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The purpose of this article is to revisit the concepts of city singularity and identity, as well as the concept’s related topics (i.e. place identity, place attachment and place dependence). The aim is to investigate the impact of development projects on people's preferences for old and contemporary features in modern cities. The evidence for this can be seen mainly at historical sites such as Heliopolis in Cairo, Egypt.

The authors investigated how development projects affect place identity and city singularity through a three-step process. As a first step, an online questionnaire was administered to experts to assess the characteristics that shape the identity of local districts. In the second and third steps, interviews were conducted, followed by online surveys directed at Heliopolis residents and non-residents. The weight of people’s preferences was determined using multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM).

The results highlighted people's preferences to consider when developing projects at historical sites. Based on these preferences, the authors’ concluded remarks provide insight into some considerations for developing projects in historic places.

The added value here is surveying people’s preferences about development projects in historical places. The physical and social components interplay contributes to city identity and singularity. Based on these preferences, this investigation offers valuable insights into enhancing historical site development.

Over the coming decades, the widespread application of social distancing creates challenges for the urban planning and design profession. This article aims to address the phenomenon of boredom in public places, its main influences that generate change in repetition, monotony and everyday lifestyle, whether positive, negative or both – depending on the binding and governing rules of urban shape variations and daily lifestyles.

This viewpoint relied on literary narration to discuss the phenomenon of boredom vis-à-vis urban design and placemaking solutions in the face of social distancing. It builds its orientation by analyzing the works of nine scholars and five of their relevant theories.

Evidence from previous studies helped develop three-pillar guidelines that can produce better results for post-pandemic development in the face of boredom. These pillars include recommendations for the trinity of heterogeneity for metamorphosis in urban form, changes in public life and digital transformation in a time of uncertainty on how to confront (un)seen boredom in public spaces. Practitioners should develop new insights into the relationship between people and place by reviewing existing paradigms in urban studies to avoid repetition, monotony and change in everyday life after a pandemic.

The added value here is in underlining boredom as one of the consequences of social distancing and lockdown applications building on the phenomenon's theorizers. The key contribution of this work is the three-pillar recommendation for confronting the boredom in public spaces that happens because of social distancing and lockdown.

This paper focuses on the competencies and skills needed in preparing graduates of urban planning schools to meet the real-world challenges of professional practices. The present work explores the gap between skills and knowledge required to excel in the urban planning discipline and professional practices.

This research utilises a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. This study depends on collecting data from descriptive and statistical analysis based on two streams. The first comes from a survey launched among students of urban planning. The second is interviews scheduled with academics that are also practitioners.

The results outline the missing correlation between what Egyptian students learn in schools of urban planning and professional practices. The findings show that academics, students, and graduates share the same experiences about the education system. Academics agreed that graduates need to be more skilful rather than knowledgeable. The discussion shows that the undefined role of the planner in Egypt influenced the mismatching between the current demand and supply of competencies and skills offered by planning schools. The concluded remarks mentioned that communication skills and negotiation skills are the most crucial skills for graduates, in addition to information finding and data-processing skills.

This research has particular advantages in presenting a model of competencies as results of scanning the expectations of Egyptian students and new graduates vs professional practices. The contribution is in answering the question of what skills students of the urban planning programs should learn in order to meet the continued changes in professional practices.

Residing in a densely populated urban area possesses its allure; nonetheless, it can significantly impact physical and mental well-being owing to the persistent stress and information overload inherent in urban settings. This study aims to introduce a neuro-urbanism framework that can guide urban planners and designers in quantitatively evaluating individuals' responses to virtual simulated environments.

Our study consisted of two phases after randomly selecting six locations representing three types of urban areas in Bratislava, Slovakia: urban spaces, urban streets, and public parks. First, we conducted a Mentimeter live polling (dialogic survey fusion), followed by an experiment involving volunteer participants from the Slovak University of Technology. This experiment employed an electroencephalogram (EEG) with virtual reality headsets to virtually explore participants' responses to the selected locations.

The EEG signal analysis revealed significant differences in relaxation levels across the selected locations in this study. Urban streets with commercial activities promote mental well-being more effectively than public parks, challenging the preconception that restorative environments are exclusively confined to public parks.

The results demonstrate a replicable neuro-urbanism framework comprising three distinct stages: problem-based technology rooted in neuroscience, experimental setup and deliverables, and identification of restorative environments.

Several initiatives have taken part in the sustainability assessment tools, especially on the neighbourhood scale. These tools have been developed as neighbourhood sustainability assessment tools (NSATs) in global and local settings. Despite the widespread use of NSATs over the last two decades, research on NSATs in Global South cities is currently limited. This review article synthesizes literature themes and provides research priorities for NSATs.

This paper presents a systematic review of 48 research articles on NSATs in cities of the Global South, conducted and reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. A thematic synthesis of 18 articles was reviewed using content analysis to provide a thematic classification and research priorities that outline approaches and actions for implementation.

The results revealed five themes of NSATs for research tackling cities in the Global South, with one dominant theme related to case study-based frameworks and tools. The findings indicate a high level of affiliation contribution and research content focus within the Asian continent compared to the African continent and MENA region.

This study contributes to the bibliometric analysis of where the current body of research stands in NSATs. The added value highlights research priorities based on themes, spatial regions and tools.

Sustainable development (SD) is vital in alleviating poverty, hunger and disease (PHD). The purpose of this study is to present a guiding framework with pathways targeting the sustainability challenges concerning PHD based on urban planning and design literature.

A narrative review and content analysis of 27 articles published by 11 journals indexed in Scopus were conducted using bibliometrics analysis.

The study’s findings discuss contemporary normative planning and design ideas and their ability to alleviate PHD. Considering these findings, the authors recommend that urban planning and design implementation processes carefully pursue the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Vision 2030 by tracking qualitative metrics that consider social, cultural and spiritual well-being.

The contribution is to propose a conceptual framework for alleviating hunger, poverty and disease through Vision 2030. Practitioners and policymakers can use this framework to assess the impact of their actions. Hunger, poverty and disease research could be guided by this framework to identify and prioritize best practices in cities of the Global South.

This paper aims to investigate the utilisation of street food to redefine place management in public spaces in Egypt. The study examines the spatiotemporal effects of this approach, considering the preferences of both vendors and consumers alongside contextual design factors.

In this study, conducted in Cairo, Egypt, a spatial ethnographic approach was used to delve into the process of place management in areas hosting street food activities. Focus group interviews were conducted with a random sample of street food vendors and consumers.

The results of this case study confirm the significant impact of street food on its surroundings, emphasising the importance of the people–place relationship. Insights from group interviews shed light on essential questions regarding the timing, location and drivers of spatiotemporal effects around food activity areas, as well as the entities controlling these effects and their mechanisms. The findings underscore the necessity of harmoniously balancing the needs of vendors and consumers without detrimentally affecting the context.

The proactive insights gleaned from this study hold potential for replication in other cities, offering valuable insights into the roles and specialisations of actors involved in managing street food places. However, achieving a more comprehensive understanding of stereotypes and underlying themes is imperative.

This study contributes to filling a research gap by exploring strategies to integrate vendors’ and consumers’ preferences and designs into specific contexts. It provides proactive and preventive solutions to mitigate adverse spatiotemporal effects of street food activities within the studied context.

This review article advocates for a holistic approach to interpreting and addressing urban poverty through the proposal of “poverty-free urbanism” (PFU). By introducing PFU as a holistic approach to measuring poverty from a deprivation perspective, this article confronts the multifaceted challenges of urban poverty, transcending mere material limitations.

Through an exhaustive qualitative literature review and content analysis, the study identifies six qualitative normative factors: availability, productivity, innovativeness, diversity, fairness, and well-being.

While promising, the applicability and effectiveness of PFU across diverse urban contexts necessitate further refinement and empirical validation. Future research endeavors should prioritize clarifying the concept of PFU, exploring its practical implementation in varied urban settings, and offering actionable recommendations for fostering inclusive and equitable urban development.

These factors, rooted in critical processes such as ensuring essential services, promoting entrepreneurial activities, fostering bottom-up community development, facilitating dynamic typo-morphological transformations, addressing social exclusion and inequality, and promoting healthy communities, offer a holistic approach for policymakers and practitioners in devising sustainable poverty alleviation strategies.

Research on green certificate rankings in the MENA region primarily focuses on building scale, relying on the certified project count. This assessment approach overlooks the spatial factor, failing to capture their influence on the urban built environment, thus potentially undermining other efforts not reflected by the project count. This research aims to rank countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region based on their ongoing efforts regarding green neighbourhood certification.

This study employs a three-phase methodology to rank MENA countries' adoption of green neighbourhood certification systems: content analysis, multicriteria analysis (MCA) using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and spatial analysis.

Based on the content analysis, four major performance indicators were identified and the conventional ranking using projects count was presented. Using AHP, the MCA could rank the countries in the region according to their unique performance indicators score, clarifying the differences between conventional and AHP-based rankings. Finally, the spatial analysis phase uncovers shortcomings in the traditional ranking method, revealing inaccuracies and misrepresentations for several countries.

The study presents an innovative ranking methodology to monitor the green neighbourhood actions of countries in future development and establish a pioneering framework to evaluate the impact of green certifications within the region.

The purpose of this article is to examine Cairo's master plans during the past 70 years, including the establishment of the New Administrative Capital City—which is based on two fundamental courses on the phenomenon of urbanisation—and other initiatives to address Cairo's Plans based on the thoughts of three planning schools—Chicago, Los Angeles and Liverpool. The aim is to determine if the right time to relocate Egypt's capital to a different place makes sense.

Cairo has experienced significant urban challenges throughout its millennial history due to the continually shifting socioeconomic and political changes. This research uses prospective and retrospective methods to examine how planning theories have historically influenced building Cairo’s urban fabric and provides insight into the city’s master plans from the July Revolution of 1952.

It is assumed that Cairo's socio-spatial transitions over time were caused by scattered expansion, leading to contemporary Cairo's socio-spatial evolution. The paper ends with some questions about the future of the city. Should planning policies change to cope with socioeconomic, spatial and political transitions?

The article's significance stems from the necessity of adaptable and considerate ideas that move Cairo's communities towards a better setting and provide a crucial route for enhancing their environments. Using digital technologies to implement new capital while creating platform urbanism may be accomplished even with constrained budgets and short course lengths.