As cities continue to expand, a pivotal issue in urban agglomerations is emerging: the quest for sustainable development. These urban hubs drive innovation, economic growth, and cultural exchange but also grapple with critical challenges such as resource depletion, environmental degradation, and social inequality. Understanding how to improve the benefits of urban agglomerations while addressing their negative impacts is essential for creating resilient, sustainable cities. Urban Agglomeration - Extracting Lessons for Sustainable Development delves into urbanization's complexities and explores these dynamic spaces' potential as engines of sustainable growth. Through global case studies, best practices, and innovative solutions, this book uncovers valuable lessons to guide policy, planning, and community engagement. It highlights the importance of integrated planning, inclusive policies, and technological innovation in overcoming the multifaceted challenges of urban agglomerations. This book offers a comprehensive roadmap for shaping smarter, greener, and more equitable urban environments and is a useful resource for urban planners, policymakers, academics, and anyone interested in the future of cities.

This book provides a critical theoretical framework for understanding the implementation and development of smart cities as innovation drivers, with long-term effects on productivity, livability, and the sustainability of specific initiatives. This framework is based on an empirical analysis of 21 case studies, which include pioneer projects from various regions. It investigates how successful smart city initiatives foster technological innovation by combining regulatory governance and private agency. The typologies of smart city-making approaches are thoroughly examined. This book presents the holistic approach of smart cities, which start from current issue and challenges, advanced technological development, disaster mitigation, ecological perspective, social issue, and urban governance. The book is organized into five major parts, which reflect interconnection between theories and practice. Part one explains the introduction which reflects the diversity and challenges of the urban commons and its regeneration. Part two covers the current and future situation of urban growth, anglomeration agglomeration, and urban infrastructure. This section includes rethinking urban sprawl: moving towards sustainable cities, drivers of urban growth and infrastructure, urban land use dynamics and urban sprawl and urban infrastructure sustainability and resilience. Part three describes climate crisis, urban health, and waste management. This section includes climate change and health impacts in urban areas, green spaces: an invaluable resource for delivering sustainable urban health, health and wellbeing and quality of life in the changing urban environment, urban climate and pollution—case study, sustainable urban waste management and urban sustainability and global warming and urban heat Island. Part four covers the ecological perspectives, advanced technology, and social impact for i.e., smart building, ecosystem services, society and future smart cities (SSC). This section includes urban ecosystem services, environmental planning, and city management, artificial intelligence and urban hazards and societal impact, and using geospatial application and urban/smart city energy conservation—case study. Part five covers urban governance, smart solutions, and sustainable cities. It includes good governance, especially e-governance and citizen participation, urban governance, space and policy planning to achieve sustainability, smart city planning and management and Internet of things (IoT), advances in smart roads for future smart cities, sustainable city planning, innovation, and management, future strategy for sustainable smart cities and lessons from the pandemic: the future of smart cities.

Due to climatic, social, and epidemiological challenges, urban areas are suffering from recurring problems that require profound and sustainable solutions. Although they cover only a small area of the earth’s surface, metropolises are responsible for most of the world’s global carbon emissions, which cause adverse effects on energy and the climate. This book discusses the spatial development of urban areas in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Chapters address the problems of large urban agglomerations, examine their impacts on both people and the environment, and propose intervention policies and strategies. The book also presents case studies from different areas of the world, including Chile, Brazil, and India.

This two-volume book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Multimedia Technology and Enhanced Learning, ICMTEL 2020, held in Leicester, United Kingdom, in April 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic all papers were presented in YouTubeLive. The 83 revised full papers have been selected from 158 submissions. They describe new learning technologies which range from smart school, smart class and smart learning at home and which have been developed from new technologies such as machine learning, multimedia and Internet of Things.

This book includes the outcomes of the International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Systems for Sustainable Development (AI2SD-2018), held in Tangier, Morocco on July 12–14, 2018. Presenting the latest research in the field of computing sciences and information technology, it discusses new challenges and provides valuable insights into the field, the goal being to stimulate debate, and to promote closer interaction and interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers and practitioners. Though chiefly intended for researchers and practitioners in advanced information technology management and networking, the book will also be of interest to those engaged in emerging fields such as data science and analytics, big data, internet of things, smart networked systems, artificial intelligence, expert systems and cloud computing.

The scope of this book is to map China’s city clusters and their individual directions for the national-level strategies in line with the 2060 carbon neutrality plan. Since China announced the carbon neutrality plan in autumn 2020, no study has looked at the role of city clusters in achieving this long-term plan. Hence, this study is believed to be the first attempt to explore this important topic from the city cluster perspective. It explores the challenges, opportunities, and directions of all 19 city clusters, allowing readers to have a clear picture of China’s historical and ongoing progress, as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. In a short time, China’s city clusters have helped boost regional economic development, infrastructure development, trade and business, and better urban–rural integration. With enhanced coordination of connection and transport networks in and between the city clusters, we see a growing number of initiatives beyond just the initial economic strategies. The dual approach of top-down policies and infrastructure systems and bottom-up governance and investments has helped China consider urban–rural development strategies and regional sustainable development. These factors are essential to be explored from the city cluster perspective and in line with China’s sustainable development and carbon neutrality directions. Hence, the book covers these points holistically, ensuring that regional planning and development are favored in the face of uneven urbanization trends. We anticipate this book to be a valuable resource for local governments and authorities, urban planners and practitioners, developers, and urban researchers. While the focus is on China’s city clusters, we believe there are similar examples elsewhere. Hence, lessons learnt from this book could apply to other countries, regions, and subregions. Lastly, the book aims to put regional sustainable development at the heart of longer-term strategies and plans, such as the case of China’s carbon neutrality plan.

The implementation of sustainability initiatives on campuses is an essential component of promoting sustainability in the higher education context. In addition to reflecting an awareness of environmental issues, campus programmes demonstrate how seriously universities take sustainability at the institutional level. There is a lack of truly interdisciplinary publications that comprehensively address the issue of campus greening, and there is an even greater need for publications that do so at a truly international level. This book meets these needs. It is one of the outcomes of the “Second Symposium on Sustainability in University Campuses” (SSUC-2018), which was jointly organised by the University of Florence (Italy), Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), the Research and Transfer Centre “Sustainable Development and Climate Change Management” and the “European School of Sustainability Science and Research” at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany), in cooperation with the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP). The book showcases examples of campus-based research and teaching projects, regenerative campus design, low-carbon and zero-carbon buildings, waste prevention, and resilient transport, among others. Ultimately, it demonstrates the role of campuses as platforms for transformative social learning and research, and explores the means by which university campuses can be made more sustainable. The aims of this publication are as follows: • to provide universities with essential information on campus greening and sustainable campus development initiatives from around the world; • to share ideas and lessons learned in the course of research, teaching and projects on campus greening and design, especially successful initiatives and good practice; and • to introduce methodological approaches and projects intended to integrate the topic of sustainable development in campus design and operations. This book gathers contributions from researchers and practitioners in the field of campus greening and sustainable development in the widest sense, from business and economics, to the arts, administration and the environment, and hailing from Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia.

Higher education fulfills vital functions in talent cultivation, scientific research, social service, and innovation. Its innovation and transformation play a critical role in societal development. In recent years, countries around the world have been actively exploring effective pathways for the innovation and transformation of higher education. This book capitalizes on this momentum, summarizing the theoretical and practical advancements concerning higher education reform and innovation in various countries and regions. It emphasizes the significance of higher education in regional development, how the learning sciences lead to talent cultivation in higher education, and the theories and practices of student development in higher education, providing valuable insights into higher education reform and innovation.