Proposing and demonstrating the ways in which we need to rethink urban green spaces as cities, societies and environments evolve, renowned scholar Cecil C. Konijnendijk explores urban green spaces as essential parts of cities. Chapters offer a comprehensive look at how their roles have changed over time and will continue to do so, moving from their conventional purpose as areas for recreation to become spaces contributing to climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation and economic development.

A study of public recreation space and how urban developers can encourage ethnic diversity through planning that supports multiculturalism. Urban parks such as New York City’s Central Park provide vital public spaces where city dwellers of all races and classes can mingle safely while enjoying a variety of recreations. By coming together in these relaxed settings, different groups become comfortable with each other, thereby strengthening their communities and the democratic fabric of society. But just the opposite happens when, by design or in ignorance, parks are made inhospitable to certain groups of people. This pathfinding book argues that cultural diversity should be a key goal in designing and maintaining urban parks. Using case studies of New York City’s Prospect Park, Orchard Beach in Pelham Bay Park, and Jacob Riis Park in the Gateway National Recreation Area, as well as New York’s Ellis Island Bridge Proposal and Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park, the authors identify specific ways to promote, maintain, and manage cultural diversity in urban parks. They also uncover the factors that can limit park use, including historical interpretive materials that ignore the contributions of different ethnic groups, high entrance or access fees, park usage rules that restrict ethnic activities, and park “restorations” that focus only on historical or aesthetic values. With the wealth of data in this book, urban planners, park professionals, and all concerned citizens will have the tools to create and maintain public parks that serve the needs and interests of all the public.

Taking South Africa as a case study, this book puts forward an innovative holistic view of urban movement and transportation. It argues that movement is not an end in itself, but simply one element of urban public structure. Its key issue therefore is not how to improve transportation, but how transportation can best be used to improve overall urban performance.

Over the last years, sophisticated policy making propositions for sustainable rural and urban development have been recorded. The smart village and smart city concepts promote a human-centric vision for a new era of technology-driven social innovation. This Special Issue offers a useful overview of the most recent developments in the frequently overlapping fields of smart city and smart village research. A variety of topics including well-being, happiness, security, open democracy, open government, smart education, smart innovation, and migration have been addressed in this Special Issue. They define the direction for future research in both domains. The organization of the relevant debate is aligned around three pillars: Section A: Sustainable Smart City and Smart Village Research: Foundations • Clustering Smart City Services: Perceptions, Expectations, and Responses • Smart City Development and Residents’ Well-Being • Analysis of Social Networking Service Data for Smart Urban Planning Section B: Sustainable Smart City and Smart Village Research: Case Studies on Rethinking Security, Safety, Well-being, and Happiness • Exploring a Stakeholder-Based Urban Densification and Greening Agenda for Rotterdam Inner City—Accelerating the Transition to a Liveable Low Carbon City • The Impact of the Comprehensive Rural Village Development Program on Rural Sustainability in Korea • Analyzing the Level of Accessibility of Public Urban Green Spaces to Different Socially Vulnerable Groups of People • Consumers’ Preference and Factors Influencing Offal Consumption in the Amathole District Eastern Cape, South Africa • Sustainable Tourism: A Hidden Theory of the Cinematic Image? A Theoretical and Visual Analysis of the Way of St. James • Future Development of Taiwan’s Smart Cities from an Information Security Perspective • Towards a Smart and Sustainable City with the Involvement of Public Participation—The Case of Wroclaw Section C: Sustainable Smart City and Smart Village Research: Technical Issues • Detection and Localization of Water Leaks in Water Nets Supported by an ICT System with Artificial Intelligence Methods as a Way Forward for Smart Cities • A Study of the Public Landscape Order of Xinye Village • Spatio-Temporal Changes and Dependencies of Land Prices: A Case Study of the City of Olomouc • Geographical Assessment of Low-Carbon Transportation Modes: A Case Study from a Commuter University • Performance Analysis of a Polling-Based Access Control Combined with the Sleeping Schema in V2I VANETs for Smart Cities.

This report provides a new perspective to the nature of urban sprawl and its causes and environmental, social and economic consequences.

This book gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in urban and regional planning processes and science, as presented by international researchers at the 11th International Conference on Innovation in Urban and Regional Planning (INPUT), held in Catania, Italy, on September 8-10, 2021. The overarching theme of the conference INPUT 2021 was “Integrating Nature-Based Solutions in Planning Science and Practice”, with contributes focusing on functionality of urban ecosystems toward more healthier and resilient cities, planning solutions for socio-ecological systems, technologies and hybrid models for spatial planning, geodesign, urban metabolism, computational planning, ecosystems services, green infrastructure, climate change adaptation and mitigation, rural landscapes, cultural heritage, and accessibility for urban planning. The conference brought together international scholars in the field of planning, civil engineering and architecture, ecology and social science, to build and consolidate the knowledge and evidence on NBS in urban and regional planning.

Environmental changes have significant impacts on people’s lives and livelihoods, particularly the urban poor and those living in informal settlements. In an effort to reduce urban residents’ exposure to climate change and hazards such as natural disasters, resettlement programmes are becoming widespread across the Global South. While resettlement may reduce a region’s future climate-related disaster risk, it often increases poverty and vulnerability, and can be used as a reason to evict people from areas undergoing redevelopment. A collaboration between the Bartlett Development Planning Unit at UCL, the Indian Institute for Human Settlements and the Latin American Social Science Faculty, Rethinking Urban Risk and Resettlement in the Global South collates the findings from 'Reducing Relocation Risks', a research project that studied urban areas across India, Uganda, Peru, Colombia and Mexico. The findings are augmented with chapters by researchers with many years of insight into resettlement, property rights and evictions, who offer cases from Monserrat, Cambodia, Philippines and elsewhere. The contributors collectively argue that the processes for making and implementing decisions play a large part in determining whether outcomes are socially just, and examine various value systems and strategies adopted by individuals versus authorities. Considering perceptions of risk, the volume offers a unique way to think about economic assessments in the context of resettlement and draws parallels between different country contexts to compare fully urbanised areas with those experiencing urban growth. It also provides an opportunity to re-think how disaster risk management can better address the accumulation of urban risks through urban planning.

This edited volume delves into the intricate challenges that cities face in the midst of evolving socio-political, economic, and environmental landscapes. With a focus on inclusivity and diversity, the book thoroughly examines the transformation of urban systems and their manifestations within broader spatial contexts. Employing a trans- and interdisciplinary approach, the editors have strategically curated diverse research clusters to address key aspects of inclusive urban transformation from multiple perspectives. These clusters explore alternative paradigms for sustainable urban transformation, the dynamics of city regions, inclusive tourism development, the de-contestation of urban heritage to diversify urban identities, and inclusive intersectional city-making practices. By fostering collaboration and cross-pollination among these clusters, the volume fosters a transdisciplinary understanding of inclusive and sustainable urban transformation, facilitating the development of more holistic approaches in conceptualizing and promoting inclusive urban theory and praxis.

Green space is a fundamental concept for understanding modern and contemporary urban society, shedding light not only on the ecological development of cities but also societal relations, urban governance and planning processes. Closely linked to issues of environmental change, changing perceptions of nature, urban well-being and social integration, as well as city economic competitiveness and branding, it is an important element both in the internationalisation of European cities, and the forging of their distinctive communal identities. Building upon recent research on the history of green landscapes in the city in Europe and North America, this volume mirrors the burgeoning global attention to urban green space developments from city policy-makers and planners, architects, climatologists, ecologists, geographers and other social scientists. Taking case studies from Paris, London, Berlin, Helsinki, and other leading centres, the volume examines when, why, and how green landscapes evolved in major cities, and the extent to which they have been shaped by shared external forces as well as by distinctive and specific local needs. Quantifying green space trends in this way raises important issues of classification and categorisation of the different varieties of urban green space. While urban parks have received considerable coverage, many other smaller, less prestigious, spaces have been largely ignored. This volume argues that green landscapes can only be properly understood when the full range of spaces from parks to recreation grounds, housing areas, allotments and domestic gardens is taken into account. Adopting a broader approach to urban green space helps put European developments during the 19th and 20th centuries into a global perspective.

Sustainable Urban Futures in Africa provides a variety of conventional and emerging theoretical frameworks to inform understandings and responses to critical urban development issues such as urbanisation, climate change, housing/slum, informality, urban sprawl, urban ecosystem services and urban poverty, among others, within the context of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Africa. This book addresses topics including challenges to spatial urban development, how spatial planning is delivered, how different urbanisation variables influence the development of different forms of urban systems and settlements in Africa, how city authorities could use old and new methods of land administration to produce sustainable urban spaces in Africa, and the role of local activism is causing important changes in the built environment. Chapters are written by a diverse range of African scholars and practitioners in urban planning and policy design, environmental science and policy, sociology, agriculture, natural resources management, environmental law, and politics. Urban Africa has huge resource potential – both human and natural resources – that can stimulate sustainable development when effectively harnessed. Sustainable Urban Futures in Africa provides support for the SDGs in urban Africa and will be of interest to students and researchers, professionals and policymakers, and readers of urban studies, spatial planning, geography, governance, and other social sciences.