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The purpose of this paper is to examine expropriation, valuation, compensation and rehabilitation practices and their impacts on expropriated households.

This study employed a mixed research approach. The target populations of the study were expropriated households in Debre Markos City from 2019 to 2022. The study uses purposive and systematic random sampling techniques. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, narration and thematic clustering.

The findings of this study revealed that the expropriation process was not participatory and the right holders were not treated as what is expected. It is further found that economic losses, moral damage and social disturbance payments were not considered in the compensation package. The displacement compensation given was also inadequate and sometimes delayed and the time value of money was not taken into account for delayed payments. This creates social and economic problems. The rehabilitation and resettlement program was inadequate and ineffective. The expropriation, valuation, compensation and rehabilitation practice in general lack transparency and accountability.

To ensure efficient and effective expropriation, valuation and compensation, there should be a well-organized government system that provides an accurate valuation on the one hand and restores the livelihood of the displaced on the other.

This paper is the first on expropriation, valuation, compensation and rehabilitation within the framework of transparency, accountability, effective rehabilitation and resettlement and institutional arrangements to ensure the sustainable livelihoods of affected households.

Mauritius’s residential real estate sector has undergone an increase in foreign investment over the past decades. This study aims to establish if the increasing level of foreign real estate investments (FREI) has increased land demand and land prices. The study also aims to depict whether the relation between FREI and land prices prevails at an aggregate and/ or a regional level.

Data from 26 regions, classified as urban, rural and coastal is collected on an annual basis over the period 2000 to 2019, and a dynamic panel regression framework, namely, an autoregressive distributed lag model, is used to take into account the dynamic nature of land price modeling.

The findings show that, at the aggregate level, in the long-term, FREI does not have a significant influence on land prices, while in the short term, a positive significant relationship is noted between the two variables. A regional breakdown of the data into urban, rural and coastal was done. In the long term, only in coastal regions, a positive significant link was observed, whereas in urban and rural regions FREI did not influence land prices. In the short term, the positive link subsists in the coastal regions, and in rural regions also land prices are positively affected by FREI.

Unlike other studies which have used quite general measures of FREI, the present research has focused on FREI mainly undertaken in the residential real estate market and how these have affected residential land prices. This study also contributes to research on the determinants of land prices which is relatively scarce compared to research on housing prices.

Land transactions are a key indicator of urban sustainable development and urban space expansion. Therefore, this paper aims to study the spatial correlation of different types of land transactions.

Based on the big data of land micro transactions in Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, this paper uses the generalized forecast error variance decomposition (GFEVD) method to measure the correlation level of urban land markets. Also, social network analysis (SNA) is used to describe spatial correlation network characteristics of an urban agglomeration land market. In the meantime, the factors that influence the spatial correlation of urban land markets are investigated through a quadratic assignment procedure (QAP).

The price growth rate of urban residential land was higher than that of industrial land and commercial land. The spatial relevance of urban residential land is the highest, while the spatial relevance of the urban commercial land market is the lowest. The urban industrial land market, commercial land market and residential land market all present a typical network structure. Population distance (POD) and Engel coefficient distance (EGD) are negatively correlated with the correlation degree of the urban residential land network; traffic distance (TRD) and economic distance (ECD) are negatively correlated with the correlation degree of the urban industrial land network and commercial land network.

This paper uses a systematically-integrated series of problem-solving models to better explain the development path of urban land markets and to realize the integration of the interdisciplinary methods of geography, statistics and big data analysis.

This study aims to analyze the short-, medium- and long-term impacts of natural-resources-seeking foreign direct investment (FDI) in the form of foreign multinational enterprise (MNE) land acquisitions on agricultural labor productivity in developing countries. The authors analyze if these land acquisitions disrupt fair and decent rural labor productivity or if the investments provide opportunities for improvement and growth. The influence of different country characteristics, such as economic development levels and governmental protection for the rural population, are acknowledged.

The study analyzes 570 land acquisitions across 90 countries between 2000 and 2015 via a generalized least squares regression. It distinguishes short- and long-term implications and the moderating role of a country’s economic development level and government effectiveness in implementing government protection.

The results suggest that natural resource-seeking FDI harms agricultural labor productivity in the short term. However, this impact turns positive in the long term as labor markets adjust to the initial disruptions that result from land acquisitions. A country’s economic development level mitigates the negative short-term impacts, indicating the possibility of finding alternative job opportunities in economically stronger countries. Government effectiveness does have no influence, presumably as the rural population in which the investment is partaking is in many developing countries, not the focus of governmental protectionism.

The findings provide interesting insights into the impact of MNEs on developing countries and particularly their rural areas that are heavily dependent on natural resources. The authors identify implications on employment opportunities in the agricultural sector in these countries, which are negative in the short term but turn positive in the long term.

Moreover, the findings also have utility for policymakers. The sale of land to foreign MNEs is not a passive process – indeed, developing country governments have an active hand in constructing purchase contracts. Local governments could organize multistakeholder partnerships between MNEs, domestic businesses and communities to promote cooperation for access to technology and innovation and capacity-building to support employment opportunities.

The authors urge MNE managers to establish new partnerships to ease transitions and mitigate the negative impacts of land acquisitions on agricultural employment opportunities in the short term. These partnerships could emphasize worker retraining and skills upgrading for MNE-owned land, developing new financing schemes and sharing of technology and market opportunities for surrounding small-holder farmers (World Bank, 2018). MNE managers could also adopt wildlife-friendly farming and agroecological intensification practices to mitigate the negative impacts on local ecosystems and biodiversity (Tscharntke et al., 2012).

The authors contribute to the debate on the positive and negative impact of FDI on developing countries, particularly considering temporality and the rural environment in which the FDI is partaking.

This study presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of the interdisciplinary literature on drones in last-mile delivery (LMD) to extrapolate pertinent insights from and into the logistics management field.

Rooting their analytical categories in the LMD literature, the authors performed a deductive, theory refinement SLR on 307 interdisciplinary journal articles published during 2015–2022 to integrate this emergent phenomenon into the field.

The authors derived the potentials, challenges and solutions of drone deliveries in relation to 12 LMD criteria dispersed across four stakeholder groups: senders, receivers, regulators and societies. Relationships between these criteria were also identified.

This review contributes to logistics management by offering a current, nuanced and multifaceted discussion of drones' potential to improve the LMD process together with the challenges and solutions involved.

The authors provide logistics managers with a holistic roadmap to help them make informed decisions about adopting drones in their delivery systems. Regulators and society members also gain insights into the prospects, requirements and repercussions of drone deliveries.

This is one of the first SLRs on drone applications in LMD from a logistics management perspective.

This paper analyses changes in the activity pattern of Damascus city from late modern era (late Ottoman rule) to the contemporary era. The research objective is to explore the impact of the socio-historical process on the evolving morphological structure of the urban core and to draw implications for post-war reconstruction.

Space Syntax methodology was employed to trace the historical and morphological changes in the urban core of Damascus. The timeframe was divided into five periods covering the city's socio-political transformation and five maps depicting these periods. Local and global integration measures were used to analyse the changes in the urban core across each period. Normalised angular choice (NACH) measure was used to identify the changes in the city planning system.

The results revealed that the urban core corresponded to the main streets, which had socio-economic importance across history. However, introducing a new planning system influenced by Western planning ideals led to the creation of multi-morphological patterns. At the city level, the study found that the urban core was more accessible in the preplanned areas, while the organic expansion of the informal settlements was exclusive of the core area. At the local level, some informal settlements showed an intense core. Intelligibility analysis revealed that earlier periods showed considerably higher values, implying declines in the ease of navigation of the city over time.

This study did not account for the political, economic and cultural factors that could shape morphological changes in Damascus. In addition, the study adopted historical reference points to understand the morphological changes, as high-quality geospatial data was not available to monitor the recent post-war situation.

The research findings give a foundation for a more contextualised historical understanding of spatial structure and changes, which can contribute to the post-war reconstruction and redevelopment of Damascus city.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to trace historical spatial changes in Damascus from a space syntax approach, weaving together socio-historical and configurational studies. In doing so, it shows how historically informed and spatially aware urban planning and design policies can support policymakers and built environment professionals in planning and redevelopment.

Agricultural land loss is a severe issue that Australia faces, along with many other countries. Myriad research studies have discussed the reasons for such land loss, including urban sprawl as the main factor and factor's repercussions. However, there is a knowledge gap in understanding the impact of dwelling type on farming land reduction. Also, there is an application gap, particularly in the local context. The purpose of this study is to discover the effect of differing dwelling types (compact and non-compact) in metropolitan areas with a growing population (such as Craigieburn) toward potentially noticeable agricultural land loss.

This paper aims to fill these research and practice gaps through a case study using a mixed methods approach. A quantitative analysis was conducted of housing types, the types' growth and agricultural land area taken up by those different housing types over 18 years. Thematic analysis of policies, strategies, schemes and codes relevant to the case study enabled a better understanding of practice gaps.

The study revealed a significant loss of agricultural land. Separate housing was found to be the main culprit due to the number of houses and the area the houses require, thus exhibiting the lack of practical guidelines to prevent the houses' overdevelopment. The findings enabled the identification of opportunities for better practice through government intervention and potential industry alterations.

Previous literature has primarily explored the issues associated with urban sprawl and the sprawl's unsustainability. This research paper offers a more targeted insight into one of the key factors leading to urban sprawl: the types of dwellings being constructed.

Political Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), based on ideas about deliberative democracy, have been criticised for increasing corporate power and democratic deficits. Yet, deliberative ideals are flourishing in the corporate world in the form of dialogues with a broad set of stakeholders and engagement in wider societal issues. Extractive industry areas, with extensive corporate interventions in weak regulatory environments, are particularly vulnerable to asymmetrical power relations when businesses engage with society. This paper aims to illustrate in what way deliberative CSR practices in such contexts risk enhancing corporate power at the expense of community interests.

This paper is based on a retrospective qualitative study of a Canadian oil company, operating in an Albanian oilfield between 2009 and 2016. Through a study of three different deliberative CSR practices – market-based land acquisition, a grievance redress mechanism and dialogue groups – it highlights how these practices in various ways enforced corporate interests and prevented further community mobilisation.

By applying Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony, the analysis highlights how deliberative CSR activities isolated and silenced community demands, moved some community members into the corporate alliance and prevented alternative visions of the area to be articulated. In particular, the close connection between deliberative practices and monetary compensation flows is underlined in this dynamic.

The paper contributes to critical scholarship on political CSR by highlighting in what way deliberative practices, linked to monetary compensation schemes, enforce corporate hegemony by moving community members over to the corporate alliance.

In 2016, the Chinese central government decentralized the responsibilities of housing market regulation to the municipal level. This paper aims to assess whether the decentralized market regulation is effective.

This study first investigates the fundamental drivers of urban housing prices in China. Taking into consideration the factors driving housing prices, the authors further investigate the effectiveness of decentralized housing market regulation by a pre- and post-policy comparison test using a panel data set of 35 major cities for the years from 2014 to 2019.

The results reveal heterogenous policy effects on housing price growth among cities with a one-year lag in effectiveness. With the decentralized housing market regulation, cities with fast price growth are incentivized to implement tightening measures, while cities with relatively low housing prices and slow price growth are more likely to do nothing or deregulate the markets. The findings indicate that the shift from a centralized housing market regulation to a decentralized one is more appropriate and effective for the individual cities.

Few policy evaluation studies have been done to examine the effects of decentralized housing market regulation on the performance of urban housing markets in China. The authors devise a methodology to conduct a policy evaluation that is important to inform public policy and decisions. This study helps enhance the understanding of the fundamental factors in China’s urban housing markets and the effectiveness of municipal government interventions.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the horizontal expansion of Burayu Town between 1990 and 2020. The study typically acts as a baseline for integrated spatial planning in small- and medium-sized towns, which will help to plan sustainable utilization of land.

Landsat5-TM, Landsat7 ETM+, Landsat5 TM and Landsat8 OLI were used in the study, along with other auxiliary data. The LULC map classifications were generated using the Random Forest Package from the Comprehensive R Archive Network. Post-classification, spatial metrics, and per capita land consumption rate were used to understand the manner and rate of expansion of Burayu Town. Focus group discussions and key informant interviews were also used to validate land use classes through triangulation.

The study found that the built-up area was the most dynamic LULC category (85.1%) as it increased by over 4,000 ha between 1990 and 2020. Furthermore, population increase did not result in density increase as per capita land consumption increased from 0.024 to 0.040 during the same period.

As a result of financial limitations, there were no high-resolution satellite images available, making it challenging to pinpoint the truth as it is on the ground. Including senior citizens in the study region allowed this study to overcome these restrictions and detect every type of land use and cover.

Data on urban growth are useful for planning land uses, estimating growth rates and advising the government on how best to use land. This can be achieved by monitoring and reviewing development plans using satellite imaging data and GIS tools.

The use of Random Forest for image classification and the employment of local knowledge to validate the accuracy of land cover classification is a novel approach to properly customize remote sensing applications.