians only. It was concluded that for disaster management to improve requires local DRR and national urban development policies reformulation. This research exposed that the practice and scholarship of urban planning in most low-income countries such as Zimbabwe must be changed from mere physical design to a holistic process approach of community building. There is need to redefine sustainable development as a dynamic and continuous approach that brings together physical considerations, societal values, and technology in crafting solutions for urban development challenges. Environmentalists, planners, policymakers, engineers, economists, and society at large must combine forces to bring about the most sought-after urban sustainability that ensures environmental protection, spatial coordination, and economic and social development for the present and future generations. The paper calls for adoption of a dynamic multidisciplinary and cyclic rather than the current static and unidirectional planning advanced by traditional urban planning theories, such as the rational–comprehensive, incremental, and the transactive theories. Urban planning should not be viewed as a technical, empirical, and scientific activity that does not require any input from ordinary citizens. Planning processes should afford the public an active role, not only in planning but right from policy setting, planning, development, and management of the established town. Town development should be a mutual process in which leaders gather more information from the community and for the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combined effect of tourism economic growth has presented an important catalytic and driving role in modern urban development, especially in China's urban regeneration and industrial restructuring. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) is a new attempt by China's government to comprehensively promote a new pattern of economic opening for metropolitan areas, and tourism development has assumed the role of a window to showcase the quality of the GBA's cities to the world. How to promote the coordinated development of tourism and cities is particularly important in shaping new industries and enhancing the quality of urban development in the GBA. This paper constructs an evaluation index system and uses the improved entropy-weighted Topsis model to calculate the Coordinated Level between Tourism and Urban Development (TUDCL) and applies it to analyze the impact of tourism on promoting urban development in the GBA. The study finds that the TUDCL changes steadily from 2000 to 2019 and currently remains at a medium level, with large differences between cities of different levels, and that there is more room to improve the TUDCL of peripheral cities in the GBA such as Huizhou, Jiangmen, and Zhaoqing. When the tourism industry grows to a certain size, it can in turn lead to the synergistic growth of other industries in the city. Different cities need to formulate appropriate optimization policies according to their own industry type, tourism resource endowment, economic openness, and location conditions. This study proposes a scientific and effective evaluation index system to identify the level of coordination between tourism and urban development in the GBA and distils the contribution of different factors and the time sequence of their influence in stages, which is of positive significance in understanding the synergistic relationship between tourism and urban development and provides theoretical reference for planning a quality living circle suitable for living, working, and traveling in the GBA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decades, the association between the quality of the urban living environment and individual subjective well-being (SWB) has received wide attention in many metropolitan areas across the world. However, few studies have focused on the effects of the quality of the urban living environment on SWB from a human perception perspective and concerned the underdeveloped areas such as resource-based cities. Drawing on a large-scale social survey data set collected from the City Health Examination Evaluation (CHEE) in China, this paper employed the Geographical Detector method to reveal the association between the CHEE and individual subjective well-being in four resource-based cities in China (Ganzhou, Huangshi, Jingdezhen, and Luoyang). The results showed that the SWB and CHEE of the respondents in the resource-based cities are generally good, with mean evaluation scores of 4.15 and 4.27, respectively. The factor detector results indicated that the eight subdimensions of the CHEE are all significantly associated with individual SWB in the resource-based cities, with the q-statistic values in the following decreasing order: life amenities > urban management > urban vitality > diversity and inclusiveness > security and resilience > convenient transportation > urban landscape and scenery > ecological livability. Furthermore, individual socioeconomic attributes, such as gender, hukou, house tenure, car ownership, age, household income, and occupation, were also significantly associated with individual SWB. The interaction factor results revealed that there are bilinear enhancing and nonlinear enhancing effects on individual SWB after the interaction between the subdimensions in the CHEE. Regarding city types, the average evaluation scores of the CHEE and SWB in the declining cities, mature cities, and regenerating cities decreases in turn, and the subdimensions of the CHEE had heterogeneous effects on individual SWB across city types. The findings in this study could provide insights into improving individual SWB in China's resource-based cities by enhancing the quality of the urban living environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strength of government environmental concern strength (GECS) and the differential supply of construction land (DSCL) can effectively act as important indicators of regional environmental protection dynamics and economic development pressures. Based on the panel data of Chinese 281 cities, from 2007 to 2018, this study first measures the degree of urban environmental protection pressure (UEPP) by using a game combination assignment method. Then, a fixed effects model is used to quantitatively measure the effects of GECS and DSCL on UEPP from the two perspectives of "urban environmental risk (UER) and urban social response (USR)." The UEPP in China tended to decrease during the study period. For about 52.67% of the urban areas studied, both GECS and DSCL could effectively reduce the UEPP. Moreover, the areas where the DSCL increased the UEPP are mainly located at the border between the eastern and the central regions, and in the northeastern region. In addition, the spatial layout of the impact of GECS and DSCL on USR is similar to the spatial layout of the impact of GECS and DSCL on UEPP. According to different impact mechanisms, the study areas are divided into eight groups, and this study finds that government departments should formulate relevant measures and policies according to local conditions, in order to promote sustainable urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To boost the high-quality integrated development in late-developing regions, an examination of the temporal and spatial patterns of urban growth and the primary drivers of urbanization in these regions is crucial. An exemplar case study of Anhui Province is presented in this research. The extraction of urban built-up areas in Anhui Province was conducted using nighttime light (NTL) data and urban statistical information. The study investigated the dynamic transformations and evolutionary features of urban expansion by utilizing measurement indexes for urban growth and center of gravity transfers. By employing gray relational analysis on economic, demographic, and other statistical data, the key influencers behind urban expansion in Anhui Province were scrutinized. The results revealed a steady annual increase in the urban built-up area of Anhui Province from 1996 to 2020. Furthermore, the shift of the urban built-up area's center of gravity in Anhui Province transitioned toward the east–south direction between 1996 and 2008, but gradually shifted toward the west–north direction thereafter. These alterations were mainly driven by factors such as urbanization rate. This study is expected to help decision makers take appropriate countermeasures to achieve high-quality regional development. Practical Applications: Understanding the spatiotemporal dynamics and influencers of urban expansion is vital for fostering sustainable urban development, ecological conservation, and enhancing residents' quality of life. The dynamics and influencers of urban expansion vary across cities and different stages of urban development. This study aims to elucidate the dynamics of urban expansion in Anhui Province and identify the primary driving factors to assist urban policymakers and planners in making informed decisions regarding urban planning, land use, and ecological and environmental protection policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

This paper proposes a simple analytical scheme and associated qualitative impact scales that capture the spatially varying effects of a regional disaster. Large-scale disasters that affect many towns and cities pose particular challenges for emergency response planning. For example, disruption to transportation systems can impede regional supply chains of critical goods, thereby exacerbating the impacts suffered locally in communities. Conventional metrics of disaster severity, such as number of casualties or intensity of ground shaking, do not adequately capture how community impacts and needs may vary across the affected region, and they do not typically consider regional transportation disruption. Using a series of impact scales, the approach in this paper captures essential attributes of three broad components related to community impacts from a regional disaster—local disaster impacts in a community, regional transportation disruption to the community, and the community's coping capacity—and aggregates them to an overall metric of community impact. The approach can be implemented with widely varying degrees of data availability, as demonstrated in two case applications. Both cases involve an M9 Cascadia subduction zone earthquake affecting a broad region of coastal British Columbia, Canada. The first application illustrates how in a pre-event planning situation, modeled results can be used to anticipate which communities are at greatest risk, and to help prioritize mitigation and emergency response planning. The second case demonstrates how in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, the approach can be used with limited information to help prioritize response and recovery activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view that cities will continue to house the majority of the world's population at an increasing rate in the face of climate change, this paper studies urban resilience by examining the response history of the mean-square displacement of the citizens of large cities prior to and upon historic natural hazards strike. The recorded mean-square displacements of large numbers of cellphone users from the cities of Houston, Miami, and Jacksonville when struck by hurricanes Harvey 2017, Irma 2017, and Dorian 2019 together with the recorded mean-square displacements of the citizens of Dallas and Houston when experiencing the 2021 North American winter storm suggest that large cities of average population density when struck by natural hazards are inherently resilient. The recorded mean-square displacements presented in this study also validate a mechanical model for cities, previously developed by the authors, that is rooted in Langevin dynamics and predicts that following a natural hazard, large cities revert immediately to their initial steady-state behavior and resume their normal, preevent activities. The inherent ability of large American cities to revert to their normal, preevent, steady-state response as evidenced in this study by the recorded mean-square displacement of their citizens needs to be further explored for other cities around the world with different resources, and socioeconomic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of analyzing travel mode choice to understand travel behavior in urban areas is crucial in the formulation of mobility policies, especially considering the growing concern to reduce the use of private transport modes in favor of sustainable ones. Although multinomial logit models have been widely used in travel behavior research, machine learning models are becoming an interesting alternative to perform this task, in which tree-based ensemble models, such as random forest and gradient boosting models, have demonstrated superiority in accomplishing this goal, although they both have not been compared using household survey data. This paper compares different logit and machine learning models, with a specific emphasis on gradient boosting, random forest, and multinomial logit models to predict travel mode choice and to identify the determinants in travel behavior in an urban area for three transport modes (public transport, private transport, and walking/bike), using household survey data. Although the methodology is defined following the case and features of the metropolitan area of the Aburrá Valley—Colombia (MAAV), it can be applied to any urban area. The results show that an optimized gradient boosting model is able to predict travel mode choice in an urban area using household survey data, outperforming the other compared models. In addition, travel time, parking type at the destination, the number of motorized vehicles in the household (cars and motorbikes), age, and gender are features that explain the travel mode choice in the MAAV. The optimized gradient boosting model presented in this paper can be employed as a policy tool to study and analyze strategies to promote the reduction of the use of private transport modes in the MAAV and increase the use of more sustainable transport modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need to tunnel closely beneath piles is increasing due to the development of urban areas. This poses a risk to the stability and serviceability of overlying structures (e.g., buildings, piers, and piled embankments). The impact of tunneling on piles is usually assessed using a displacement threshold, yet this provides no information about the posttunneling pile safety factor. Knowledge of a pile's safety factor under serviceability or extreme loading conditions is important, especially if future repurposing of the associated superstructure is a possibility. Tunneling can reduce the safety factor of a pile up to the point of geotechnical failure (i.e., when the pile capacity reduces to that of the applied load), yet little guidance is available to enable a straightforward means of assessing the posttunneling safety factor of a pile. This paper aims to address this shortcoming by providing design charts based on an analytical tunnel-single pile interaction approach that provides a means of determining a posttunneling pile safety factor. The methodology and design charts are applicable to drained soil conditions and include for the effects of the initial pile safety factor, the pile installation method [displacement (driven and jacked), nondisplacement (bored) with only the shaft capacity, and nondisplacement with base and shaft capacity] and varying water table depths. In the paper, as a validation exercise, analytical predictions are compared against data from geotechnical centrifuge tests designed to model both displacement and nondisplacement piles in sands, including a variety of tunnel–pile relative locations and initial pile safety factors. For a specified design value of a posttunneling pile safety factor, the design charts enable a quick assessment of the safe location of a pile or a tolerable tunnel volume loss considering ground parameters, water table position, pile installation method, and initial safety factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A smart city is regarded as a new form of urban development proposed by humans to cope with urban problems. Smart cities are of great interest to theoretical circles and are favored by city governments. However, in China, research on common problems and solution strategies in the process of smart city construction is still insufficient. To address this insufficiency, we utilized Python language and the Selenium library to realize a web crawler and construct a smart city corpus background library. Then, the word2vec model was used for word vectorization to divide policy texts into phrases, and 132 policies from 85 cities above the prefecture level in China were analyzed using the Gaussian mixture model (GMM). The results showed many problems in the smart city construction process in China, including the homogenization of content, the wide topic coverage, the influence of higher-level governments, the mismatch with the local situation, and the neglect of relationship governance. Moreover, an efficiency-governance model was designed, and it held certain theoretical and practical guiding significance for further promoting the healthy and sustainable development of smart city construction in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temperature increase in cities called the "urban heat island" (UHI) depends on the local microclimate (e.g., solar irradiation, population, buildings density, industrial activities, traffic, emissions, heat sources) and results not only in increased electricity consumption for indoor cooling but also in decreased outdoor comfort, especially in summer periods or in warm climate zones. As the world's urban population continues to grow, there is an urgency to make buildings more ecoefficient and reduce the impact of cities on climate change and global warming. In this framework, the use of cool concretes can mitigate the UHI and improve energy saving and outdoor comfort: cool concrete roofs and facade cement-based tiles can provide valid solutions to decrease the energy demand for air conditioning in building envelops; moreover, cool concrete paving blocks and pervious pavements can improve urban comfort for outdoor wellbeing. The present work shows the improved solar reflective performance of three cool cementitious solutions compared with traditional ones, with both white and colored surfaces, to fulfill both architectural demand and sustainability issues without any additional post-treatments or after placing steps, such as surface coating. Finally, the study is completed with the durability evaluation of the products' solar reflective performance. Tackling urban and global warming is one of the most urgent actions to make cities safer and more sustainable as well as to improve citizens wellbeing. From an optical performance perspective, it has been proved that traditional concrete-based materials do play a significant role in contributing to the fight against urban heat island phenomena when functionalized with high-reflective cool materials. Indeed, the near-infrared (NIR)-reflective concrete-based materials, which are the subject of this paper, can participate in mitigating both outdoor pavements and building surfaces temperature, regardless of their color. Lighter or darker concrete surfaces can reflect the sunlight not only in the visible range of the solar spectrum, thanks to lighter nuances, but also in the NIR region, that is, the main area responsible for the surface heating. In addition, we have successfully tested this ability in severe accelerated ageing conditions. The durable—white and colored—concrete tiles here described for building envelopes as well as urban draining or self-locking concrete pavements widen the horizon for more and more sustainable opportunities as well as flexible solutions, matching both modern architecture's technical and social requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The life service industry is the basic industry to increase employment and to meet people's needs. Therefore, it is important to reveal its spatial pattern and mechanism. In this paper, we apply the methodologies of kernel density analysis, entropy index, and standard deviational ellipse (SDE) to the point of interest data to explore the spatial distribution of the life service industry in Wuhan, a representative polycentric city in China. We focus on the following seven types of the life service industry: catering, scenic leisure, shopping, scientific-educational, transportation, sports, and healthcare. Our results show that (1) all seven types of the life service industry display a distribution of coexistence of single and multiple centers. (2) The spatial distribution of the seven types of the life service industry in Wuhan shows a pattern of a high degree of mixed use in the central urban area but a low degree in the peripheral urban area. (3) The centers of the SDE are close to one another and are distributed in Wuchang and Jianghan. (4) Except for transportation, the other six types of the life service industry show a trend of development toward the southeast. Our study provides key information for the spatial planning of the life service industry in polycentric cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waterfront redevelopment has become an effective catalyst to promote urban renewal and sustainable development. Typically, researchers have investigated this phenomenon from the perspective of the relationship between waterfronts and cities with less attention paid to public subjective well-being. Against this background, employing the customer satisfaction theory, this paper developed a waterfront public satisfaction index model to systematically investigate the crucial determinants and associated consequences of public satisfaction with waterfronts. Through structural equation modeling, an empirical analysis was performed on the questionnaire data of 240 visitors to the Xuhui Waterfront in Shanghai, China. The results reveal that service facility and public expectation are the most important factors determining public satisfaction, followed by spatial design and perceived value. However, public expectation does not have a remarkable direct impact on public satisfaction and only indirectly affects public satisfaction through service facility, spatial design, and perceived value. Moreover, it is ascertained that public satisfaction plays a crucial role in affecting public support and complaint toward waterfront redevelopment. These empirical results could provide new insights for city authorities and planners to design effective strategies to improve public satisfaction and promote urban waterfront revitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban mobility has been a priority for many cities worldwide due to the high population volume that moves around to meet personal and professional needs. However, transportation modes show inefficiencies that cannot be faced by adopting an approach to maximizing performance. In other words, it is necessary to recognize and measure the disutilities (drawbacks) of the transportation system to create effective public policies to deal with the problem. Therefore, this paper aims to develop a methodology to measure the Total Disutilities of modes of transportation. Mathematical modeling is developed using transport literature, and an application is conducted using data from the 10 most populated American cities. The results show that Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Antonio, and Philadelphia presented the lowest Total Disutilities costs (USD) per kilometer. Moreover, the higher disutilities costs occurred in Automobiles in New York and in Bus, Motorcycle, Bicycles or Scooters, and Walking in San Antonio. On the other hand, the lower disutilities costs were established in Automobile in Dallas and in Bus or Train, Motorcycle, Bicycle or Scooter, and Walking in Los Angeles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development statuses of cities are intimately associated with their spatial scales. Multiscale trajectories of cities are lenses through which can be discerned the pattern and tendency of regional development. In this paper, using comparisons of demographic and economic development, geographic detectors, and hierarchical logistic regressions, we examine the evolutionary characteristics and influential factors of multiscale urban development in Jilin Province, China. The findings show that alongside the "top-down" transformations of the spatial scales, the typologies of urban development tend to diversify. Economic and political factors played key roles in the divergence of growth and shrinkage of prefecture-level, while natural and social factors had strong effects on the divergence between growth and shrinkage of county-level cities and small towns. Moreover, urban development has demonstrated scale connection: towns under the jurisdictions of absolutely growing county-level cities are likely to be subjected to smart shrinkage; towns under the jurisdictions of smartly growing county-level cities are prone to potential shrinkage; towns under the jurisdictions of absolutely shrinking county-level cities are at risk of absolute shrinkage. Our findings recommend that regional policies take multiscale spaces into account to capture regularity of regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A nearby construction with a pile foundation in an urban area can cause possible damage or an operational safety concern to the existing tunnels. The response of the tunnel will depend on the relative location of pile tip as compared to the existing tunnel depth. This paper describes an experimental investigation carried out in the laboratory to examine the effect of pile loading on the existing tunnel in Delhi silt. A small-scale testing facility was designed and built to investigate the influence of pile loading in the close vicinity of the existing tunnel. Dimensions of the model tunnel and pile were arrived at based on the physical scaling laws. The model tunnel (outer diameter of 150 mm with thickness of 0.5 mm) and piles (outer diameter of 25.4 mm with thickness of 1.0 mm) are made up of aluminum. Tests were carried out in a fabricated model steel tank (1,100 mm wide, 1,600 mm long, and 1,200 m deep). Experiments were performed at various stages of pile loading at a separation distance of 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 times the tunnel diameter from its axis. Results indicate that the strain in tunnel lining is significantly affected by various stages of pile loading when the row of pile is placed within the distance of 12 times the pile diameter from the axis of the tunnel. Three-dimensional numerical simulations of model experiments were also carried out, which fairly predicted the phenomena measured in the experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area urban agglomeration, one of the world's four largest bay area urban agglomerations, occupies an important position in China's national development. In this paper, the expansion hotspot model, an urbanization index, a gravitation model, and a socioeconomic location model are used to explore changes in the characteristics of the urban agglomeration in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area. The research results can provide decision support for government urban agglomeration planning. The research reveals the following. (1) In the skeleton maps of the expansion hotspots in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, Jiangmen shows an irregular shape, Shenzhen shows an irregular H-shape, Dongguan and Hong Kong show a shape somewhat between a circle and a star, Zhongshan shows a gourd-shape, and Guangzhou, Foshan, Huizhou, Zhaoqing, and Zhuhai show a polygon shape. (2) In 2000, 2010, and 2018, the urbanization index for the urban agglomerations were 41.78%, 50.87%, and 54.41%, respectively. The level of economic development, household registration policy, and urban planning are important factors affecting the development of urbanization. (3) The city quality and spatial connection strength of urban agglomeration have significant spatial nonequilibrium distribution characteristics. The total city quality of Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou accounted for more than 41.5% of the total city quality of the city cluster at the same time, and that of the east coast of the Pearl River is much stronger than the west coast. (4) There are "faults" in the socioeconomic location of the 11 cities in the urban agglomeration, with significant polarization. The socioeconomic locations of Jiangmen, Huizhou, and Zhaoqing have been below the reasonable socioeconomic location range in the past 20 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable rural planning is a continuous, multiparticipatory, large-scale process. Most rural areas in developing countries have sustainable characteristics. However, rural areas have been neglected due to the excessive focus on urban areas, resulting in an urban–rural gap that is difficult to overcome. Village planning is an important public policy instrument that is used to direct land-use planning and management. Therefore, it is an important tool for realizing sustainable development in rural areas. Based on the problems experienced by these villages and the goal of sustainable rural development, the study took An Nijād village, Yemen, as a case study. The study used a hybrid design approach, including qualitative and quantitative methods, such as questionnaire analysis along with GIS methods, and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). The research cycle was implemented in various phases, including data collection, coding, and analysis. The results of the change matrix (2010–2020) have indicated that land use/land covers (LULC) classified were arable land (47.9%), Built-up area (11.5%), barren/bare land (8.3%), water body (0.3%), slop land (6.4%), mountains (22.1%), and roads (3.5%). This paper will create a comprehensive framework for the implementation and planning of rural areas at the regional level, considering the constraints of each region in terms of its ability to achieve realistic results on the planning and development of sustainable rural development strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the influence of passive façade design of a detached residential building on its energy performance. The research consists of a parameter analysis performed using commercially available software to assess the influence of different façade wall structures, glazing types, and window-to-wall ratios (WWRs) on the energy required for heating and cooling of a detached building with a sunspace. Eighteen variants of façade wall structure (W1–W18) and 20 variants of façade window glazing type (G1–G20) were created for the base model of a building with a sunspace (Model-FW) for the purpose of investigating their influence on energy consumption in the building. All variants of the base model were examined for WWR=20% , WWR=40% , and WWR=60%. The research was conducted for the location of the urban area in the city of Niš, Serbia. The analysis of the results showed that the best-performing façade wall structure in terms of heating energy consumption was Variant W1, which consists of a 0.40-m-thick concrete layer, 0.14-m-thick expanded polystyrene (EPS) thermal insulation layer, and a render/plaster layer on the outside and the inside with the total thickness of 0.03 m. The W1 variant had the largest thermal mass and thermal insulation thickness of all considered variants. Regarding the total energy required for heating and cooling, in the most favorable W1 model, the energy savings were 75.14% (WWR=20%), 35.04% (WWR=40%), and 17.15% (WWR=60%). The analysis of different glazing types showed that triple low-emissivity glazing performed the best in terms of heating energy required for a building with a sunspace. Among the considered models, benefits from triple glazing systems in terms of total energy consumption were 41.59%, 61.04%, and 47.70% for WWR=20% , WWR=40% , and WWR=60% , respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The failure of building façades is one of the prime factors governing economic losses due to extreme wind events. This paper presents the details of a postdisaster field investigation performed after the very severe cyclonic storm Vardah in the southern peninsular part of India. The paper documents a total of 164 cyclone-induced façade failures. Probable failure mechanisms and the location of the critical zones prone to façade failure are identified. A framework involving a two-tier categorization of the observed façade failures is proposed. The vulnerability of the façade components, such as panel, connections, and supporting back frames, are evaluated and quantified by their relative damage potential level of 53%, 35%, and 12%, respectively. A detailed study of the damage data indicates that inappropriate panel-to-mullion connections, the impact of wind-borne debris, the interference effect, and adopting inappropriate aerodynamic modifications are amongst the premier causes for façade failures. Finally, corrective measures are prescribed to improve the façade design methodology in order to evolve an improved resilient urban façade system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the practically of using a single internal trip purpose to generate the production and attraction values for traffic analysis zones in small urban community travel models. In previous research efforts, Quick-Response techniques, originally developed for cities with populations between 50,000 and 199,999, have been successfully applied to perform trip generation in small urban community travel models. Focusing on the reduction of data requirements and complexity of the trip generation analysis, a single trip purpose technique, based solely on aggregate numbers of households and businesses in a traffic analysis zone, has been proposed as a method to simplify the trip generation computation and reduce data requirements. This paper presents the fundamentals of the Quick-Response and single trip purpose techniques, tests the advantage of multiple trip purposes in a small sample network, and applies the two methodologies in a small urban community within Alabama to determine if significant differences exist when performing trip generation. The paper concludes that, for smaller urban community travel models, where different trip purposes are assumed to have similar trip lengths, both the Quick-Response and the single trip purpose technique produce similar results for the total productions and attractions in a traffic analysis zone. This similarity, and the results of the test showing that different trip purposes are not vital for trip distribution in small networks, substantiate the use of the simplified single trip purpose technique for trip generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore the role of built environments affecting emergency medical services (EMS) responses to traffic crashes. Specifically, this study integrated socioeconomic databases with a crash database that contains the EMS response information. Given the multilevel data structure, a hierarchical model was developed to connect EMS response times to the built environment and other associated factors at various hierarchies. The model results revealed that the built environment plays a vital role in EMS performance in terms of response times. For example, EMS response times differ significantly between rural and urban areas. If other factors are held constant, the EMS response time for a rural crash is 25.13% more likely to be longer than 10 min than for an urban crash. Other factors such as land use, area, development, roadway class, road lighting, weather, and EMS facility distance are also significantly related to EMS response times. This study offers insights into improving EMS responses to traffic crashes by considering the role of built environments. More implications are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of urban areas, many municipalities are facing issues where the flow velocity in their sewer systems is relatively high at various locations. This is because of either geographical or local hydraulic conditions. Existing design guidelines generally include a velocity limit of 3 m/s. However, the rationale for this limit is not presented in these guidelines. This study explores the feasibility of higher allowable sewer velocities on municipal infrastructure. Potential issues that may be considered when increasing the velocity to a higher value of 6 m/s or even around 10 m/s are discussed, including capacity, air demand, and transient flow. Considerations as to system protection are then reviewed including the forces exerted on structures, cavitation, and presence of sediments. Design alternatives are also discussed including drop shafts and energy dissipators. Increasing the existing maximum allowable velocity of 3 m/s to a higher value may result in a decrease in pipe diameter and depth of cover, which would yield financial savings. A value for the maximum allowable velocity in sewer system design is not proposed in this paper given the complicated hydraulic features of high-speed flow and the significant gaps between research and actual engineering requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been a surge in research with respect to urban regeneration worldwide. Urban regeneration is usually regarded as a path for economic growth through the reconstruction of dilapidated urban areas in cities. Nevertheless, a cluster of factors, including those with respect to the environment, economy, society, and culture, influences urban regeneration. Furthermore, genuinely effective and sustainable regeneration processes should be progrowth on all fronts. Few existing studies explicitly interpret which features that regeneration projects reflecting inclusion should have and how to implement the urban regeneration. Therefore, this paper proposes the concept of inclusive urban regeneration combining nature-based solutions (NbS) with society-based solutions (SbS). And its connotation and features, as well as content and objectives, are clearly elaborated. In addition, this paper explains how to carry out inclusive urban regeneration from two aspects of spatial planning and social construction. In order to ensure its implementation for possible difficulties, the guarantee mechanism is also highlighted. This paper can be used as a theoretical guide for subsequent urban regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]