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In the context of ongoing global urbanization, the disparity in urban development, marked by the dual phenomena of urban sprawl and urban shrinkage at the regional level, has become increasingly evident. In this vein, two land-related governance strategies—smart growth (SG) and smart shrinkage (SS)—emerge as potential remedies to these challenges, targeting urban expansion and shrinkage, respectively. This study bridges the gap in the fragmented discourse surrounding SG and SS by conducting a comprehensive comparative review on the respective literatures. Utilizing the Scopus database, our research employs trend analysis, text and topic mining, time node analysis, and regional analysis, augmented by qualitative reviews of seminal papers. The findings reveal a notable shift in research focus, with interest in SS surging around 2010 (the number of SS-related papers published after 2010 accounts for 92.3% of the total number of the entire study period) as attention to SG waned, suggesting an impending paradigm shift in urban sustainability. The analysis indicates that SS research lacks the disciplinary diversity, thematic breadth, and empirical depth of SG studies, underscoring a need for a more robust theoretical foundation to support urban sustainability. Furthermore, while both SG and SS derive from environmental science foundations, SG predominantly addresses the physical and landscape attributes of urban areas, whereas SS focuses more on socio-economic dimensions. Our findings point to an intrinsic link between SG and SS, which could lay the groundwork for their integration into a unified theoretical framework to better advance urban sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Investigates benchmarked performance of global and emerging knowledge cities. [•] Introduces a knowledge-based urban development performance assessment model. [•] Applies the assessment model into an international comparative study. [•] Reveals insights on scrutinizing the development perspectives of knowledge cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is situated within the discussion of mega-urbanization, a particular urbanization process that entails a large-scale agglomeration. In this paper, our focus is on urbanization in Java, Indonesia's most dynamic region. We add to the literature by investigating the change and prediction of the land use/land cover (LULC) of mega-urbanization in Java. This research uses a vector machine approach to support the classification of land cover change dynamics, cellular automata-Markov (CA Markov), and the Klassen typology technique. This paper indicates that major metropolitan areas are still expanding in terms of built-up areas, generating a larger urban agglomeration. However, attention should be also given to the urbanization process outside existing metropolis' boundaries given that more than half of the built-up land coverage in Java is located in non-metropolitan areas. In terms of future direction, the projection results for 2032 show that the Conservative scenario can reduce and slow down the increase in built-up land on the island of Java. On the other hand, the Spatial Plan (RTRW) scenario facilitates a rapid increase in the LULC of built-up land from 2019. The urban spatial dynamics in Java raises challenges for urban and regional planning as the process is taking place across multiple administrative authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'The Urban Revolution' by V. Gordon Childe (Town Planning Review, 1950) is one of the most heavily cited papers ever published by an archaeologist. The intellectual context and influence of Childe's paper are examined here. Childe was the first to synthesise archaeological data with respect to the concept of urbanism, and the first to recognise the radical social transformation that came with the earliest cities and states. This paper traces the influence of his ideas and shows their relevance to studies of ancient urbanism today. Although Childe's treatment of urban planning was brief, his ideas presaged current research into ancient urban planning. The paper ends with a call for renewed interaction between scholars of ancient and modern urbanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban areas are places associated with the transformation of ideas into practices, social initiatives, and spatial economics. The study aims to assess the triad interaction between education, science, and business as a multiplier on the socio-economic development in the region. The study built a conceptual model of socio-economic space in the context of innovative urban development: the unity of education, science, and business. The statistical analysis allowed the author to substantiate the peculiarities of the local triad. The study revealed correlations in the influence of education, science, and business on changes in the regional system. The paper suggests that the triad of education, science, and business rests on territorial specifics. This feature is the determining factor of innovative development in the field of resort towns. The presented research uses the quantitatively measured influence of the triad as a multiplier by combining values of the unity of education, science, and business. The study found that the mentioned indicator reflects the wellbeing and quality of the labor resources in the region. On the one hand, the multiplicative influence of the triad is a guarantee of an increase in the wellbeing level within the borders of the region. On the other hand, it requires adaptation of the innovative development of resort towns to the current growth of the workforce and a decrease in innovative advantages on a local scale. The findings provide policymakers with significant indicators on the way to stabilizing the regional economy and effective decision making. The study of the interaction between education, science, and business in the context of socioeconomic development can become a crucial tool for formulating policies aimed at stabilizing the region’s economy and improving the quality of life of its residents, particularly in resort cities. The obtained results can provide guidelines for the development of innovation support programs and the planning of investment strategies, taking into account the specifics of territorial conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban regeneration is a sound, sustainable urban development strategy globally. In China, promoting urban regeneration has become the national sustainable urban strategy. Under the resource constraint, it is necessary to understand what benefits different types of urban regeneration projects can contribute to urban development. Much research has contributed to evaluating the benefits of urban regeneration on the project scale. The systematic investigation of their effects on surrounding economic vitality, especially the comparison between different types of projects, is relatively downplayed. This paper aims to evaluate and compare the effects of urban regeneration projects on surrounding economic vitality by calculating the change in housing prices. Chongqing is selected as the case city. Based on the housing transaction data from 2015 to 2021, a staggered difference-in-difference method is employed to capture the results. The finding shows that the overall effects are significantly negative, especially within a 400–800 m radius. Higher investment or better project location relates to stronger negative effects. Moreover, the differences in effects among the three types of urban regeneration projects are clearly revealed from diverse perspectives. It provides a valuable reference for policymakers and urban planners to make urban regeneration planning better by considering comprehensive benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has experienced significant urbanization during the past 40 years, which exerts impacts on regional climates through changing land surface properties. Previous studies mainly focused on the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei areas, while less attention has been paid to central China. In this paper, the regional climate effects of urbanization around the greater Wuhan area were investigated using the WRF model. High resolution, satellite-derived, impervious datasets were used to generate two realistic scenarios representing urban surface states of the years 1986 and 2018. By comparing the simulation results of two sensitivity experiments from 1 July 2015 to 12 July 2015, the spatial and diurnal changes in surface air temperature, surface skin temperature, and surface energy budget were analyzed. Our results reveal that urban expansion leads to 2 m air temperature and surface skin temperature increases by approximate 0.63 °C and 0.83 °C, respectively. Surface sensible heat flux increases, while latent heat flux decreases, with much greater effects in daytime than nighttime. The planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) increases with its maximum value over 100 m, and a 2 m water vapor mixing ratio decreases with a peak value around −2 g/kg. These findings provide knowledge to improve the understanding of land–atmospheric interactions and pave the way to studying urban expansion effects under future climate change scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coexistence of urban expansion and shrinkage in China has become increasingly apparent; therefore, the current strategic model of growth-oriented urban planning as the top-level design needs to be adjusted. This paper focuses on the city of Baishan, which is a typical shrinking city in China, and explores the feasibility of implementing the concept of smart shrinkage planning in shrinking cities in China by constructing a coupled PLUS-SD model. The results demonstrate the following conclusions: (1) The overall simulation of the coupled PLUS-SD model is superior to that of the PLUS model. In Baishan, the areas with the most changes in construction land will be located at the edges of the landforms by 2030. (2) Using the traditional planning scenario would only exacerbate the rate of construction land expansion in Baishan, deepening the incongruity between the city's population and construction land. (3) The smart shrinkage scenario will require strict control of the scale of construction land and optimization of the structure of the urban construction land, which would push the city in the direction of healthy and sustainable development. (4) The concept of smart shrinkage planning is a scientific and feasible plan for realizing the efficient and sustainable use of construction land in shrinking cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China's urbanization enters the middle and late stages, urban regeneration has risen to the strategic level of building a new national development pattern and promoting high-quality urban development. Due to the wide range of disciplines and content involved in urban regeneration, there remains a lack of systematic and comprehensive theories and frameworks to lay a theoretical foundation for academic research and provide guidance for renewal practice. Therefore, this paper aims to construct a systematic and comprehensive theoretical framework of urban regeneration from the perspective of space reproduction, by employing the theory of the production of space as the basis of interdisciplinary research, and integrating related theories and research. The current paper proposes a theoretical framework that includes four core elements, namely the government, the market, society and space reproduction. Subsequently, the paper summarizes the subject, power, capital and interest of the three types of stakeholders (government, market, and society), their different emphases in the reproduction mechanism, and their various cooperative modes in practices. Meanwhile, under the concept of sustainable development and "people-oriented" approach, this paper emphasizes the importance of social factors and the suitability of the multi-stakeholder co-governance model of government, market and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2 Andersson E, Barthel S, Borgström S, Colding J, Elmqvist T, Folke C, Gren Å. Reconnecting cities to the biosphere: Stewardship of green infrastructure and urban ecosystem services. Chronologically first of the anniversary collection papers, Folke et al. ([6]) took a regional-global approach to urbanization and demonstrated how cities are part of the global biosphere and dependent upon the life-supporting functions and services generated by ecosystems. Enlivening our cities: Towards urban sustainability and resilience: This article belongs to Ambio's 50th Anniversary Collection. [Extracted from the article]

The rate of global urbanization is constantly increasing. As a result of the massive population growth, there is an increasing demand for further urban development, especially in developing regions such as Aswan city. This paper aims to examine the usage official land-use data in predicting future urban growth until 2046, moreover, to define urban driving forces in case study area. This was done using Similarity weighted model, a machine learning based model to simulate future urban growth. The results show that official land-use data produce a slightly better results’ accuracy than remote sensing sources within small to medium scales. The results although reveal that for study region, urban area is expected to expand to cover an area of almost 4460 Feddan by year 2046. The outcome of this research assesses decision makers to accurately predict future urban sprawl areas using available official land-use data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The law of urban scaling implies that there is a universally applicable nonlinear scaling relationship between population size and urban indicators, which is a method of quantitative analysis that can reflect the growth law and internal logic of the urban system. However, most present research is conducted at the municipal scale, and studies of scaling law in the inner-city system are scarce, especially from the perspective of compact urban form development. The goal of this paper is to discover the scaling law within urban systems from a multi-scale perspective. Through the empirical analysis of Wuhan, this paper examines the internal scale law of the urban system from the municipal and district scales. Moreover, we use the landscape expansion index to perform spatial autocorrelation analysis. In this way, we assess the relationship between the compactness of urban morphological development and the urban scaling law. The results indicate that the temporal scaling law on the city scale has a more significant linear law than the single-year scaling law. The analysis also shows the scaling law relationship within the inner-city system. Nevertheless, there is a deviation between the temporal scaling law and the cross-section scaling law. Namely, the time series development of a district does not follow the section scaling law of the urban system. Furthermore, the urban scaling law shows a negative correlation with the compactness of the urban form development. It is crucial to understand the current economic development and resource endowment of an urban system in the urbanization process, as it significantly contributes to urban development and regional coordinated planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Raumforschung und Raumordnung is the property of Oekom Verlag GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Raumforschung und Raumordnung is the property of Oekom Verlag GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The term 'religious tourism' refers to travel that is primarily inspired by spiritual beliefs (Smith, 2012). It serves as one of humanity's oldest religious practices as well as one of the earliest examples of tourism (Timothy, 2011). Due in the main to the numerous sacred places that are dispersed throughout its vast geographic area, India, which is known for its rich heritage and culture, has attracted attention from throughout the world (Eck, 2011; Singh, 2013). As a result, it has become a well-known location for religious tourism. During the past ten years, this specific type of tourism has seen a tremendous increase in growth rates, leading to considerable changes at important spiritual and religious places. Intense globalisation and rapid urbanisation have been prompted by the influx of tourists and pilgrims, profoundly altering the terrain (Harris, Griffin & Williams, 2002). This paper delves into this phenomenon through a case study of Vrindavan, a significant city situated on the banks of the Yamuna River in northern India, which has held great religious significance and serves as a prominent pilgrimage destination (Shinde, 2011). However, as part of a larger process of globalisation and ensuing urbanisation, and the entry of numerous transnational chains starting in the 1960s, there have been significant changes. The idea of a pilgrimage to Vrindavan has changed, moving away from its original meaning as a trek to the home of the gods and instead becoming more of a holiday and leisure destination. This change has produced exciting opportunities for investors and developers, prompting growing urbanisation and a notable break from the customary pilgrimage practices that were traditionally observed. The study examines the ways in which globalisation influences the establishment of new sacred places supported by various faith-based organisations by using a case study approach and a purposive survey method (Kothari, 2004). Considering the concomitant processes of religious commercialisation and spatial transformation, the article seeks to shed light on the consequent impact on the spiritual experience and the larger pilgrimage patterns throughout the city. The study ends by making suggestions for steps that can be taken to lessen the effect of globalisation on a city's spiritual essence and make sure that urban growth is in harmony with its history and sacred values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of subcenters is considered an effective measure to solve the diseases in big cities and improve urban competitiveness. China takes the planning and construction of the Beijing urban subcenter as a major national decision-making deployment. Therefore, the establishment of a scientific and reliable evaluation index system for the urban subcenter is of great significance to the public sector to diagnose urban problems and improve urban performance management. Under the guidance of system theory, this paper establishes the governance evaluation index system of the Beijing subcenter based on the five subsystems: economic subsystem, social subsystem, cultural subsystem, ecological subsystem, and administrative subsystem, and 29 secondary indicators. After comprehensively examining the panel data of the overall Beijing urban system during the construction of the subcenter (2010–2019), the entropy method is used to objectively assign the value of the Beijing urban subcenter (Tongzhou District), and it is compared with other 15 municipal districts. The derivation of the development dynamic evolution of the Beijing urban subcenter is completed through the geospatial visualization and the linear regression fitting. It is found that the comprehensive index of urban subcenter governance in Beijing shows an upward trend year by year and has developed by leaps and bounds under the promotion of the central policy. Driven by Beijing's subcenter strategy, the development model of the whole of Beijing has moved from a typical center diffusion model to a dual center to a subcenter and even a diversified development pattern. This paper proposes to lead urban development with the concept of high-quality development, adhere to innovation-driven, improve urban comprehensive carrying capacity through urban software and hardware construction, and realize regional coordinated development on a larger spatial scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), an important industrial belt for food security for China, is facing the challenge of decreasing cultivated land in the process of rapid urbanization. In this case, how to improve the cultivated land use efficiency (CLUE) has become the top priority. Based on data from 108 cities of YREB from 2001 to 2019, we measured CLUE using a slack-based measure with undesirable output (SBM-Undesirable). The high-value area of CLUE shows a trend from multi-core agglomeration to two-core agglomeration, mainly concentrated in Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration and the northern part of the YREB. Then the paper examines the spatial effect of urbanization on CLUE using the Spatial Error Model (SEM). The result shows that population urbanization has significantly promoted the improvement of CLUE in YREB during the sample period. With each percentage point increase in population urbanization, CLUE will increase by 2.99%. Land urbanization has a negative impact on CLUE, for each percent increase in the expansion of urban spatial scope, CLUE will decrease by 0.06%. The spatial heterogeneity analysis shows that population urbanization in the lower reaches has significantly promoted CLUE, with a coefficient of 1.053. The population urbanization level in the middle and lower reaches of the region has no obvious effect on CLUE. The coefficient of land urbanization in the downstream region is 0.35, which significantly promotes CLUE. The coefficient in the middle is −0.26, which implies the CLUE decreases by 0.26% for every one percentage point increase in land urbanization. Land urbanization in the upper has no significant impact on the CLUE. Policy implications include improving the quality of the three major urban clusters along the YREB, building an ecologic protective screen in the upper, encouraging a new agricultural management system and detailed regulations related to the cultivated land protection in YREB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increasing urbanisation, understanding the variety of historical experience with water in the urban context becomes all the more relevant. Apart from representing an economic and environmental necessity, the physical and sensory access to freshwater is universally understood as socially desirable, pleasing and valued. The history of the East African coast is especially relevant as water scarcity is not a modern phenomenon in the region—in fact, precolonial towns situated on the oceanfront flourished in relatively arid environments too. This paper presents the insights achieved with a 3D scanning survey of the preserved heritage in the now-deserted town of Jumba la Mtwana, located 20 km north of Mombasa, Kenya. Although all of the buildings are partially collapsed, various wells, cisterns and reservoirs have been documented. Considering this archaeological site and other examples of (pre)colonial Swahili towns, this paper adopts multidisciplinary perspectives in analysing and interpreting the distribution of constructed features associated with water, with particular focus on their design, density and spatial context, as well as social and sensory connotations. Its results highlight the socio-spatial role of the element of water in the precolonial built environment, which may be contrasted with later periods and potentially carry broader implications for current urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines creative co-research with groups experiencing homelessness and the effects of rapid urban development. It draws upon two projects which combine social art practices and a feminist participatory action research (PAR) approach. The paper argues that bridging PAR and social arts practice, whilst underutilised and under theorised together, is an approach that offers some key opportunities as well as challenges. In highlighting these challenges, the paper acknowledges the role of power dynamics and broader issues associated with artists working in urban development contexts where relationships between local authorities, developers, the culture sector and residents are increasingly complex and entangled. In analysing the difficulties and risks within creative, participatory projects, the paper calls for an 'ethic of care' and a focus on collectively building knowledge about unequal political, economic and social structures with groups affected by rapid urban development and displacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tourism & Rural Development Studies / Turisztikai és Vidékfejlesztési Tanulmányok is the property of CampInvest Kft. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Road connectivity is among the few factors which trigger the urbanisation and development process in a region. It facilitates trade, transport, social integration, economic development, socio-economic interaction and cultural assimilation. The present paper aims at analyzing the road infrastructure of Assam with special focus on the Central Brahmaputra Valley. The significance of the study area lies in providing smooth accessibility to the East Asian countries, especially in terms of Act East Policy. The study constitutes an investigation of the growth of road length, road density and connectivity in the study area in spatio-temporal context. Here, growth in road infrastructure has been compared with the growth in urban population and towns. Spatial variation in terms of growth can clearly be seen while discussing the growth of road connectivity and urban growth. Morigaon district has experienced the highest growth in terms of both road connectivity and urban population which clearly reveals that a strong positive relationship exists between the growth of road infrastructure and urban growth. The study has the potential of becoming a guideline for the policy makers to implement action plans for increasing the degree of accessibility in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructural design, transport and mobility policies are strong instruments for interpreting historical urban and regional transformation processes. The paper addresses the intercausalities between both of them. To do so, it briefly sketches debates on the causalities of transport infrastructure and urbanisation and the theory of technological politics, drawing attention to the relationship between transport infrastructure and politics, and how infrastructures and their techno-political frames include means of power and authority. From there, the paper moves to the debate on the relationship between social justice and transport, showing how transport systems embody social processes and social (in)injustice. The history of agrarian extractivism in the region of Urabá in Colombia serves as a case study. The paper shows how existing transport networks of the region of Urabá have supported the expansion of agrarian extractivist industries and more specifically the production of transport (in)justice. It explores the development of the infrastructural network, transport systems and urbanisation of this region from the early 1900s onwards. Results show how the actual agrarian extractivist industries of the region are causing huge challenges related to the overlapping of transport scales, congestion and risks of accidents in urban areas, and how actual transport dynamics in the region are affecting urban development, generating a high segregation characterised by uneven distributions of public services and transport infrastructures. The paper reveals that the existing transport developments in the region of Urabá have no support for local development and are mainly thought for the efficiency of agrarian extractivist industries over local economic development. Agrarian extractivism has been a consistent factor in the economic, political and social spheres, and since colonial times the appropriation of natural resources and the dispossession of territories has been omnipresent. This paper explores the historical role of transport in agrarian extractivism, the long-term impact of the prolongation of old mechanisms, and the interrelations of the latter with current urbanisation and development. It concludes that infrastructural developments in this region have supported agrarian extractivist industries, first in colonial times, but also more recently, showing the deep embeddedness of the relation between mobility and urbanity in the (agrarian extractivist) development history of this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Jurídica (0103-3506) is the property of Revista Juridica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper has used census data of 1901-2011 to examine and understand the process of urbanization in J&K UT and has laid its utmost emphasis on the urban morphology and degree of level urbanization. Attempts have also been made to assess the changes in workforce structure and food availability and consumption pattern in the UT over the years. The study also analyses the inter-district scenario of urban growth and its level and extent in to consideration. The annual exponential growth rate of urban population in India has gone down from 0.97 per cent during 1981-91 to 0.77 per cent during 1991-2001 and in Jammu and Kashmir during the same period it has reduced from 1.06 to 0.58. The study shows that city populace within the area has accelerated from 7.42 to 33.00 percentage as towards 10.84 to 38.70 at national level. During last two decades, developed districts based on per capita income such as Srinagar and Jammu have shown low growth in urban population. The study make a sound point that in the UT the up rise in urban population was not observed in old cities like Jammu and Srinagar but the less advanced districts like Kupwara, Kargil and Leh. The study further reveals that as income rises, expenditure on fruits, milk and milk-product, meat, eggs and fish increases and expenditure on cereals, pulses and other primary products decreases. The expenditure on meat, egg, fish and fruits and vegetables as a percentage of total food expenditure has increased. With regard to male cultivators in part of Srinagar has shown a substantial decline from -1.59 during 1981-2001 to -9.01 during 2001-11. But for female cultivators, the growth rate has remained almost same. From the results it can be observed that availability and production of essential food grains (per capita) decreased over the reference period substantially. On the basis of results drawn, this paper puts forward some policy suggestions on how to check the urbanization in the UT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper has used census data of 1901-2011 to examine and understand the process of urbanization in J&K UT and has laid its utmost emphasis on the urban morphology and degree of level urbanization. Attempts have also been made to assess the changes in workforce structure and food availability and consumption pattern in the UT over the years. The study also analyses the inter-district scenario of urban growth and its level and extent in to consideration. The annual exponential growth rate of urban population in India has gone down from 0.97 per cent during 1981-91 to 0.77 per cent during 1991-2001 and in Jammu and Kashmir during the same period it has reduced from 1.06 to 0.58. The study shows that city populace within the area has accelerated from 7.42 to 33.00 percentage as towards 10.84 to 38.70 at national level. During last two decades, developed districts based on per capita income such as Srinagar and Jammu have shown low growth in urban population. The study make a sound point that in the UT the up rise in urban population was not observed in old cities like Jammu and Srinagar but the less advanced districts like Kupwara, Kargil and Leh. The study further reveals that as income rises, expenditure on fruits, milk and milk-product, meat, eggs and fish increases and expenditure on cereals, pulses and other primary products decreases. The expenditure on meat, egg, fish and fruits and vegetables as a percentage of total food expenditure has increased. With regard to male cultivators in part of Srinagar has shown a substantial decline from -1.59 during 1981-2001 to -9.01 during 2001-11. But for female cultivators, the growth rate has remained almost same. From the results it can be observed that availability and production of essential food grains (per capita) decreased over the reference period substantially. On the basis of results drawn, this paper puts forward some policy suggestions on how to check the urbanization in the UT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China can effectively promote urban-rural integration and economic and social modernization through new urbanization, which also serves as a strong driver and supporter of the growth of rural tourism. This paper examines the new urbanization and the growth of the rural tourism industry based on the rural revitalization strategy. It does so by using the techniques of literature research, field investigation, information technology retrieval, and excavation. We list the accomplishments of the rural tourism sector at its current stage of development and identify the issues and factors that will affect the sector's future growth. In addition, a coordinated development evaluation index system is built based on a theoretical analysis of rural revitalization strategies and new urbanization, and the corresponding comprehensive score is obtained using the entropy method for research. The index weight of the subsystem for rural revitalization in province A is computed using the entropy weight method. According to the findings, the wealth of life has the smallest weight (0.1117), followed by the prosperity of industry (0.2618), which is the largest on a criterion level. The effective weight of governance is the largest, at 0.2801. This study can serve as a useful resource for fostering rural tourism and advancing rural business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of urbanization and the widening gap between urban and rural areas, how to effectively enhance the balanced development of urban and rural areas as well as promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas have become heated topics. Based on the basic theory of urban–rural integration and spatial balance, this paper establishes a comprehensive evaluation system. Using a coupling coordination model and an obstacle degree model, this paper selects 32 indicators from aspects of economy, society and ecology to measure the development level of urban–rural integration in 34 prefecture-level cities in Northeast China from 2000 to 2019. We also analyze the spatial pattern, evolution type characteristics and obstacle factors of urban–rural relations. The results show that: (1) The growth rate of urban development in Northeast China is higher than that of rural development. Except for rural ecology, all dimensions of urban and rural areas have increased year by year, but there are large spatial differences within the region. (2) The urban–rural integration development level of Northeast China is growing constantly and the types of urban and rural coordination are all rising to a higher level. Areas with high urban–rural coordination levels are concentrated in the Harbin–Changchun urban agglomeration and the central and southern Liaoning urban agglomeration, with obvious agglomeration effects. (3) In the coordinated development of urban and rural areas, the restrictive degree of the rural social subsystem was higher than that of the urban subsystem. The restrictive factors in the coordinated development of urban and rural areas are relatively stable, and include per capita consumption expenditure, per capita public budget expenditure, books in public libraries per thousand people, etc. (4) The functions of rural social elements should be enhanced, and the social urban–rural integrated development mechanism should be established to promote the integrated development of urban and rural society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this systematic literature review is to contribute to the knowledge about barriers to change in urban freight systems and to support managed changes toward more sustainable urban freight systems. Method: This paper is based on a systematic review covering 93 peer-reviewed journal articles. The study was designed to advance earlier research in this area by providing a system perspective on barriers to development in urban freight systems. The theoretical knowledge about these barriers was analyzed and synthesized, the relationships between barriers explored, and the insights developed into a model of understanding of managed change processes in urban freight systems. Findings: From a system perspective 11 categories of barriers to change in urban freight systems were identified and characterized. The barriers are, in different ways, related both to each other and to a managed change process for sustainable development of urban freight systems. A model for understanding categories of barriers and their connection to managed change processes in urban freight systems is proposed in this paper. The model consists of three groups of barriers within the process, and two groups in the system context, which should be addressed with different priorities in a managed change process. The study identifies several future research options. Future research could support the development of sustainable urban freight systems by providing insights into change process governance, potentially by combining theory from areas like organization, systems, and networks with the system perspective on urban freight systems. Research on non-European urban freight systems could increase the scholarly insights about contextual impact on barriers and change processes. Future studies could also explore methods to mitigate identified barriers, especially in the areas of cooperation, organization, politics, knowledge, and the first mover disadvantage. Finally, future research should continue to develop the model of the managed change process for urban freight systems and its use in supporting sustainable development of these systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization has accelerated China's economic growth, but it has also brought many sustainability issues. This paper selected a random forest model to study the impact of local government-led urbanization on urban sustainable development. Urbanization affected urban sustainable development through government revenue expansion, land resources mismatch, and industrial structure adjustment. The results showed that the adjustment of industrial structure has the greatest impact on urban sustainable development, and the importance of the average output of industrial enterprises confirms it. Government revenue expansion and land resources mismatch are more important to the sustainable development of representative urban agglomerations. The goodness of fit of the random forest model is better than the multiple linear regression (MLR) model and the extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) model. The generalization ability of the model is improved with the optimization of variables. The main contribution of this paper is that we have established a complete information dynamic game model on government revenue expansion, land resource mismatch, industrial structure adjustment, and urban sustainable development. And the random forest model is used to study the relationship between the above variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale private real estate projects in the past few decades in vast areas of increasingly varied scales have been created that were once sparsely inhabited agricultural land and wetlands in the remote locations of these urban areas. This paper examines the reasons for India's peripheralization of real estate megaprojects. Such projects are typically constructed on agricultural land, notably paddy fields and wetlands. Developers' site selections are mostly influenced by the low cost of land and future development potential. In contrast to the disarray of existing urban spaces, "bypass urbanism" creates restricted and unique city spaces that allow more contented or high-status lifestyles. They avoid large parts of the city area as part of their daily lives, reinforcing socio-economic isolation, peripheralization, and uneven urban development. With the help of two case studies, this paper explores how peripheralization has created a restricted and exclusive space that facilitates middle-class life while bypassing and neglecting existing urban areas. This massive bypass urbanism constitutes a new quality of urban growth with far-reaching and uncountable repercussions, resulting in the creation of islands and the reshuffling of the entire metropolitan region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coordination and coupling of new urbanization and the ecological environment is of great significance for the high-quality development of the Yellow River basin, China. In this paper, the urbanization efficiency and ecological efficiency of seven urban agglomerations in the Yellow River basin, China, from 2006 to 2019 are calculated at the city level. Spatial correlation analysis between urbanization efficiency and ecological efficiency is carried out by applying the spatial association model. Then, the spatio-temporal coupling relationship is estimated based on the relative development and spatial coupling models. The results show that urbanization efficiency has been rising, from 0.83 in 2006 to 0.91 in 2019. Ecological efficiency first stabilized and then rose from 1.03 in 2006 to 1.23 in 2019. Spatially, cities with high urbanization efficiency development are increasing from west to east. Cities with high eco-efficient developments are increasing from northwest to southeast. The coupling relationship between the two is an N-type relationship, with the trend of first rising, then falling, and then rising. Spatially, the coupling degree of the upper and lower reaches of the Yellow River basin, China, is higher than that of the middle reaches of the Yellow River basin, China. Finally, this paper puts forward policy recommendations on the coordinated and coupling development of urban agglomerations in the Yellow River basin, China, from the perspective of the future differentiated development of different urban agglomerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a developing country, Vietnam has experienced rapid economic development since the 21st century. It is therefore becoming increasingly important to understand its spatial pattern of urban expansion. However, the key challenge in this endeavor lies in the lack of national accounting data for the sub-administrative divisions of Vietnam at the national level, especially longitudinal data over a long time series. The nighttime lights (NTL) data can objectively reflect the scope and intensity of human development and construction in urban built-up areas, which can effectively support the empirical analysis of the urban expansion process in Vietnam. This paper uses the intercalibration model to correct and fit the long time series of DMSP/OLS and VIIRS/NPP NTL data. Based on this, the data for the urban built areas of Vietnam from 2000 to 2018 are further extracted. The results are as follows. (1) The main urban expansion in Vietnam is concentrated in the southern Mekong Delta and the northern Red River Delta, represented by Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi City, respectively. (2) Vietnam's urban NTL has significant high–high clustering characteristics in the north-south delta regions. The main urban expansion hotspots were concentrated around Ho Chi Minh City before 2012, the northern region represented by Hanoi City was gradually transformed into a critical area that gathering urban expansion hotspots after 2012. (3) The cities with significant influence and high coupling degree of industrialization and globalization on the urbanization of Vietnam are concentrated in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and some northern delta provinces, showing that the impact of industrialization and globalization on urbanization in Vietnam is still limited to some regions. In addition, the results show that the size of the population and the level of industrialization are the main drivers of urban expansion in Vietnam, while the level of foreign investment shows little significance. The results are helpful for promoting the application of long time series NTL data in urban expansion and for further analyzing the urban pattern changes in Vietnam and the influencing factors behind them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attaining optimal eco-efficiency is of paramount importance in promoting the sustainable and harmonious development of the economy and environment within urban agglomerations. Firstly, this paper utilizes the Super-SBM model with undesirable output to measure the eco-efficiency (EE) of 64 cities in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei metropolitan region (BTHMR), the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), the Pearl River Delta (PRD), and the Chengdu–Chongqing Economic Zone (CCEZ) from 2006 to 2019. Secondly, this study puts forth a novel and comprehensive index system aimed at evaluating the urbanization efficiency and sheds light on the spatiotemporal changes in EE and urbanization efficiency. Finally, the STIRPAT model is used to examine the influencing factors of EE and to investigate the correlation between EE and urbanization efficiency. The study found that the overall EE of the four typical urban agglomerations is high, but the trend varies with a decrease of about 12.9% from 2006 to 2019. The mean EE is in the order of CCEZ > PRD > BTHMR > YRD, with mean values of 0.941, 0.909, 0.842, and 0.732, respectively. The level of science and technology and the urbanization efficiency have a significant positive impact on EE, while population, industrial structure, FDI, and greening level have an inhibitory effect on urban eco-efficiency. Based on the results, policy suggestions such as paying attention to regional heterogeneity and giving full play to the government's macro-regulatory role in shaping the economic and industrial structure are proposed to serve as a guide for the coordinated development of urban agglomerations under the Dual Carbon Target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban land acquisition is a fundamental precondition to sustaining the socio-economic livelihood of urban residents. In Ethiopia, with the high rate of peri-urbanization, the demand for urban land for various urban uses, such as housing development, is responded to by expropriating peri-urban landholdings from the farming community through paying compensation to the farmers. The paper highlights Ethiopia's urbanization pace and the associated urban land acquisition scenarios, mainly for housing purposes. Thus, it aims to analyze the peri-urban land acquisition scenarios through the expropriation of peri-urban land holdings used for agricultural purposes in Bahir Dar and the associated adverse effect on the farming community. To address the intended aim, data were collected by interviewing senior officials, experts, and elder farm households of the study area who were more knowledgeable about the study issue. There were focus group discussions with selected farming communities, and an extended field observation was conducted intending to triangulate the data collected by other techniques. Moreover, the Geographic Information System (GIS) was utilized to analyze satellite images of Bahir Dar City to demonstrate the extent of peri-urban land conversion from 2011 to 2021. The result of this study revealed that there is a 7% urban population growth rate, which resulted in 8% of Bahir Dar being converted from peri-urban between the stated period, and hence a considerable size of land had been expropriated in the peri-urban areas of Bahir Dar with expropriation measures. This study exposed that the compensation for expropriated agricultural landholdings often fails to adequately account for the full range of livelihoods and economic activities that farmers engage in, leaving them struggling to adapt to urban life. The urban development in the study area of Bahir Dar is taking place by jeopardizing the livelihoods of the farming community, and the urban expansion is seen as a threat to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of shrinking cities is a significant challenge faced by many cities today. To more accurately identify the leading factors driving urban shrinkage and develop rational recommendations, precise identification and classification of urban shrinkage has become an indispensable part of the process. This paper focuses on the typical population loss region of China's three northeastern provinces, using 497 identified physical cities as the basic research unit. Based on multi-source geographical big data and utilizing the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model, spatial modeling of population in the three provinces of northeast China was conducted, resulting in spatialized population data, followed by identification and classification of shrinking cities among the physical cities. Cities with a total population change rate of less than 0 are defined as shrinking cities. In cities where the total population change rate is greater than 0, cities with both a city shrinking area ratio and a decreased population ratio greater than 5% are defined as locally shrinking cities. Based on this, 90 (18.1%) shrinking cities and 118 (23.7%) locally shrinking cities were identified within the three provinces of northeast China. The phenomenon of urban shrinkage is distributed throughout various regions, mainly in smaller cities located near larger cities. According to the standards of the urban shrinkage classification model, the spatial pattern of population loss regions was divided into four types, identifying 13 (6.3%) global type, 111 (53.4%) concentrated type, 64 (30.7%) perforated type, and 20 (9.6%) edge type. Analysis of shrinking cities based on their classification revealed that the main reasons for urban shrinkage are the decline and dissolution of large industrial enterprises, abandonment and neglect of buildings, and unreasonable design planning in cities. Economic development and inward population flow can be promoted in shrinking cities by creating job opportunities, improving living standards, developing transportation, adjusting urban planning or concentrating urban population, as well as vigorously developing urban center areas. These measures can provide support for the revival and development of shrinking cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While rapid urbanization promotes social and economic development, it exacerbates human outdoor thermal comfort, which increases the risks to human health. This paper uses four thermal comfort indices and multiple satellite observations to explore the urbanization effect on summer heat stress in Guangdong from 1979–2018, a coastal province of China. Two types of thermal comfort index are used here, namely the direct thermal comfort index (Heat Index, HI; Temperature–Humidity Index, THI; Discomfort Index, DI) and the physiological thermal comfort index (Universal Thermal Climate Index, UTCI). We compare the differences in the urbanization effects on the changes in the three direct thermal comfort indices (HI, THI, and DI) and a physiological thermal comfort index (UTCI). The results show that all four thermal comfort indices indicate an overall warming trend. Of them, urban sites show a higher warming trend than rural sites, indicating that heat stress changes are significantly influenced by urbanization from 1979–2018, which is consistent with the effect of urbanization on surface air temperature. However, except for the UTCI, this warming of direct thermal comfort indices affected by urbanization has become insignificant under the regional vegetation greening from 2004–2018 (also consistent with surface air temperature). This is primarily attributed to the different effects of wind speed on the physiological thermal comfort index in urban and rural areas: Decreasing wind speeds in urban areas lead to an increase in UTCI, while wind speeds in rural areas increase instead and decrease UTCI, thus widening the UTCI differences between urban and rural areas. Our results indicate that urbanization has a different effect on thermal comfort indices. When using the thermal comfort index, it is necessary to consider that different thermal comfort indices may bring different results. UTCI considers more factors that affect human heat perception, so it can better describe human outdoor thermal comfort. It also highlights the importance of urban ventilation and urban greenness in mitigating urban outdoor thermal comfort in the sustainable construction of future urbanization in coastal cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of digital finance, the implementation of digital infrastructure is becoming increasingly significant. Broadband construction is an important part of the communication network, and can promote urban infrastructure in cities. However, whether the development of broadband can affect housing prices by affecting the urban infrastructure and the convenience of residents is a question worth addressing. In this study, using panel data regarding cities in China, we used the spatial multi-period difference-in-differences (SDID) model to investigate the utility of the Broadband China Policy (BCP) on urban house prices and the mechanism of impact. We found that the BCP can increase house prices, and that this impact has a positive spatial spillover effect. This conclusion still held after a series of tests such as parallel trend tests, placebo tests, and the exclusion of other policy effects. The BCP can increase house prices by improving urban infrastructure, promoting urbanization, and optimizing urban industrial structure. In addition, we conducted a heterogeneity analysis by taking into consideration the administrative level, economic development level, and location of cities. The findings of this paper not only enrich the research on the BCP and housing prices, they also provide policy recommendations in terms of urban land use and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban infrastructure (UI), subject to ever-increasing stresses from artificial activities of human beings and natural disasters due to climate change, assumes a key role in modern cities for maintaining their functional operations. Therefore, understanding UI resilience turns essential. Based on the Pressure-State-Response (PSR) model, this paper built a comprehensive evaluation index system for urban infrastructure resilience evaluation. Four municipalities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing in China, were selected for the case study, given their specific significance in terms of geographical location and urban infrastructure scale. Temporal differences of UI resilience in those four cities during 2002–2018 were explored. The results showed that: (1) The various stages of PSR relative importance for the urban infrastructure resilience development in the four cities were different. The infrastructure status, primarily resource environmental benefit, had the most significant effect on urban infrastructure resilience, accounting for 38.73%. (2) While Shanghai ranked first, the levels of urban infrastructure resilience in four cities were generally poor in 2002–2018 with continuously low resilience. (3) Significant differences were found in the resilience levels associated with the three stages of pressure, state and response failing to form a positive development cycle, with the poorest pressure resilience. This paper puts forward some recommendations for providing scientific support for urban resilient infrastructure development in four municipalities in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization has an abundant connotation in dimensions such as population, economy, land, and society and is an important sign to measure regional economic development and social progress. The use of Night Light Data from remote sensing satellites as a proxy variable can significantly improve the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the measurement of urbanization development dynamics. Based on the Night Light Data and statistical data from 2015 to 2019, this paper quantitatively analyzes the spatio-temporal evolution pattern of urbanization in Guangxi and its driving mechanism using exploratory time-space data analysis, GeoDetector and Matrix: Boston Consulting Group, providing an important basis for sustainable urban development planning and scientific decision-making by the government. The findings show that (1) there is a high level of spatial heterogeneity and spatial autocorrelation of urbanization in Guangxi, with the Gini index of urban night light index and urban night light expansion vitality index always greater than 0.5, the global Moran's I greater than 0.17, the spatial differentiation converging but the spatial correlation increasing. (2) The spatial pattern of urbanization in Guangxi has long been solidified, but there is a differentiation in urban development trend, with the coexistence of urban expansion and shrinkage, requiring differentiated policy design for urban governance. (3) The development and evolution of urbanization in Guangxi present a complex intertwined dynamic mechanism of action, with interaction effects of bifactor enhancement and non-linear enhancement among factors. It should be noted that the influence of factors varies greatly, with the added value of the tertiary industry, gross domestic product, total retail sales of social consumer goods having the strongest direct effect on the urban night light index, while the added value of secondary industry, per capita GDP, gross domestic product having the strongest direct effect on the urban night light expansion vitality index. All of them are key factors, followed by some significant influence factors such as government revenue, population urbanization rate, per government revenue, population urbanization rate, per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents that should not be ignored, and the rest that play indirect roles mainly by interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research paper provides an overview of India's urbanisation, regional variations, and association with demographic dynamics. The study explores the contributions of the census and statutory towns to urban growth and components of urban growth. The paper examines the impacts of urbanisation on fertility and mortality in India by data collected from the Census of India and the Sample Registration System. The specific purpose of this paper is investigating the impacts of demographic changes and urbanisation in India during the period 1991–2011. The research paper has employed quantitative technical analysis with the help of ordinary least square regression for establishing the relationship of association between urbanisation and socio-demographic variables. The study has endeavored a theoretical model associating the process of urbanisation with the demographic transition. It finds that the process of urbanisation has lead to the reduction of both fertility and mortality rates in India. The smooth decline in fertility and mortality rates in urban areas of India during the 2 decades of 1991–2011 implies the positive contribution of urbanisation. Similarly, the paper argues that to a large extent, various demographic indicators have influenced the process of urbanisation. The study successfully pinpoints that the urbanisation is positively related to the demographic variables of population growth, density, and migration. It also finds positive and significant effects of per capita income and female work participation rate on urbanisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flood risk to urban communities is increasing significantly as a result of the integrated effects of climate change and socioeconomic development. The latter effect is one of the main drivers of rising flood risk has received less attention in comparison to climate change. Economic development and population growth are major causes of urban expansion in flood‐prone areas, and a comprehensive understanding of the impact of urban growth on flood risk is an essential ingredient of effective flood risk management. At the same time, planning for community resilience has become a national and worldwide imperative in recent years. Enhancements to community resilience require well‐integrated and enormous long‐term public and private investments. Accordingly, comprehensive urban growth plans should take rising flood risk into account to ensure future resilient communities through careful collaboration between engineers, geologists, socialists, economists, and urban planners within the framework of life‐cycle analysis. This paper highlights the importance of including urban growth in accurate future flood risk assessment and how planning for future urbanization should include measurement science‐based strategies in developing policies to achieve more resilient communities. Plain Language Summary: Flood risk has been on the rise due to climate change and rapid increase in populations living in urban cities. The effect of population growth, in particular, on increasing such risk has been evident in recent years as noted in various studies. The recent shift, however, towards ensuring resilient communities following a natural disaster, requires not only risk reduction while accounting for urbanization but also rapid recovery following a flood event. In this paper, we highlight the importance of urban growth to accurate flood risk assessment and show how planning for future urbanization should include quantitative measures of flood impact in developing policies to achieve more resilient communities. Key Points: Urban growth, resulted by socioeconomic development, plays a crucial role on rising future flood riskUrbanization leads to changes in hazard and exposure components of risk in flood risk assessmentCombining urban expansion with the concept of community resilience and planning for future development helps to move towards a resilient community [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, set against the backdrop of expanding urban rail networks and dynamic urban development, focuses on the distribution and evolution of commercial Points of Interests (POIs) within the central urban rail transit areas of Beijing. The study examines data from four different years—2008, 2013, 2017, and 2020—to observe the temporal evolution of commercial entities. It identifies stable explanatory variables affecting the distribution and evolution of commercial POIs, which include rail transit accessibility, characteristics of the working and residential population distribution around stations, and the construction intensity in the vicinity of station areas. Through statistical analysis and model building, relatively stable linear regression equations were established, with R 2 values generally maintained above 0.5 (except for 2017). The study advances our understanding of the influence of rail transit on urban commercial spaces and how this influence shifts with temporal and urban developmental changes. It elucidates the correlation between changes in the number of businesses and spatial configuration, offering insights and information for urban planners and policy makers. This research also serves as a model for exploring the interplay between urban rail transit and commercial spaces in other major cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the integration of System Dynamics (SD), Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, and 3D Urban Information Modeling (CityGML) in the field of urban planning. It aims to optimize urban layout to cope with rapid urban growth, emphasizing resource allocation through a combination of greedy strategies and AI methods. The core contribution of this paper is to provide spatial allocation of feedback from simulation techniques i.e. SD using the application of genetic algorithms (GA) based on a greedy strategy. The methodology was implemented using a fictitious case study in Berlin, where new students' dorms are required according to the growth in the number of students. The SD tool is used to simulate the growth over 5 years and determine the number of new dorms required. A genetic algorithm is used to optimize the planning objectives of allocating 16 new dorms in 186 possible locations. The algorithm effectively handles the feedback from SD and applies complex multi-objective optimization problems, addressing the challenge of accommodating a growing student population. It proposes strategic dormitory allocations that balance factors such as cost efficiency, campus accessibility, and proximity to public transportation systems. We use CityGML data to simulate and predict future urban transformation, providing dynamic and realistic representations for urban planning decisions and updating the original city models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization has been vastly studied in the theoretical literature related to the fields of urban studies. Different approaches to urban theories—from critical urban theory to the Los Angeles school, from the postcolonial to the planetary approach—offer various definitions of the concept of urbanization based on distinct ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies. The various readings of the concept of urbanization among the approaches related to the urban theories would benefit from an extensive analysis through a holistic stance, which is the aim of this study. First, we attempt to put forward a typology of the concept of urbanization by reviewing the various approaches related to prominent urban theories and categorizing them. In so doing, we find that the approaches are essentially focused on three main categories or types: static, dynamic and alternative. Next, the paper presents the case study of Iran and tries to trace the categories to understand the ways in which urbanization is expressed and perceived in the country. To this aim, and to determine the main themes, we use thematic analysis to study official documents—texts and legislations—and also to conduct in-depth interviews with expert individuals. Findings of the case study indicate that in the context of Iran the urbanization concept has been commonly described as static. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban population of India is expected to reach 416 million by 2050. As more and more people shift from rural to urban areas, the urban centers will be facing serious sustainability challenges to meet the requirements of ever increasing population. One of the key problem areas will be the shortages of the affordable housings for the urban poor and the growth of slums. However, these slums are important component of urban ecosystem as they not only provide affordable shelters to the urban poor but also supply the urban area with its cheap labour force, therefore slums and slum dwellers should be treated as an integral part of urban ecosystem and should be included in the policy frameworks to make urban areas more inclusive and sustainable. This paper examines the sustainability of urban development through livelihood indicators of the slum dwellers of Darjeeling town. This empirical study was carried out in 8 different slum pockets of the town. The data was collected through questionnaires and were subsequently analyzed. The results shows that the slum pockets of Darjeeling town have higher literacy rates (including female literacy rate) as compared to both the national and the state averages, yet its performance in other livelihood indicators is very dismal. The attainment of the lower educational levels by slum dwellers indicates prevalence of very high dropout rates within the community. The slum dwellers face serious levels of deprivation as related to wellbeing indicator and environmental hygiene indicator in regard to access of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities respectively. The slum dwellers of Darjeeling town are forced to live in overcrowded substandard housing conditions with almost no municipal services and are situated on steep slopes which are often prone to the natural disasters. The mixed performance of the slum pockets in regard to the livelihood indicators suggests that the town of Darjeeling has been experiencing unbalanced growth in terms of sustainable development. Therefore a more holistic approach in policy framing is needed to address such multi-faceted problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the response of plant diversity to urbanization is essential for conserving urban biodiversity. In this paper, a meta‐analysis of 34 articles and 163 observations regarding the impact of urbanization on plant diversity was conducted. The results revealed that urbanization had marked negative effects on plants. Urbanization had positive effects on introduced species and negative effects on native species. In the subgroup analysis, we found that trees responded better to the effect of urbanization than herbs and shrubs. There was no evidence that urban size, population density, nighttime light, and GDP per capita had moderating effects on plant richness. Based on meta‐regression analyses, native species in urban areas were less affected by urbanization at lower latitudes. Overall, urbanization had a marginally negative effect on plant abundance. The effects of urbanization on plant diversity during different stages of urban development were inconsistent. Our research shows that the suburbs play a crucial role in the urbanization gradient; there, plants survive with high species richness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]