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Cesarean delivery rates are rapidly increasing in Southeastern Europe (to more than 60%), North Africa (with a rate as high as 72% in Egypt), and in urban areas in Southern Africa (a rate of over 50% in Lagos, Nigeria). Data on the background to these increases are scarce, but likely to include poor birthing facilities in general hospitals, convenience for the doctor, private medicine, fear of litigation, socioeconomic status, shortage of midwives and nurses, and disappearance of vaginal instrumental deliveries. Options to reverse cesarean delivery trends are discussed. In this context there is a need to be better informed about how women are being counseled regarding vaginal or cesarean delivery. The long-term consequences in subsequent pregnancies for mothers and children may well be largely ignored, while these risks are highest in LMICs where higher birth numbers are desired. FIGO has begun discussions with obstetric and gynecologic societies, healthcare bodies, and governments in several countries discussed in this article, to find ways to lower the cesarean delivery rate. The requests came from the countries themselves, which may prove beneficial in helping advance progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cesarean delivery rates are rapidly increasing in Southeastern Europe (to more than 60%), North Africa (with a rate as high as 72% in Egypt), and in urban areas in Southern Africa (a rate of over 50% in Lagos, Nigeria). Data on the background to these increases are scarce, but likely to include poor birthing facilities in general hospitals, convenience for the doctor, private medicine, fear of litigation, socioeconomic status, shortage of midwives and nurses, and disappearance of vaginal instrumental deliveries. Options to reverse cesarean delivery trends are discussed. In this context there is a need to be better informed about how women are being counseled regarding vaginal or cesarean delivery. The long‐term consequences in subsequent pregnancies for mothers and children may well be largely ignored, while these risks are highest in LMICs where higher birth numbers are desired. FIGO has begun discussions with obstetric and gynecologic societies, healthcare bodies, and governments in several countries discussed in this article, to find ways to lower the cesarean delivery rate. The requests came from the countries themselves, which may prove beneficial in helping advance progress. Synopsis: Cesarean delivery rates are rapidly increasing in southeastern Europe, North Africa, and in urban areas in Southern Africa, prompting a time for reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As UK cities and towns become increasingly ethnically and culturally diverse, researchers have tuned into how people inhabit multiculturalism. Ethnographic approaches have focused on the kind of togetherness that people generate as they go about their everyday lives, observing the affective textures of interactions and happenings of the here and now in granular detail. Missing from these accounts is what crowdsourced data might add to understandings of how multicultural places are experienced. What is vital about this kind of data is that it is 'big', involving a diversity of voices similarly intent on messaging their experiences, presenting opportunities to scale up the affect of encounters and to quantify what is difficult to qualify. This paper brings Digital Geographies into conversation with research on everyday multiculturalism to examine qualitatively and quantitatively how social media use folds into and expresses various practices of sociality and connection. Our paper involves Twitter, Nando's and the city of Leicester in the UK to challenge and advance ways of understanding everyday multiculturalism in an era of global migration and ethnically complex populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a time when the world is critical of the Brazilian government and the loss of Amazonian rainforest, Brian J. Godfrey casts his 40-year gaze on Rio de Janeiro. Geographer Godfrey deftly uses various scales of analysis - global, hemispheric, national, regional, metropolitan, and neighborhood - to point out how memory can be used to reinvent places both in Rio and elsewhere. Godfrey's real nugget is chapter 3's examination of Little Africa in Rio. [Extracted from the article]

Special Feature that lists the names of people involved in the review of technical papers for the IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications and Industry Applications Magazine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In insects, different pigments, such as melanins and pterins, are involved in thermoregulation. The degree of melanisation often varies along geographical gradients, according to the so-called thermal melanism hypothesis, i.e. darker forms are found in colder places because they can warm up more quickly. Similarly, pterins work as heat sinks and thus are expected to be more abundant in colder sites. Cities, which are warmer than surrounding areas (Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect), might also be expected to influence pigmentation, although studies are lacking. Here, we sampled workers of the social paper wasp Polistes dominula (Christ, 1791) (Vespidae) across an urbanisation gradient in an Italian metropolis and used iNaturalist pictures of this species across Italy to study pigmentation patterns at both urban and larger geographical scales. We found a lower yellow intensity of abdominal spots at warmer locations. Scanning Electron Microscopy strongly suggested that yellow colouration is due xanthopterin, known to be the heat sink molecule in other social vespids. Thus, wasps from warmer (i.e., urban) environments are likely to have fewer xanthopterin granules, in line with the lack of need for heat storage due to the local thermal gradient (UHI effect). At the country level, we found that wasps at higher latitudes had smaller yellow spots on the thorax and only two spots instead of four at higher altitudes, in full accordance with the thermal melanism hypothesis. In conclusion, climatic conditions seem to affect insect colour patterns both along urban and wider geographical gradients, although colour changes may affect different body parts and pigments likely according to different needs. • In urban hotter sites, workers show lower intensity of yellow pigmentation (xanthopterin). • Along an urbanisation gradient, there was weak consistence with the thermal melanism hypothesis. • Along the same gradient, there was a likely lack of need for heat storage due to the urban heat island effect. • At country level, latitudinal variations in yellow spots were in accordance with the thermal melanism hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban digital autonomy refers to the autonomous innovation capability of cities in the field of digital technology, which directly determines whether cities can achieve high-quality development in the urban digital economy. Using Chinese prefecture-level data from 2009 to 2018, this paper takes the smart city policy as a quasi-natural experiment to analyze the impact of the smart city policy on digital autonomy of cities empirically. The research results show that the smart city policy has significantly improved the digital autonomy of cities, which is 28.25% higher than that of other cities. After a series of robustness tests, such as the placebo test and propensity score matching DID (PSM-DID) test and using different samples, this research conclusion still holds. Heterogeneity shows that the promotion effect of the smart city policy on digital autonomy of cities is greater in eastern regions, cities with higher rank and larger population size. The research of influence mechanism shows that the smart city policy can promote digital autonomy of cities through the effect of digital human capital and digital material capital. Finally, this paper puts forward policy suggestions from the perspectives of developing digital industries, promoting the construction of smart cities, increasing the cultivation of digital talents, and paying attention to fairness and efficiency, so as to promote the digital autonomy of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this article is to analyze how the installation of these offices is in the eight municipalities with units of the 12th Military Fire Brigade (12º BBM). Design/methodology/approach -- This study had an exploratory character. Data collection took place through structured interviews with a total of eight interviews carried out with the Secretaries of Administration of the prefectures, one for each municipality with units of the 12th Military Fire Brigade (12º BBM). Findings -- It was observed that, despite the positive impact generated in local public security, only the municipality of Panambi has the GGIM in operation, however, it only conducts meetings of the Plenary, with partial installation, reducing the positive impact on public safety local. It became clear that municipalities ignore its importance for the promotion of local public safety by creating GGIMs only on paper. Research limitations/implications -- Do not realize interviews with those responsible for the creation of the offices is a limiting factor of the research, as well as the short time of operation of the GGIM's to carry out a comparative analysis of crime rates. Originality/value (mandatory) -- It highlights the importance and potential of the Municipal Integrated Management Offices for the transformation of the local scenario, while providing a channel for dialogue between the actors involved and for the establishment of joint and planned solutions to the problems faced within the scope of Public Security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the first outcomes and results of using an integrated territorial tool applied by the Interreg V-A Slovakia-Hungary Cooperation Programme (2014–2020), the 'Territorial Action Plan for Employment', or, briefly: the TAPE. The tool is aimed at facilitating quality employment and cross-border labour mobility through the implementation of 2–7 interdependent projects within a geographically defined subregion of the programme area, with the involvement of SMEs, training institutions, NGOs and municipalities. The author introduces the tool and the nine TAPEs financed by the CBC programme and gives a comprehensive assessment of their outcomes and results from the points of view of cross-border labour market development, integrated soft planning and trust building with a special focus on the aspect of cross-border relevance. The study concludes that the tool does not meet the preliminary expectations: its cross-border relevance is not much stronger than the traditional standalone CBC projects. At the same time, the bottom-up cross-border planning exercise has significant added value which might make the tool attractive for other CBC programmes, too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the twentieth century, paper-cuts have been variously regarded as a domestic craft, a site of rural purity, a marker of Chinese civilization, and more recently, a national intangible cultural heritage. This article analyzes paper-cuts not merely as a cultural practice but as a medium of articulation through which Chinese urban intellectuals have understood the countryside and traditions at specific historical moments. It also explores paper-cuts as a cultural medium through which urban elites have expressed their visions of the nation’s path to modernity and women’s liberation. During the Yan’an period (1937–1947), paper-cuts served as a Communist marker to distinguish an “art form of healthiness and honesty” from urban decadence under Nationalist rule. Since the 1980s, however, the art and practices of paper-cutting have come to share new discursive spaces: as the site of recovery of a lost Chinese civilization, an urban nostalgia for vanishing rural ritual practices, and most recently, a discourse of capital, profit, and personal success. By analyzing the shifting meanings assigned to paper-cuts, this article explores the relationship among the state, culture, and capital as it has been actively manufactured and negotiated through this folk practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, the implementation of an unbalanced enhancement strategy has led to severe resource misallocation, making the mitigation and rectification of this misallocation an urgent issue. This paper utilizes urban data from China between 2006 and 2020 to examine the impact of two-way foreign direct investment (FDI) on resource misallocation, as well as the pathways through which coordinated advancement of two-way FDI affects resource misallocation. After undergoing a series of robustness and endogeneity tests, the conclusion remains stable. Mechanism testing reveals that coordinated advancement of two-way FDI improves capital resource misallocation by enhancing the enhancement level of the financial industry, while exacerbating labor misallocation by increasing labor costs. This paper integrates the coordinated advancement of two-way FDI and resource misallocation into the same analytical framework, proposing policy recommendations to alleviate China's resource misallocation issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consequences of sustainable and greener mobility have been demonstrated previous year by the pandemic situation. One significant benefit was to reduce the level of noise, dust and air pollution from the traffic in many European countries due to reduced mobility most of the population. Positive phenomena was also recorded in the Slovak Republic. Today's urban mobility offers new, more sustainable ways of transport for residents, especially app-based and shared-ride services, which have become increasingly widespread and very popular. Undoubtedly offer a level of convenience unseen before in the urban mobility systems throughout the world. Although new forms of transport are developed in most Slovak cities, their operation is not very rational and therefore individual car transport still dominates at the expense of sustainable ways of transport. In our paper, we analyze the traffic situation in the city of Nitra, as the large number of trips in the course of the peak-hours often results in severe traffic congestion. Multimodality is one of the solutions to improve the current traffic situation, as it allows urban residents to choose from a range of alternative travel options. The main aim of this paper is to determinate the possibilities of multimodal urban mobility in the city of Nitra in addition to analyze how the potential change in the variability of choice of means of transport affects the urban mobility behaviour. In order to meet stated objectives, a marketing research was conducted. The research findings point to the fact that the current urban infrastructure and overall possibilities are limited, the consequence of which is that travel behaviour of citizens does not demonstrate the features of sustainable urban mobility. Our results point to major differences in attitudes of Nitra´s residents from different urban and sub-urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The organizational forms of infrastructure in China are divided into two categories, the traditional Public Procurement Model (PUB) model and Public–Private Partnership(PPP) model. The main difference is the separation or binding of the construction and operation phases. A systematic understanding is needed of how Chinese local governments choose between these two models. In this paper, we take public capital congestion and local government objectives as the entry point to study the effects of both on PPP choice. Firstly, by constructing an endogenous economic growth model under the PPP model, and comparing it with the model under the PUB model, this paper initially explains how the rise in public capital congestion affects the choice of the PPP by growth-oriented local governments. Then the data from prefecture-level cities from 2009–2018 are utilized to conduct empirical tests. We find that urban economic growth pressures have a positive effect on the choice of PPP when the congestion of public capital increases. Furthermore, the implementation of PPP is indeed conducive to economic performance, and its core mechanism is to provide more infrastructure (like roads) rather than tax competition. The PPP model is more sustainable. We are the first to employ both modeling approach and the empirical research to address the implementation of Public–Private Partnership in China. And we have systematically analyzed the conditions and results of PPP selection by local governments. It formulates the Chinese PPP theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Travelers often change their behavior in reaction to adverse weather conditions. This paper seeks to conduct an empirical evaluation of both ordered and unordered discrete outcome frameworks for examining the adaptive behavior decisions of intercity travelers and investigate the varying effects of explanatory factors on different alternatives of adaptive behavior during adverse weather. The data from 754 respondents in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, China are collected by a two-phase survey instrument. To capture the unobserved heterogeneity more effectively, this paper develops three advanced models to investigate the variations in intercity travel behavior during adverse weather. Four alternative adaptive behaviors are determined as outcome variables: maintaining original travel plans, changing only the intercity mode, changing the departure date, and canceling the trip, while potential influencing factors including adverse weather conditions, trip-related characteristics, individual attributes and urban agglomeration attributes are statistically assessed. The results indicate that the unordered models consistently outperform their ordered counterparts, and the incorporation of multilayer heterogeneity enhances the model fit. Furthermore, significant factors and their coefficient values vary across the different adaptive behavior alternatives. Intercity travelers demonstrate a higher probability of changing departure dates or canceling trips during snowy and windy days compared to rainy and foggy days. Trains exhibit higher flexibility and reliability during adverse weather, and access attributes significantly affect intercity travel adaptive behavior. Additionally, the analysis of individual and urban agglomeration attributes uncovers variations in adaptive behavior among individuals and cities. These findings provide profound insights into the complexities and variations of intercity travel behavior during adverse weather, and propose practical strategies to mitigate the detrimental impacts of adverse weather on intercity travelers. • Adaptive behavior of intercity travelers during adverse weather is investigated. • Unordered framework outperforms ordered counterparts in adaptive behavior study. • Multilayer unobserved heterogeneity in the adaptive behavior is accounted for. • The varying effects of explanatory factors on different adaptive alternatives are examined. • Practical strategies are proposed to mitigate negative impacts of adverse weather. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While literature extensively examines waste management issues in urban areas, limited attention has been given to rural developing waste contexts. This paper aims to understand the policy/implementation nexus between national and local government within the rural waste management context in two rural municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The research utilizes a directed deductive content analysis applying a framework proposed by Pollans. Originally designed for urban contexts, this framework has proven valuable for comprehending solid waste management policy implementation challenges in rural settings. This paper proposes an adjustment to this framework, differentiating the disposal mode of governing into government-based and self-reliant-based approaches. The authors found a significant implementation gap in both municipalities, characterized by a predominant, incremental disposal-oriented governing mode. This contrasts with the visionary and aspirational modes of governing promoted by the national government, focusing on diversion and eco-efficient waste strategies. These divergent modes of governing influence current waste management practices, especially in rural municipalities. We recommend strategies towards narrowing the implementation gap by formulating policies tailored to local development needs. Finally, the research sheds light on the challenges and disparities in rural waste management policy implementation and provides insights into how rural areas can transition towards sustainable waste management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we document how the thinness of the labor market leads to managers in smaller towns becoming more generalist in their careers. Drawing upon the literature on the economics of agglomeration we propose that high quality managerial talent and a wider range of jobs will be more concentrated in larger cities relative to smaller towns, thereby creating relatively thinner markets for managerial talent in smaller towns. Due to this spatial sorting of talent, compared to firms in larger cities, firms located in smaller towns will have limited access to a pool of high-ability, high-fit candidates and will be more likely to recruit individuals that do not have relevant job experience in the area of interest (low fit) despite having high ability. They will thus require a change in functional areas of these individuals. From the workers' perspective, due to a lower concentration of jobs in smaller towns workers will have a narrower range of jobs to choose from than in larger cities. Many workers will be less likely to match with jobs that perfectly align with their prior experience. To remain employed, such workers will need to functionally diversify. Using the quasi-random assignment feature in the context of Indian Administrative Services (IAS), we disentangle inherent quality differences between individuals from their locational preferences, which enables us to move closer to a causal inference on the influence of geography on the likelihood of change in functional area and becoming a generalist. By examining the career trajectories of 4,244 officers from IAS, we find support for our argument. The key contributions of this paper are to provide novel evidence on how labor market differences arising from locations is an antecedent to functional diversification, and to provide evidence on explanatory mechanisms. Our finding that the careers of individuals are also likely to differ by geography adds to the literature on human capital development, and agglomeration economies, which has documented other ways that labor markets differ by geography such as productivity, innovation, wages, and industry concentration. Last, our paper has policy implications as it implies that opportunities for career progression, such as being able to change functional areas, could act as a demand side factor that triggers mobility to smaller towns for individuals with high general human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Architectural anthropology offers a way to critically analyse spaces through the social life that happens around them. It is a qualitative approach that relies on ethnography to connect larger systems and subjective dimensions, self-reflexivity, and the use of visualisations as a key analytical tool. This paper reflects on the possible contribution of architectural anthropology to housing studies. More specifically, it looks at homing processes in social housing, interrogating how non-domestic spaces perform through tenants' inhabitation practices. It tests ways to visualise ethnographic data gathered during immersive fieldwork that involved participant observation and informal interactions in a high-rise estate in Brussels. Three types of visualisations (subjective map, annotated photograph, lived-in axonometry) are presented to articulate the paper's discussion of homing, un-homing and de-homing processes at the level of a district, urban interstices, and beyond social housing. Ultimately, the paper concludes that architectural anthropology may contribute further to housing studies by exploring the relationship between home(making) and urban contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a case for viewing vacancy as "precarious property" (Blomley 2020; Antipode 52[1]:36–57), i.e. less a material object defined by absence of use than the property relation (understood as a bundle of social, economic, legal, and political relationships) put under strain by the visibility of non‐use. Focusing on Dublin's temporary urbanism moment (2008–2017), the paper has two aims. Firstly, it gives a critical account of this recent urban history of experimentation, documenting how the possibilities of the period following the crash were (fore)closed through governmental interventions. Secondly, the empirical case is used to make a wider conceptual argument about the conjunctural role that vacancy plays in urbanisation and urban politics, developing three main arguments: that vacancy is a vulnerable axis within the ownership model of property; that claims to vacancy are articulated in conjunctural and contextual ways; and that vacancy epitomises the dual nature of precarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of the obstacles to green infrastructure implementation in the City of Vancouver. This case study has two aims, 1) to better understand the planning and decision-making processes hindering the widespread implementation of green infrastructure across the City of Vancouver, and 2) propose solutions to facilitate the uptake of GI. This paper begins by reviewing existing literature on barriers to green infrastructure implementation. Then, it investigates current perceptions of GI in the City of Vancouver, and what barriers exist to its implementation through document analysis and semi-structured interviews. Proposed solutions to green infrastructure implementation are reviewed and recommendations are provided for the City of Vancouver. It ends with a short discussion on the applicability of lessons learned from the study of Vancouver for other municipalities seeking to overcome barriers to green infrastructure implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an increasing level of recognition of the interaction between cultural mega-events and built heritage in recent years. While research has broadly identified the need to align strategies and visions, as well as involve heritage actors and local communities, there has not been a systematic investigation of the position of industrial heritage within this tableau. This paper examines in depth the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) programme, as it is one of the longest standing Capital of Culture programmes in the world and has a significant record of investment and urban transformation. In this paper, we survey and categorise the inclusion of industrial heritage within the ECoC programme in 36 host cities and regions spread across Europe. This research provides the most comprehensive understanding to date of the specific forms of interaction between industrial heritage and ECoCs to better understand the kinds of relationships that have taken place. We then explore in detail the projects and decisions made in the cases of the 2023 Elefsina, 2017 Pafos and 2008 Liverpool ECoCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noise pollution is one of the consequences of urbanization that can cause environmental disturbances in urban areas. Urban ecosystems provide noise reduction services through Urban Green infrastructures (UGIs). Many studies have been conducted to evaluate and model traffic noise, but none have addressed the flow, supply, and demand of noise reduction ecosystem services. The main purpose of this paper is to present a new methodology for estimating flow, supply, and demand for noise reduction in Hamadan city that has not been mentioned in any paper so far. UGIs were classified into six main categories: agricultural lands, gardens, parks, abandoned lands, single trees, and street trees. A total of 57 sampling stations for sound measurement were made in August 2018. The current map of noise pollution (flow) was created using the Kriging method. The amount of supply was measured up to a distance of 50 meters from the main roads based on two approaches (the distance effect and the sound barrier effect). To quantify the demand, the current sound intensity level in the noise-sensitive land uses was compared with standards. Zonal statistics was used for spatial analysis of supply-demand in the urban neighborhood as a working unit. Results showed that at distances of 5m, 10m, 15m, and 20m, the average noise reduction was found to be 1.61, 2.83, 3.92, and 5.33 dB, respectively. Sound barriers at distances of 5m and 10m resulted in an average sound reduction of 1.61 and 2.83 dB, respectively. Individual trees, strip trees, abandoned lands, parks, and gardens led to a decrease in traffic noise by 0.3, 1, 0.1, 3.5, and 4.5 dB, respectively. The clustering analysis revealed a significant spatial clustering of noise pollution in Hamedan. The results and new methodology of this research can be used in similar areas to estimate the supply and demand of noise reduction and also for decision-makers to take management actions to increase supply and meet the demand for noise reduction service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric emissions from anthropogenic hotspots, i.e., cities, power plants and industrial facilities, can be determined from remote sensing images obtained from airborne and space-based imaging spectrometers. In this paper, we present a Python library for data-driven emission quantification (ddeq) that implements various computationally light methods such as the Gaussian plume inversion, cross-sectional flux method, integrated mass enhancement method and divergence method. The library provides a shared interface for data input and output and tools for pre- and post-processing of data. The shared interface makes it possible to easily compare and benchmark the different methods. The paper describes the theoretical basis of the different emission quantification methods and their implementation in the ddeq library. The application of the methods is demonstrated using Jupyter notebooks included in the library, for example, for NO 2 images from the Sentinel-5P/TROPOMI satellite and for synthetic CO 2 and NO 2 images from the Copernicus CO 2 Monitoring (CO2M) satellite constellation. The library can be easily extended for new datasets and methods, providing a powerful community tool for users and developers interested in emission monitoring using remote sensing images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest versions of the Ross-Li model include kernels that represent isotropic reflection of the surface, describe backward reflection of soil and vegetation systems, characterize strong forward reflection of snow, and adequately consider the hotspot effect (i.e., RossThick-LiSparseReciprocalChen-Snow, RTLSRCS), theoretically able to effectively characterize BRDF/Albedo/NBAR features for various land surface types. However, a systematic evaluation of the RTLSRCS model is still lacking for various land cover types. In this paper, we conducted a thorough assessment of the RTLSRCS and RossThick-LiSparseReciprocalChen (RTLSRC) models in characterizing BRDF/Albedo/NBAR characteristics by using the global POLDER BRDF database. The primary highlights of this paper include the following: (1) Both models demonstrate high accuracy in characterizing the BRDF characteristics across 16 IGBP types. However, the accuracy of the RTLSRC model is notably reduced for land cover types with high reflectance and strong forward reflection characteristics, such as Snow and Ice (SI), Deciduous Needleleaf Forests (DNF), and Barren or Sparsely Vegetated (BSV). In contrast, the RTLSRCS model shows a significant improvement in accuracy for these land cover types. (2) These two models exhibit highly consistent albedo inversion across various land cover types (R2 > 0.9), particularly in black-sky and blue-sky albedo, except for SI. However, significant differences in white-sky albedo inversion persist between these two models for Evergreen Needleleaf Forests (ENF), Evergreen Broadleaf Forests (EBF), Urban Areas (UA), and SI (p < 0.05). (3) The NBAR values inverted by these two models are nearly identical across the other 15 land cover types. However, the consistency of NBAR results is relatively poor for SI. The RTLSRC model tends to overestimate compared to the RTLSRCS model, with a noticeable bias of approximately 0.024. This study holds significant importance for understanding different versions of Ross-Li models and improving the accuracy of satellite BRDF/Albedo/NBAR products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A multi-port energy router (MER) is an important infrastructure for power management and energy storage after an unexpected power outage. In addition, MERs can relate to various emergency electric power sources (EEPSs) and power grids at the same time. Moreover, by putting an MER in mobile energy storage, an MER allows for more flexible energy management and regulation in urban cities. This paper proposes a new topology of MERs composed of a bidirectional AC/DC converter and a partial power processing-based triple active bridge (PPP-based TAB) converter to supply emergency power for an unexpected power outage. This design of an MER improves the power efficiency significantly to realize peer-to-peer (P2P) trading which realizes the bidirectional power transmission among the main power grid, EEPSs such as the battery of electric vehicles (EV), and clients' loads. The control methods of the power transmission of two power electronic converters in MER are also illustrated in this paper to realize the power transmission among the main power grid, clients' loads, and EEPSs. This allows any power source connected to the MER to be used as an input or output to receive or send out power, which greatly improves the utilization of power. In conclusion, the MATLAB/Simulink and experiment test are executed and meticulously presented to validate the practicality of the proposed configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Field experiment in mandatory recycling scheme tests effectiveness of door stepping. • Majority of households in mandatory recycling schemes separates waste correctly. • Minority of households is responsible for most miss sorting. • Door stepping does not influence behavior of households in mandatory schemes. • Door stepping can improve recycling behavior in voluntary recycling schemes. Household organic waste has great potential for closing nutrient cycles in agriculture. This requires proper waste separation by households. Personal communication at the doorstep potentially improves household waste separation behaviour but it is expensive and findings from existing research are mixed. Based on results of previous studies and from a quasi-experiment with non-equivalent groups design in two German municipalities, this paper argues that efficiency of personal communication depends on its context. It can positively influence behaviour when recycling is voluntary and participation rates are low. However, it has no significant effects if recycling is mandatory. One explanation could be different perceptions of recycling in mandatory and voluntary schemes. In voluntary schemes door stepping can activate the intrinsic motivation of households. In mandatory schemes, all households need to participate irrespective of intrinsic motivation. This research shows that this creates a situation in which a small share of households is responsible for almost all contamination. This can be overcome by considering extrinsic factors that affect recycling behaviour. The paper recommends further research to understand which combination of incentives, sanctions and information is efficient in affecting behaviour change in mandatory recycling schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the severity of global climate change and the energy crisis intensifies, constructing sustainable urban energy systems has become a focal point of global attention. The optimization of urban energy balance is a crucial step in achieving low-carbon ecological city design. Its objectives are to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions while ensuring the stability and economy of urban energy supply. This paper focuses on the application of thermodynamic methods in the design of low-carbon ecological cities, aiming to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of urban energy systems through optimization algorithms. Current research is concentrated on exploring efficient management of urban energy flows, yet faces challenges in computational efficiency and model adaptability concerning thermodynamic system modeling and energy allocation strategy optimization. This study first establishes an urban energy system model based on comprehensive thermodynamic principles, considering the diversity and complexity of urban energy consumption. Subsequently, it proposes an optimization algorithm based on multi-energy flow balance to improve urban energy allocation strategies. This algorithm optimizes for system dynamics and non-linearity issues, and enhances computational efficiency for processing large-scale data. The findings of this paper not only provide new theoretical perspectives and computational tools for optimizing urban energy balance but also offer scientific decision-making support for practical low-carbon ecological city planning and management, demonstrating significant theoretical innovation and practical application value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many companies prefer to use third party logistics firms to deliver their goods and as such planning the return of the vehicles to the depot is not required. This is called open vehicle routing problem (OVRP). In literature, the OVRP is handled with minimum distance as objective function like vehicle routing problem. But in the real world, the objective function achieves minimum many costs like standard routing cost, stopping by cost and the deviation cost. The standard routes are previously defined under free market conditions by third party logistic firms. The deviation from the standard route is required to arrive cities which are not on the standard route. The stop by cost occurs on the delivery points. In this paper mentioned three costs are considered in the objective function while many papers consider only distance related costs in the literature. This paper proposes a new mathematical model for the OVRP. In the constraints, the last points of the routes are researched in detail. The standard route costs are determined by considering the last point of the route. Because of the NP-hard structure of the OVRP, the proposed mathematical model is solved with a hybrid metaheuristic called Civilized Genetic Algorithm (CGA). CGA is developed by hybridizing a modified genetic algorithm and a local search algorithm. The application of this study is implemented for the delivery routing of a combi boiler producer in Turkey. The third party logistic firms may use this proposed model and the solution approach for the real life applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the arrival of Airbnb on local consumption amenities in Madrid. We exploit the exogenous variation created by the timing and uneven distribution of Airbnb listings in the city to determine the impact on food and beverage establishments. Using an instrumental variable strategy, we find positive local effects on both the number of restaurants and their employees: an increase of 14 Airbnb rooms in a given census tract leads to almost one more restaurant, and the same increase in a given neighborhood generates 11 new tourist‐related employees. The results are robust to the specification and sample composition. This paper contributes to the literature on the economic impact of the platform economy on urban areas by providing evidence of market expansion externalities from short‐term rentals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the suburbs of numerous cities worldwide are shrinking, research on how to address suburban decline remains scarce. This paper explores participatory mapping in shrinking suburbs as a tool to articulate knowledge co-creation between local officials and communities to inform planning decisions. The paper argues that participatory planning helps to identify sweet spots, everyday life community spaces upon which to anchor regeneration strategies. Using as a case study Minamiashigara, a shrinking suburb of Tokyo, the paper discusses how sweet spots can be integrated into existing municipal strategies to alleviate the consequences of shrinkage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a trending mobility choice, e-scooters have become popular in many cities. A number of authorities have initiated shared e-scooter trial schemes to assess the feasibility of the vehicles prior to enacting official legalisation. This paper aims to provide an evidence review of shared e-scooters and investigate how existing evidence may inform long-term policies. This carries significant relevance for jurisdictions that are in a conflicting position with e-scooters, such as New South Wales (NSW), Australia whose context motivates this study. The evidence review focuses on three themes derived from experience with shared e-scooters within the broader micromobility landscape, namely: safety; where shared e-scooters fit into the modal landscape; and the environmental impacts. Findings confirm that ensuring the safety of shared e-scooters requires complex solutions, which may include a clear regulatory framework for e-scooters, safety education and skill training, innovative data collection and analysis methods, and an approach to safety management that is user-based, location-based, and time-based. In terms of modal fit policymakers should encourage first and last-mile combinations with public transport, with consideration of user characteristics; while climate impact is strongly correlated to the mode replaced by e-scooter trips. The paper provides insights for policymakers on the regulation and positioning of shared e-scooters. • Many jurisdictions are struggling to determine policies for e-scooters. • Existing e-scooter evidence sheds light on possible long-term policies. • Safety management should consider different users, locations, and times. • First and last-mile combinations with public transport should be encouraged. • Climate impact is strongly correlated to the mode replaced by e-scooter trips. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings into dialogue recent critical scholarship on smart cities and geographies of the future by examining how city dwellers encounter normative visions of the future supplied by government actors under smart urbanisation. I focus specifically on the prosaic but significant ways in which people (re)interpret and (re)produce urban futures in and through their everyday affective and material engagements with digital technologies. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and semi‐structured interviews, I discuss the extent to which state‐promulgated imaginings of digital urban futures projected by electronic payment infrastructures are negotiated by urban inhabitants in Singapore, at both the levels of the individual and the collective. Although there is a tendency in Urban Studies to read the smart city as depoliticising, the findings in this paper suggest that urban dwellers' lived encounters with digital urban futures are characterised and bound up with politics. Furthermore, this paper casts attention on forms of negotiation that emerge not from grassroots movements and/or democratic activism that have so far attracted social and cultural geographers working on the future, but everyday lived practice around the digital. Such a fine‐grained, practice‐based approach productively foregrounds emancipatory potential for reworking and reimagining normative digital urban futures. Equally importantly, it takes seriously the diverse and uneven future‐making capacities of urban inhabitants in the digitally mediated city, contributing to ongoing projects that seek to develop a globally oriented alternative smart urban agenda for cities and urban spaces in the 21st century. This paper brings into dialogue recent critical scholarship on smart cities and geographies of the future by examining how city dwellers encounter normative visions of the future supplied by government actors under smart urbanisation. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and semi‐structured interviews, it discusses the extent to which state‐promulgated imaginings of digital urban futures projected by electronic payment infrastructures are negotiated by urban inhabitants in Singapore, at both the levels of the individual and the collective. [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 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]

Buildings are significant components of digital cities, and their precise extraction is essential for the three-dimensional modeling of cities. However, it is difficult to accurately extract building features effectively in complex scenes, especially where trees and buildings are tightly adhered. This paper proposes a highly accurate building point cloud extraction method based solely on the geometric information of points in two stages. The coarsely extracted building point cloud in the first stage is iteratively refined with the help of mask polygons and the region growing algorithm in the second stage. To enhance accuracy, this paper combines the Alpha Shape algorithm with the neighborhood expansion method to generate mask polygons, which help fill in missing boundary points caused by the region growing algorithm. In addition, this paper performs mask extraction on the original points rather than non-ground points to solve the problem of incorrect identification of facade points near the ground using the cloth simulation filtering algorithm. The proposed method has shown excellent extraction accuracy on the Urban-LiDAR and Vaihingen datasets. Specifically, the proposed method outperforms the PointNet network by 20.73% in precision for roof extraction of the Vaihingen dataset and achieves comparable performance with the state-of-the-art HDL-JME-GGO network. Additionally, the proposed method demonstrated high accuracy in extracting building points, even in scenes where buildings were closely adjacent to trees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We study the specific impact of the digital economy on the upgrading of urban residents' consumption structure and its mechanism of action. • We analyze the heterogeneity at the level of city development. • The development of the digital economy is conducive to promoting the upgrading of urban residents' consumption structure. • Disposable income and industrial structure upgrading are important internal mechanisms. • Compared to first-tier and second-tier cities, the digital economy has contributed more to upgrading residents' consumption structure in third-tier cities. Based on the panel data of Chinese cities from 2011 to 2020, this paper studies the impact of the digital economy on urban residents' upgrading of their consumption structure. The digital economy promotes the upgrading of urban residents' consumption structure. Moreover, the digital economy has a more significant effect on promoting the upgrading of residents' consumption structure in third-tier cities. The mediation effect proves that increasing disposable income and upgrading the industrial structure are crucial mechanisms. Based on pertinent findings and the development levels of various cities, this paper proposes policies to strengthen the digital infrastructure, improve residents' income, optimize industrial structure, and establish differentiated measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the emergence of the concept of sustainable development, the Olympic Games have become a vehicle to demonstrate and promote the principles and practices of sustainability. The aim of this paper is to explain and evaluate how the application of sustainable development in the context of the Summer Olympic Games has evolved. Two processes have been influential in this change: first, the institutional expectations of the International Olympic Committee have encouraged greater responsibility towards the creation of legacies by potential host cities through the IOC Charter, the Olympic Agenda 2020, and the Olympic Agenda 2020+5; and second, the context and inventiveness of host cities has created new perspectives on sustainability to secure the event and raise its global profile. This paper will focus on the sustainability benchmarks established in London 2012 and evaluate whether these have been continued or extended in the subsequent editions of the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro (2016), Tokyo (2021) and Paris (2024). The changing discourses reveal the tensions between the IOC's agendas for the event, the motivations of the host cities and the realities of delivery in changing socio-economic and political circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a collection of papers that explore the concept of Olympic urbanism, which refers to the close relationship between city planning and the Olympic Games. The papers discuss various cities that have hosted the Olympics and cover topics such as the impact of the Games on urban form and planning culture, the sustainability and legacy of the Games, and the role of security in Olympic city planning. The papers emphasize the need for historical awareness when analyzing the Olympic experience of a city and highlight the complex and unpredictable nature of urban planning for the Games. [Extracted from the article]

This paper considers the urban consequences of failing to host Olympic Games. Using the example of Paris and its unsuccessful bids to hosts the Olympic Games of 1992, 2008 and 2012, the paper analyses the pre- and post-bid status of key projected 'Olympic' sites within the context of urban plans and aspirations of the city of Paris. The French capital attracts special attention because of the rapid succession of submissions that proved to be outbid by those presented to the IOC by the cities of Barcelona (1992), Beijing (2008) and London (2012). The paper will briefly outline the reasons for failing to attract the Games but will devote most of its space for an analysis of the siting of the planned Olympic Villages, which often form the most lasting of legacies of Olympic Games in host cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering China's 'isolated' digital ecosystem, this paper examines China's 'check-in' activities to understand how the wanghong economy is driving China's new rounds of urban development, with the purpose of supplementing existing research on digital economies from the Chinese context. Focusing on a representative case study area called Dongshankou in Guangzhou, which is regarded as one of the most popular wanghong places and an emerging commercial centre, I sought to enrich existing studies about digital economies and extend scholarship on platform urbanism from the cultural economy perspective. First, I argue that Chinese consumers' check-in activities function as the data accumulation process, structuring Dongshankou's digital capital through the assemblage of online posts and geotags. Therefore, Dongshankou's urban development challenges the conventional view of creativity as the key factor in the cultural economy for urban development, given that digital capital is now the key driver for urban development in the digital age. Second, the growth of wanghong stores in Dongshankou reveals how the wanghong economy is materialised into urban cultural objects. Emotional value – a crucial selling point that these wanghong stores aim to provide to facilitate consumers' check-in activities – illustrates how China's highly participatory digital ecosystem extracts users' emotions and bodily experiences into the process of capital accumulation, which structures the 'platform urbanism' through our daily lives. This paper broadens the horizon for an alternative theoretical agenda in platform urbanism: beyond focusing solely on platform algorithms, how digital platforms and emotions become inextricably linked in economic production should be further explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades, many scholars have studied competition between cities and entrepreneurial urban policies. Coming from the evolving field of competition research, we are interested in how competition between cities is constructed and, for this purpose, examine the competition imaginary of Vienna, a city known less for its entrepreneurial policies than for its social welfare policies. The paper employs critical discourse analysis of Viennese policy papers from 1985–2015, a period particularly shaped by the process of competitization. The analysis shows that Vienna's social and welfare policies are also decisive for the city's positioning in city competition and rankings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is currently focusing on the cooperative control of air pollution and CO2 emissions, as well as the mitigation of economic policy uncertainty (EPU). By using panel data from 282 cities spanning from 2003 to 2017 and a newly constructed city-level EPU index, a spatial Durbin, two-way fixed-effects model is employed, with the aim of estimating the impact of EPU on the synergistic emissions intensity (SEI) of air pollutants and CO2. Additionally, this paper investigates the potential channels through which EPU influences SEI. It also explores how pressures related to environmental protection and economic development affect the impact of EPU on SEI. The results indicate that a unit increase in EPU will result in a rise in the SEI of local cities, adjacent cities, and total cities by 930.9%, 69,162.7%, and 70,093.6%, respectively. Moreover, the channel analysis suggests that EPU exacerbates SEI by undermining the upgrading of the industrial structure, augmenting industrial structure distortion, and escalating labor market distortion. Furthermore, the effect of EPU on SEI may be lessened by an increase in environmental protection pressure, while an increase in economic development pressure may exert a positive influence. Finally, this paper concludes by recommending that policymakers should prioritize the maintenance and stability of economic policies, facilitate the advancement of the industrial structure, enhance the efficiency of labor resource allocation, and underscore the significance of managing urban air pollution and CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of escalating and intersectional crises, the toxic drug poisoning crisis stands out as a devastating and persistent phenomenon. Where we write from in British Columbia (BC), Canada, over 13,000 deaths have occurred in the eight years since the toxic drug poisoning crisis was declared a provincial health emergency. While many of these deaths have occurred in large urban centres, smaller rural communities in British Columbia are also grappling with the profound impacts of the toxic drug poisoning crisis and are struggling to provide adequate support for their vulnerable populations. In response to these challenges, the Walk With Me research project has emerged in the Comox Valley of Vancouver Island, BC, employing community-engaged methodologies grounded in pluralist knowledge production. Walk With Me seeks to understand the unique manifestations of the toxic drug poisoning crisis in small communities, identifying local harm reduction interventions that can foster community resilience, and aiming to catalyze sustainable change by amplifying the voices of those directly affected by the crisis to advocate for policy changes. This paper outlines the conceptual and methodological underpinnings of the Walk With Me project as a harm reduction initiative, which holds community partnerships and diverse ways of knowing at its heart. It presents the community-engaged research framework used by the project to address overlapping health and social crises, offering practical examples of its application in various research projects across sites and organizations. The paper concludes with a reflection on the impacts of Walk With Me to date, highlighting the lessons learned, challenges encountered, and opportunities for future research and action. Overall, this article captures the urgent need for community-engaged approaches to address the toxic drug poisoning crisis and other multidimensional crises facing society, particularly in smaller and rural communities, underscoring the potential for meaningful change through collaborative, grassroots efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green finance (GF) is recognized as a key driver of sustainable development. While existing studies have extensively discussed the relationship between GF and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), few have explored the coupling coordination relationship between GF and SDGs. In this paper, we use data from thirty Chinese provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) from 2008–2021 to examine the degree of coupling coordination development (CCD) between GF and the SDGs systems using the CCD model. We find that most SDGs and their sub-goals exhibit a significant upward trend, except for SDG8, 14–16. GF presents a fluctuating upward trend, with a significant decline in 2010 and 2019. The CCDs between GF and SDGs and their sub-goals generally show an M-shaped upward trend in most regions, with most of them experiencing a synchronous decline in 2011–2012 and 2019. In the analysis of regional heterogeneity, the eastern region performs better in SDG8–9, the central region performs better in SDG3, 14–15, while the western region performs better in SDG7. This paper provides empirical evidence for a further in-depth understanding of the relationship between GF and SDGs, which can contribute to advancing GF development and the SDG process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying the diverse and often competing values of citizens, and resolving the consequent public value conflicts, are of significant importance for inclusive and integrated urban development. Scholars have highlighted that relational, value-laden urban space gives rise to many diverse conflicts that vary both spatially and temporally. Although notions of public value conflicts have been conceived in theory, there are few empirical studies that identify such values and their conflicts in urban space. Building on public value theory and using a case-study mixed-methods approach, this paper proposes a new approach to empirically investigate public value conflicts in urban space. Using unstructured participatory data of 4528 citizen contributions from a Public Participation Geographic Information Systems in Hamburg, Germany, natural language processing and spatial clustering techniques are used to identify areas of potential value conflicts. Four expert interviews assess and interpret these quantitative findings. By integrating quantitative assessments with the qualitative findings of the interviews, we identify 19 general public values and nine archetypical conflicts. On the basis of these results, this paper proposes a new conceptual model of 'Public Value Spheres' that extends the understanding of public value conflicts and helps to further account for the value-laden nature of urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crises spur reflection and re-evaluation of what matters and what is valued. The impacts of the 2008 global financial crisis, COVID-19 pandemic and climate emergency are reigniting debates about the nature of economic development approaches and what they aim to achieve in urban settings. Addressing a substantive gap in contemporary debates by helping to navigate a burgeoning and diverse field, this paper provides a critical and comparative assessment of five leading agendas that have been positioned as alternative and progressive policy responses to urban economic change: inclusive growth; the wellbeing economy; community wealth building; doughnut economics; and the foundational economy. Taking an international perspective, the paper provides a comparative review of their stated visions, mechanisms for change, and the spatial scales through which they are led and implemented. Our argument is that these alternative approaches to urban economic development are shaping creative, innovative and progressive responses to longstanding urban problems within policy and practice communities but require on-going scrutiny and evaluation to realise their potential to meaningfully achieve transformative change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of urbanization has brought new challenges to the ecological environment, and the promotion of green technology innovation and development is widely recognized as an essential method to achieve cities' economic benefits and environmental protection. This paper examines whether the new urbanization pilot policies (NUP) increase green technology innovation (GTI) from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. This paper examines the impact of new urbanization on GTI by analyzing data from 285 cities in China between 2010 and 2021, using the multi-period DID model with the implementation of NUP as an exogenous policy shock. The study results indicate that NUP significantly affects GTI, and the conclusion still holds after the parallel trend test, placebo test, and other robustness tests. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the NUP significantly enhances GTI in low environmental pollution, non-resource-based, Medium-sized, and Central Region cities. The test of moderating effect shows that NUP has a "linkage effect" with the government's environmental attention, financial investment in innovation, and regional talent pooling. The findings of this paper provide empirical evidence and decision-making reference for promoting NUP and sustainable development of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an additive index on climate policy engagement at the municipal level, based on the three dimensions awareness, conception and implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation. The distortion of the index is based on the self-perception and personal assessment of municipal decision-makers, which were collected and evaluated as part of a primary survey (postal survey). The index shows how strongly a municipality is committed to climate policy. Thus, it represents an extension of previous indices that either only consider climate mitigation or adaptation or are only based exclusively on secondary statistics. The second part of the paper describes the application of the index in three counties or 51 municipalities in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The interpretation takes place in the context of structural characteristics of the municipalities concerned (number of inhabitants, share of votes of different parties, geographical location). The distribution of the index values shows a similar awareness in climate protection and climate change adaptation, but an increasing discrepancy in the implementation of adaptation-specific measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]