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The purpose of this paper is to estimate the real urbanization level in China so as to provide a measurement that can be compared with the international level.

Taking into consideration 300m residents living in the administrative towns (300m residents here are referred to the population in administrative towns, including those in all counties), the gap between the urbanization rate of China and that of the world average becomes much wider.

China, however, implements the administrative system of government at the central, provincial, municipal, county and township levels. By city, it means the jurisdiction at and above the level of county, which includes the municipality directly under the central government, prefecture-level municipal and county. By town, it means the jurisdiction below the level of county (including the Chengguan Town, or capital town, where the county government is located) and exclusive of rural townships.

China has witnessed rapid development for 40 years since the reform and opening up in 1978. Nowadays, China has already stepped into the period of post-industrialization, with its urbanization rate (UR) of permanent population reaching 58.58 percent. However, on the basis of registered population, the UR is 43.37 percent, which is not only far below the average level of 81.3 percent in high-income countries, but also lower than the average of 65.8 percent in upper middle-income countries which are comparable to China in terms of per capita income. (The classification of state income level is based on the data of national income per capita and division standards in 2016 from the World Bank, in which annual revenue per capita in high-income countries reaches over US$12,736 and that in upper middle-income countries between US$4,126 and US$12,735.)

In last year, the innovations in shipbuilding and logistics have opened the walled towns of Mediterranean port cities to cruise tourism and other culture-led regeneration strategies. Thus, walled towns in Mediterranean port cities have a particular development potential which questions about the opportunities and risks connected to any comprehensive regeneration strategy with a cultural and tourist purpose, especially for fortified systems whose continuity has been undermined. The paper aims to provide some guidelines for policy-makers and planners in port cities which have decided or are deciding to develop a comprehensive strategy and a knowledge framework for the walled town similar to those already adopted for fortified sites in the World Heritage List.

The paper investigates on the opportunities and risks connected to any comprehensive regeneration strategy with a cultural and tourist purpose for the walled towns through a comparative analysis of four Mediterranean seaport cities, selected as case studies. Cities which have developed an integrated strategy to inscribe their walled towns to the UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

On the base of the case studies’ analysis, the paper proposes a critical reflection upon the management strategies for the UNESCO’s walled towns and supports a better understating of context factors as a way to strengthen the HUL approach when applied to Mediterranean seaport cities.

The paper sheds light on the application of the historic urban landscape approach to the walled towns of Mediterranean seaport cities. The paper is original because it provides: guidelines for policy-makers and planners in walled towns of Mediterranean seaport cities which have decided or are deciding to develop a comprehensive regeneration strategy for the city centre in line with those adopted in UNESCO’s fortified sites; a critical reflection upon the context factors which can strengthen the HUL approach when applied to Mediterranean seaport cities; criteria to update the HUL approach by UNESCO in analysing the conservation state, the managerial aspects, the participation and social aspects of walled towns.

A six‐day negotiation simulation was developed from newspaper articles and interviews with elected officials. In this integrative bargaining exercise, participants assume the role of either the Richland Town Board or the River City Mayor's Office and attempt to resolve a conflict between the two governments. Several homeowners in the unincorporated town of Richland have had their wells fail and have asked to annex into River City. Richland officials want to stop such annexations and instead purchase water from River City. River City officials want to annex as much of Richland as possible and prevent it from incorporating. Both sides are provided with common information as well as confidential information. Using their information, they must negotiate over several days, seeking an agreement that addresses each side's interests and concerns.

The impact of form of government on municipal expenditures has been debated by several scholars and researchers over the past thirty years. Part of the support for preference of the council-manager form of government over the other government forms relies on claims that the council-manager form provides increased efficiency in the operation of government. Results of numerous municipal expenditure studies, however, reveal that this outcome is not always clearly demonstrated. Almost all of this existing literature has utilized data from municipalities with populations greater than 25,000. This study evaluates the relationship between form of government and per capita expenditures in cities and towns with populations between 2,500 and 25,000. Survey data from 559 cities and towns are analyzed to determine whether or not their form of government can be significantly related to municipal per capita expenditures. Results of this analysis reveal that council-manager cities and towns exhibit significantly higher per capita expenditure levels than cities and towns with the non-council-manager forms of government.

This paper aims to discuss the prevalent trends of exploiting cultural capital such as gastronomic legacy to ignite redevelopment of contemporary cities as illustrated in the city of George Town, Penang, Malaysia. In the twenty-first century, cities are transforming to be creative cities as they compete globally on the basis of their respective city branding, image and identity, as well as cultural capital assets. The emerging importance of cultural capital complements the realms of politics, economics and built environment in creating sustainable urban structure and ecosystem.

In line with UNESCO’s creative cities network flagship, this paper showcases George Town’s potentials in propagating its gastronomic appeals as a strategic urban asset to regenerate the urban economy.

This paper postulates branding George Town World Heritage Site as a creative city under the theme of “City of Gastronomy” would successfully capture the city’s gastronomic prowess, image and identity at the global scene.

Given that research in “culture and urban planning” is still at its infancy and largely absent in the Malaysian context, this study aims to fill that research gap and contributes towards existing scholarship. The findings from this test bed study will benefit key stakeholders, especially urban policymakers (i.e. Local Council, State Government and Federal Government) towards reforming and revolutionising contemporary urban policies towards sustainable development.

This chapter examines the similarities and differences in ways of life and experiences of residents in Milton Keynes and Cergy-Pontoise. Both New Towns resulted from efforts to create a form of urbanity that combines the attractions of urban and suburban life. In the tension between urbanity and suburbanity, many planners emphasised urbanity. To many new residents, their New Town was attractive precisely because of its suburban character. Using empirical material drawn from interviews with middle-class residents, this chapter looks at socio-spatial practices and experiences in the private domain of the home, in neighbourhoods and in public spaces and in the wider urban region. It is suggested that ways of living are conditioned by the structure and design of a city’s spaces, but people do not automatically conform to them. Their practices deviate from the city as planned and designed because residents will add meanings of their own to it. The chapter also reveals that there are differences in ‘suburban urbanity’ between both New Towns. The planning concepts and the daily lives of residents reflect cultural values attributed to suburbanity and urbanity in England and France. If the suburban middle class’s practices in the two cities reveal similar patterns, there are differences as well. In Milton Keynes, the emphasis is more on the private domain, and this causes residents to utilise and experience this city in a strikingly natural fashion. In Cergy-Pontoise, residents have a strong involvement with both the public domain and their own home.

Many of the challenges experienced by the New Town remain the same 50 years on: funding major infrastructure, land acquisition and planning still requires national political and policy support. In the scramble to deliver the thousands of new homes needed, the British government is revisiting policy levers and programmes of the past. Ebbsfleet, a large new settlement in Kent, two decades into realisation, shows how subsequent government visions overlay the historic New Town principles, the characteristics underpinning Garden Cities or the newly emerging Healthy New Towns (HNT). Rediscovering New Town design principles has prompted a reinvention of the historic planning mechanisms that delivered them. The influence of policy actors is contrasted to Ebbsfleet Development Corporation’s emergent role as the practical delivery agency. Comparing criteria for recent government new settlement programmes reveals the Housing Ministry’s rapid shift from promoting sustainable development to facilitating private-sector investment in exchange for guaranteed housing delivery. A similar dilution is seen in the HNT Network, where the New Towns’ provision of health-giving environments for populations escaping from city slums has been supplanted by a broader (more diffuse) facilitation of healthy wellbeing. In a fluid policy context, Ebbsfleet’s adoption of these principles could cynically be read as market-led place rebranding not reinvention. Will the historic lessons of the early New Towns have been learnt so that the new wave of Garden Cities or Healthy New Towns fare better?

Towns and cities across Canada face rapidly changing economic circumstances and many are turning to a variety of strategies, including tourism, to provide stability in their communities. Community Economic Development (CED) has become an accepted form of economic development, with recognition that such planning benefits from a more holistic approach and community participation. However, much of why particular strategies are chosen, what process the community undertakes to implement those choices and how success is measured is not fully understood. Furthermore, CED lacks a developed theoretical basis from which to examine these questions. By investigating communities that have chosen to develop their tourism potential through the use of murals, these various themes can be explored. There are three purposes to this research: (1) to acquire an understanding of the “how” and the “why” behind the adoption and diffusion of mural-based tourism as a CED strategy in rural communities; (2) to contribute to the emerging theory of CED by linking together theories of rural geography, rural change and sustainability, and rural tourism; and (3) to contribute to the development of a framework for evaluating the potential and success of tourism development within a CED process.

Two levels of data collection and analysis were employed in this research. Initially, a survey of Canadian provincial tourism guides was conducted to determine the number of communities in Canada that market themselves as having a mural-based tourism attraction (N=32). A survey was sent to these communities, resulting in 31 responses suitable for descriptive statistical analysis, using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). A case study analysis of the 6 Saskatchewan communities was conducted through in-depth, in person interviews with 40 participants. These interviews were subsequently analyzed utilizing a combined Grounded Theory (GT) and Content Analysis approach.

The surveys indicated that mural development spread within a relatively short time period across Canada from Chemainus, British Columbia. Although tourism is often the reason behind mural development, increasing community spirit and beautification were also cited. This research demonstrates that the reasons this choice is made and the successful outcome of that choice is often dependent upon factors related to community size, proximity to larger populations and the economic (re)stability of existing industry. Analysis also determined that theories of institutional thickness, governance, embeddedness and conceptualizations of leadership provide a body of literature that offers an opportunity to theorize the process and outcomes of CED in rural places while at the same time aiding our understanding of the relationship between tourism and its possible contribution to rural sustainability within a Canadian context. Finally, this research revealed that both the CED process undertaken and the measurement of success are dependent upon the desired outcomes of mural development. Furthermore, particular attributes of rural places play a critical role in how CED is understood, defined and carried out, and how successes, both tangible and intangible, are measured.

From 1999 onwards a number of Urban Regeneration Companies (URC) to address regeneration agendas. Provides a general introductory outline of the origins and aims of the URCs, examines specific focuses on city centres within some of the URCs and discusses some of the issues associated with city centre regeneration.

Within the UK the past three decades have witnessed dramatic and continuing changes in the geography of retail provision. During this period the traditional supremacy of town and city centres at the top of the retail hierarchy has been increasingly successfully challenged by the development and diversification of out‐of‐town and edge of town shopping facilities. This ‘out of town exodus’ (Schiller, 1987) can be traced from the food superstores opened by grocery retailers from the late 1960's onwards through the development of retail warehouses, retail parks and regional shopping centres (Guy, 1994) to a more recent ‘fourth wave’ (Fernie, 1995) which include warehouse clubs, factory outlet centres and airport retailing. The cumulative effects of these developments are seen to pose a major challenge to retail businesses in town and city centres and perhaps more fundamentally to the centres themselves. The traditional spirit of the UK's town and country planning policies, first established some fifty years ago, was to positively support retail activity in town and city centres and to restrict out of town retail development (Guy, 1994). However, from the early 1980's onwards, such policies had only a limited effect in stemming the tide of retail decentralisation and they often seemed to be honoured more in the breach than in the observance.