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The “unplannable” is a welcomed exception to the formal order of urban planning. This opinion article explores some examples of informal urbanism and discusses its ambiguous relationship to public space and unplanned activities in the city. The informal sector offers important lessons about the adaptive use of space and its social role. The article examines the ways specific groups appropriate informal spaces and how this can add to a city’s entrepreneurship and success. The characteristics of informal, interstitial spaces within the contemporary city, and the numerous creative ways in which these temporarily used spaces are appropriated, challenge the prevalent critical discourse about our understanding of authorised public space, formal place-making and social order within the city in relation to these informal spaces.

The text discusses various cases from Chile, the US and China that illustrate the dilemma of the relationship between informality and public/private space today. One could say that informality is a deregulated self-help system that redefines relationships with the formal. Temporary or permanent spatial appropriation has behavioural, economic and cultural dimensions, and forms of the informalare not always immediately obvious: they are not mentioned in building codes and can often be subversive or unexpected, emerging in the grey area between legal and illegal activities.

The playground is a commonly advised means to integrate children into the public realm of “child-friendly cities”, yet research has tended not to examine it in relation to adjacent public space. This paper aims to understand the extent to which the playground – a socio-spatial phenomenon – facilitates children's integration into the public realm, enabling critical examination of the “child-friendly space” concept.

An ethnographic study was carried out across three sites in Athens, Greece, where typical neighbourhood playgrounds replicate features common across the global north. Methods combined observation (167 h; morning, afternoon, evening), visual-mapping and 61 semi-structured interviews with 112 playground users (including adults and children from the playgrounds and surroundings). Rigorous qualitative thematic analysis, involving an iterative post-coding process, allowed identification of spatial patterns and emergent themes.

Findings reveal perceptions surrounding the protective and age-specific aspects of child-friendly design, limit the playgrounds' public value. However, a paradox emerges whereby the playgrounds' adjacency to public spaces designed without child-friendly principles affords children's engagement with the public realm.

Reconceptualisation of the “child-friendly playground” is proposed, embracing interdependence with the public realm – highly significant for child-friendly urban design theory and practice globally. Researchers are encouraged to compare findings in other geographical contexts.

This original finding is enabled by the novel approach to studying the playground in relation to adjacent public realm. The study also offers the first empirical examination of child-friendly city principles – participation in social life and urban play – in a Greek context, addressing a geographical gap in literature on children's everyday spaces.

This paper analyses emergency management in two regions of Italy – Emilia-Romagna and Veneto – in order (1) to understand whether they impact on the spread of local coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) contagion and (2) evaluate which strategy works best.

A three-step method was developed consisting of (1) a regional incidence curve analysis; (2) a descriptive statistical analysis of the respective operational measures related to the COVID-19 curve stages; and (3) a dynamic Structural Equation Model.

The results show the effects of the models during the various stages of the local contagion, focussing both on the two individual regions and a comparison of the way they responded.

Three theoretical implications are highlighted: (1) Better results are not necessarily the outcome of increased expenditure; (2) The overall rigidity they both show does not work; (3) The decision to centralize was, to some extent, effective for both regions.

The article empirically tests the effectiveness of emergency management in tackling a single event. Instead of the widely-used normative approach, the authors adopted a descriptive one, which is not frequently discussed in the emergency management literature.

This literature review paper aims to discuss the impacts and measures taken on Covid-19 with respect to architecture, built form and its allied fields along with observations from around the world with the end results of its implementation.

Various research journals from Science Direct and Taylor and Francis among others were referred and reviewed to learn more on Covid-19 along with its impacts on people and their built environment. Keywords that aligned with the topic of interest like pandemic, Covid-19, coronavirus, urban spaces, built environment and built-up space were identified. Research papers that aligned with the scope of the paper and its keywords were found. An excel sheet with the basic data of these papers was written down. The essence of each of these articles were understood and linked with the topic in hand. A review of all these papers was written coherently to the topic. Future scope in this field of study was also identified.

It discusses the various measures taken around the world in built-up spaces along with the various measures given by researchers, architects and urban planners to mitigate and reduce the transmission of Covid-19 in the built environment and urban spaces. The discussed measures along with observations from around the world have also been discussed with its end results. Discussions and conclusions on these design strategies and recommendations are made with the anticipation of a paradigm shift due to post-pandemic changes. Current scenarios of public spaces in densely populated countries are discussed. Future scope in this ongoing field of study includes measures that can be taken in specific to some particular built-up typologies like markets, theaters, parks, bazaars, etc.

The limitation of this study is the restricting of the study of Covid-19 to only architectural, urban and public realm scales. The study does not facilitate the involvement of other fields and their influence with Covid-19.

This paper has been completely written by the author and the co-authors and has not been copied from any other sources.

This study aims to outline an axiology of inclusivity, which can facilitate self-reflection on the possible impact of acting and pursuing a more inclusive branding and marketing for places.

By deconstructing the main assumption, which constitutes the new inclusive paradigm in the marketing and branding of places as more participatory, responsible and democratic, this article tackles critical and pragmatist concerns about the political dimension and its implications for branding and marketing theories and practices in the realm of places.

The article argues that, to be understood and enacted as inclusive, branding and marketing should be seen and act as (bio)political arts of government, characterized by the impolitical as an alternative form of political praxis, whose axiological foundation is based on a particular form of civism, which offers a different mode and stance of approaching political effects and impacts for all stakeholders involved.

Little has been written about the political value, substance and appearance that indicate inclusivity as a fundamental notion for participation, engagement and democracy. This article contributes to the existing literature, arguing that inclusivity should be demystified, as it may present a self-fulfilling discourse that might create political problems.

This paper aims to present a value cocreation framework that furthers understanding of social value cocreation.

This paper is an interdisciplinary conceptual analysis drawing on social enterprise studies, marketing research and philosophical value theory. It applies a visible-hand approach to the study of market relationships and, in line with philosophical research strategies, unfolds its analysis using conceptual distinctions.

This study provides a framework that substantiates the distinction between two modes of value cocreation and identifies the structure of the social enterprise business model. It explains how social enterprises can be conceived as role models for for-profit organizations, and it elucidates why social value cocreation is a demanding objective.

This paper develops an integrative, nondichotomist view of value cocreation that does not conceptualize social and economic value cocreation as opposing goals.

Social enterprises can use the business model structure and two modes of value cocreation and view themselves as role models for for-profit organizations.

This paper applies a visible-hand approach to both for-profit organizations and social enterprises. Using its framework, for-profit organizations can reflect on the consequences of their actions on society and how social value cocreation can improve social enterprise effectiveness.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to bridge service-oriented approaches to marketing and social enterprise studies using philosophical value theory to improve understanding of social value cocreation.

This study aims to explain the emergence and development of the concept of “Policy Networks” as a unit of analysis in the realm of public policies and their role in formulating a comprehensive policy for health insurance. The developments that took place over the past few decades had impacted a shift in the state’s role in shaping public policies, from a sole, key actor to one among other actors, both governmental and non-governmental, working interdependently through a set of networks.

The present study adopts the social network analysis as an approach and the social policy network as a tool to analyze public policymaking. The approach suggests the presence of a number of actors and interest groups that are actively involved in public policy and decision-making. These groups may vary from a cause to another and also from time to time. This research investigates and juxtaposes a selected sample of members of the health insurance policy network in Egypt.

In light of the study findings, one can see the existence of a policy network for the comprehensive health insurance system in Egypt. The study reveals the interrelations among a number of official and non-official key actors. The network has gone through several phases; the pre-establishment phase during the early stages of policymaking; the official establishment phase during the formative stage; and finally, the network operation phase during the implementation stage. The study also concludes that the policy network has influenced the different stages of policymaking through several tools and strategies. Moreover, the roles of different actors varied within the network; international organizations were the primary influencer in the early stages of policymaking; syndicates dominated the formative stage; and the public sector played the leading role in the implementation stage.

Serious attempts were made to benefit from policy networks with a particular focus on using the strengths of each actor while establishing an official institutional framework that consolidates coordination and cooperation among the involved parties. This framework should keep pace with global changes and developments. It should also have an official meeting venue. Above all, all parties should be listened to and their demands should be considered seriously as long as they are not actualized at the expense of the public interest nor do they undermine the sovereignty of the state. The study also enhances researchers to use policy networking as a unit for analyzing public policy and their effect on these policies.

Public policymaking in Egypt can become more responsive to people’s demands and more democratic once it was made through informative and interactive policy network. This pattern of policymaking will enhance both efficient and responsive.

Practical Implications: public policy making in Egypt can become more responsive to people demands and more democratic once it was made through informative and interactive policy network. This pattern of policymaking will enhance both efficient and responsive.

In addition to its practical contributions to the field of policymaking, this research fills a gap in the literature on the theoretical level.