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The purpose of this paper is to explore spatial and social practices associated with a community street party through the lens of literature on encounter, conviviality and placemaking, considering its role developing a place-based sense of community.

The research is based upon a case study of a street party in London. Data sources include interviews, a questionnaire, observation and a literature review.

The conviviality associated with partying disrupts mundane social relations and engages diverse communities in placemaking. People playfully engage with one another, performing and reinforcing community and place values in the environment outside their homes.

This paper aims to engender understanding and encourage urban policy makers to support activities which combine pleasure and play to develop a place-based sense of community. It identifies practices which actively engage people at a grassroots level and enable them to articulate and perform community values.

Developing a sense of community in rapidly changing and diverse urban areas presents challenges for urban policy makers. Grassroots activities such as street parties often fall outside of funding streams, debates and formal policy making for cities but it is argued here that they enable people to engage in pleasurable and playful interaction and have an important role in disrupting mundane interactions and connecting people.

This paper progresses discussion of community events from a social perspective through an original study, identifying specific practices which contribute to a place-based sense of community.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the principal factors affecting walkability from the viewpoint of the inhabitants of Bursa. It is intended to discover whether inhabitants’ conception of factors affecting walkability complies with the factors identified by the authors in regard to literature review.

Based on several studies about influencing parameters of walkability, three main factors – spatial, social, economic – can be specified affecting the desire to walk by the user. In the content of this study, a conceptual model is developed for the assessment of factors influencing walkability. In this study, two different analysis methods are applied: qualitative approach: observation survey; and quantitative approach: questionnaire survey. By utilizing the conceptual model, a questionnaire is prepared and applied to 200 pedestrians in three streets. Moreover, the questionnaire items were factor analyzed to explore the principal factors affecting walkability from the viewpoint of the inhabitants of Bursa.

In the literature review part, the factors affecting walkability are defined as accessibility, comfort and use, environmental aesthetics, safety and security and connectivity. However, as a result of the survey applied to pedestrians in Bursa, it has been revealed that the most important factors are “Accessibility,” “Comfort and Use,” “Traffic Safety,” “Crime Security” and “Connectivity,” excluding the factor “Environmental Aesthetics.”

There is a need for studies which assess the factors influencing the walkability in tourism cities in depth. Tourism potential in Bursa, Turkey, has raised since it has been inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2014. Therefore, walkability became one of the important issues in urban planning decisions for the streets in the historic city center in policies of the local government. The studies that assess the factors influencing walkability and the satisfaction of the pedestrians will open up new visions for urban decision makers. Within the scope of this study, existing historic city center in Bursa has been analyzed in terms of walkability.

This paper claims that the parking policy is one of the most obvious tools for reducing traffic congestion, pollutant emissions and conflicts between transportation network users. The purpose of this paper is to propose and implement a strategy, via a simulation tool, for the sharing of parking places between light cars and vans for goods delivery.

Temporal and spatial dynamic booking of on‐street parking places is described by using the multi‐agent paradigm. Main agents concerned by the sharing of parking places, their rules and interactions are implemented. Behavioral models and learning process of cognitive agents based on stated preferences collected beside the network users are designed for capturing multi‐agent interactions.

By coupling a 2D traffic simulation tool and the Copert III methodology, it is possible to simulate the traffic and environmental consequences of several scenarios for different infrastructures, occupancy rate of the places reserved for goods delivery and durations of the delivery process.

Several points are under development: a 3D environment will capture with more realism the behavior of agents in a larger spatial scale and in real time. The behavioral models will be designed by stated preferences obtained from surveys containing questions coupled with pictures of possible scenarios.

Applied in a real context, the sharing of parking places strategy shows benefits for traffic and for the environment. A decision maker can use this strategy for simulating scenarios, in the context of an urban area in particular.

The paper demonstrates how a simulation tool based on strategy of parking place sharing can satisfy constraints of transportation network users.

The courtyard dwellings of Tbilisi form a critical part of the city’s architectural identity. However, the multiple occupation of these buildings is blamed for confounding their prospects for repair and consequent valorisation as a World Heritage Site. Models for the shared ownership of residential blocks have been adapted globally. Some have established communal sources for rehabilitation and maintenance applicable to historic buildings. The purpose of this paper is to assess the relevance of such precedents to the complex and urgent context of Tbilisi’s threatened architectural heritage.

The paper uses existing literature and data to establish a hypothesis in support of adopting a collaborative approach for the maintenance and rehabilitation of shared buildings in a challenging and specific context. Using socio-economic data to characterise the occupants of such buildings and current critical sources, the paper investigates how existing collective communities can be empowered to capitalise from their unique social frameworks.

It finds evidence to support theoretical claims that there is scope for co-operative networks to flourish there.

The paper is limited to a desktop analysis and relies upon available data and literature to draw its conclusions.

This paper addresses a critical problem in the formulation of conservation plans for Old Tbilisi, it tests the relevance of global exemplars for community repair programmes by reference to existing data for the care of the predominantly domestic architecture of Old Tbilisi at a time of rapid change.

A public space is a place of significance when it fulfils the human need for social interaction and attachment. However, the scarcity of public spaces poses a challenge to support socialisation for people within a defined social and cultural group. The purpose of this paper is to explore the association between place attachment and social interaction within public spaces in the city centre of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Face-to-face interviews with urban users were conducted to examine the users’ engagement in three main public spaces in the city and the significance of these spaces to everyday social interaction. Field observations were carried out to examine patterns of users’ activities and interactions.

The authors uncover a lack of multi-functional spaces to support diverse forms of interactions in the city. A street has an important function to generate activities. However, spaces for people to sit and stay remain scarce, and are in most cases consumed by extended commercial use and thus considered private. Opportunities for social interaction are very limited. The significance of the places relates strongly to commercial and tourism functions, and hence place attachment evolves around those activities. Participants associated their familiarity and engagement with interaction between familiar people, close ethnic relationships and business acquaintances.

The authors argue that more robust and socially responsive public spaces should be reclaimed for the culturally diverse users.

Development of attachment through meaningful spaces for people to stay and interact could enhance the role of public spaces in the city.

By understanding the social meanings of places, particularly in a multi-cultural setting, a stronger basis for designing and managing urban places towards resiliency and social sustainability can be provided.

This study aims to understand the components of the street food experiences of the local-guided tour in the meal-sharing economy based on the online reviews of tourists who experienced a meal-sharing activity with a local guide in Bangkok.

Based on the qualitative approach, this study involved a content analysis of 384 narratives on Withlocals.

The study identified five components that embrace the street food experience: a local guide’s attributes, perceived food authenticity, local culture, perceived hygiene or cleanliness. Results also revealed that the Thai street foods are unique and authentic and can reach this experience level through a local guide.

Although the importance of international travellers' street food experiences and the popularity of the meal-sharing economy platforms are rapidly growing, there is no study which had combined both of these phenomena together to date. It is the first attempt to reveal the components of street food experiences in a meal-sharing platform.

The paper aims to focus on how the dualism “petty trading and traffic” exacerbates the development of a social bond among traders from various communities and ethnic groups in Ghana. As understood in their normal innocuous sense, “traffic and petty trading” independently mark off two generally distinguishable exclusive partners. However, both petty trading and traffic now denote essential aspects of contemporary Ghana’s new social order shared uniquely among informal traders. The paper dilates on this phenomenon.

The theory underpinning this study is social constructionism. Social constructionism is part of a post-modern understanding of the nature of reality. It is a strand of sociology, pertaining to the ways in which social phenomena are created, institutionalised and made into tradition by humans. The core idea of constructionism, therefore, is that some social agent produces or controls some object. ’s (1967) situational constraints thesis also provides an important element to this paper. The thesis maintains that the poor in society are constrained by the facts of their situation; hence, the poor are unable to translate many of their ideals into reality in view of the considerable poverty that engulfs them. The thesis, reiterates that once the constraints of poverty are removed, the poor would have no difficulty adopting mainstream behavioural patterns and seizing available opportunities. The thesis is significant in exploring the objectives of this paper.

The paper finds that petty trading has given its adherents a new wave of life. The picture that emerges is that, although street hawkers are seen as a nuisance, a failure in society and lacking knowledge, they have become mindful of what society thinks about them. As a result, some have devised means to cope with what they do and also to find new ways to address the challenges facing them. The findings confirmed that people are self-reflexive beings and that they shape their own behaviour despite the influence of a variety of social factors that may constrain them. The study found that street hawkers have found a way to make life more meaningful for themselves than are actually perceived.

The paper seeks to discover the daily lives of petty traders, which have been stealthily tied in to urban development and planning. It brings a new dimension to the issue of petty trading. The fundamental argument of the paper is that the multidimensional nature of poverty is leading petty traders to a new consciousness which bodes well for them. These traders are shaping their own behaviour despite the influence of a variety of social factors that may constrain them. The social bond and interrelationship that permeate their working relationship has created a basis for which they now forge close ties that promote an inclusion from the exclusion that they are generally enjoined to.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how independent social and commercial activities have developed in response to the perceived decline in the UK High Street and in response to the challenges of increasing digital retailing opportunities. This examination is undertaken through the lens of the social supply chain as a means to understanding, suggesting and expanding on current research regarding retailing and the UK High Street. The authors reveal some of the challenges being posed by the changing patterns of growth and consumption in cities and couple these with shifting supply chain trends.

A case study approach is used to explore the rapid advances and influence of digital technologies on businesses operating on the primary business street of suburban centre, towns or cities (described in the UK collectively as the “high street”). The research is conducted through the analytical lens of the social supply chain.

Theoretically extending the “social” in the social supply chain, the authors illustrate the usefulness of the nuanced concept of the “social supply chain” with two related strategies concerning delivery and balance. These strategies are themselves interlinked with the actions of co-creation, co-production and co-consumption. Examples of social supply chain strategies presented include retail businesses giving away something as an incentive, where the underlying requirement from the customer is that they will bring their own specialist product, skill or social network to a specified location (real or virtual).

For the purpose of this paper, the authors use two distinct strategies relating to delivery and balancing and in relation to the actions of co-creation, co-production and co-consumption to emphasise and analyse changes currently occurring in the UK High Street. The authors take a social supply chain management (SCM) perspective to undertake a systematic critical review of the various recent efforts undertaken by local governments, communities and trader groups to revitalise the High Street.

Doing qualitative research with vulnerable urban populations such as street traders present significant methodological challenges, which many researchers may not be prepared to handle. This paper aims to provide a reflective account of the authors' fieldwork experiences while conducting a study with street traders in Harare, Zimbabwe.

This paper draws data from a qualitative case study conducted with street traders in Harare's Central Business District (CBD). In this study, mixed qualitative methods were used including focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews and photovoice.

The study’s findings suggest that researching street traders is a complex process that requires flexibility, adaptability and creativity of researchers across the following aspects: gaining access in unfamiliar research contexts, building rapport and trust with participants, managing ethical dilemmas and addressing power imbalances between researchers and participants.

While there is a growing body of empirical research on street trading in the global south, there are limited studies that discusses the practical fieldwork experiences associated with conducting primary research with such vulnerable and dynamic urban populations. The authors highlight strategies and practical steps that can be taken to address these challenges. This paper emphasizes the need for flexibility and adaptability in researching street traders, as it is akin to exploring uncharted territories where conventional methodological templates may not be effective.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the idea of transplanting the institution of homeowner associations or similar to existing urban neighbourhoods in order to correct imbalances in patterns of incentives and responsibilities that threaten the liveability and sustainability of cities.

The paper compares a recent published proposal for privatising existing neighbourhoods with the current Taiwan Government's attempt to assist shops on retail streets to create their own micro‐governance associations. The paper takes a strongly normative approach, using propositions from economic theory.

The paper identifies several crucial factors in designing an institution for privatising existing commercial neighbourhoods; notably the usage of coercive power and the efficient alignment of property rights.

The discussion in the paper rests on a small number of case studies in Taiwan and on qualitative information collected by interviews with key informants. This information is sufficient to illustrate our normative theoretical arguments about institutional design.

The paper offers some useful insights for public officials and private entrepreneurs seeking solutions to the problem of regeneration using voluntary urban neighbourhoods management.

The paper is the first published work to explore the adoption of homeowner associations in commercial neighbourhoods. It is one of the few papers to analyse the issues arising, using an institutional framework based on the new institutional economics.