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This paper aims to bring the more recent discourse on the multilayered and interconnected dimensions of flood vulnerability, damage and risk reduction at the microlevel of global south cities to Dhaka, by looking at multiple factors and their relationships.

A cross-sectional research design was used to generate data from 315 respondents in five neighborhoods in Eastern Dhaka, located in high flood damage zones with previous flood experience, using a structural equation model to test nine hypothetical relationships.

The model confirms that low socioeconomic conditions often lead households to use social capital to traverse flood vulnerabilities in cities. It also advances this notion to show that flood impact unleashes social capital through collective activities in responding to flooding. Further, it reveals that while socioeconomic conditions influence flood impacts, these also engender the necessary mechanisms to unleash collective responses to flooding.

This paper suggests the need for context-specific interventions that transcend physical and infrastructural responses to integrate socioeconomic conditions as a basis of understanding and addressing flood vulnerabilities. To achieve this requires transcending generic participatory mechanisms to use frameworks that encourage genuine participation and partnerships using coproduction.

This paper engages both the inner city and peri-urban areas of Dhaka to extend current conversations on the various conditions underlying flood impact to offer entry points for integrated flood management interventions at the microlevel. This paper contributes to fill the research gap in Dhaka where very few studies have examined flood damages to residential buildings and its driving factors at the neighborhood level.

Disaster information is an important resource for flood preparedness, however, the transition of information provision to preparedness and consequently to damage reduction is complex. The nature of complexity has made it imperative to provide context-specific evidence on how disaster information provision influences intentions to prepare for flood hazard. This paper seeks to investigate how message clarity and source credibility mediate and moderate the relationship between information sufficiency and intentions to prepare. This paper aims to provide valuable insights into the relationship between the major components of disaster communication and their influence on intentions to prepare.

The study used a cross-sectional survey design to test the relationship between information sufficiency, message clarity and source credibility. A total of 1,064 questionnaire surveys were conducted on a face-to-face basis. The data collection was done in one month with ten research assistants. Participants of the study were randomly selected from adults over 18-years old who have lived in the study areas for at least three years. Responses from participants were analysed using a structural equation modelling (SEM) technique and SPSS AMOS version 24 software.

Findings suggest that the information sufficiency-intentions to prepare relationship is enhanced when adequate disaster information communicated is clear and from a credible source. This implies that policymakers and risk communicators need to critically assess the clarity of disaster information content and the credibility of the source in the dissemination of information during the communication process. It also provides a better understanding of the factors that influence people’s intentions to prepare for flood hazards.

This current study did not account for the specific nature or content of information necessary to increase message clarity and source credibility for disaster preparedness. In addition, the study did not cover the channels of communication ideal to stimulate people’s intentions to flood preparedness. Although these do not undermine the significance of the present study, they present entry points for further studies. In view of the on-going urbanisation dynamics and the complex socio-spatial patterns emerging in the Greater Accra Area, it is recommended that further studies explore the channels of communication that will suit the diverse socio-spatial profile of residents (e.g. age, location, ethnicity, etc.).

While a plethora of studies emphasize the role of source credibility, information sufficiency and message clarity towards disaster preparedness, there is at present little evidence on the mediating and moderating role of the communication variables. In this study, we propose and test the mediating and moderating role of message clarity and source credibility on the relationship between information sufficiency and intentions to prepare. The findings of this paper provide other incentives that encourage message audiences to take up precautionary measures towards flood hazards. In addition, with a view that people fail to prepare because of lack of sufficient information, the study findings suggest that the provision of sufficient information may enhance preparedness.

There is an emerging digital turn in urban management in Africa, undergirded by efforts to address the challenges of rapid urbanisation. To ensure that this digitalisation agenda contributes to smart and sustainable communities, there is a need to trace residents' use of emerging digital technologies and address any impediments to broader utilisation. To this end, this paper aims to examine the determinants of residents' use of Ghana's digital property address system (DPAS) in suburban communities in Accra.

Drawing on a detailed literature review of digital technologies and the factors that affect their use, this paper uses data from a cross-sectional survey of three suburban communities in Accra. A binary logistic regression model was then utilised to identify the significant factors that affect residents' use of the DPAS.

The findings showed that socioeconomic, housing, and psychosocial factors were the main determinants of residents' use of the DPAS. Specifically, house ownership, education and expected benefits had a positive relationship with residents' use of the DPAS. Findings highlight the need for urban policymakers to pay attention to systemic issues in Ghana's digital culture to ensure that digitalisation initiatives do not widen the digital divide and thus impede progress towards smart and sustainable urban development goals.

The growing scholarship on digitalisation in Africa has emphasised conditions, potentials and challenges in deploying digital technologies with little attention to the determinants of residents' use of these technologies. This paper contributes to filling this knowledge gap by bringing foundational issues critical to engendering equitable digitalisation agenda in Ghanaian cities and beyond.

Integrating and advancing social sustainability is foundational to achieving the urban sustainable development goals. Given the rapid transformation of cities in the Mediterranean region, this study sought to assess residents' evaluation of social sustainability in two socio-spatially diverse neighbourhoods of metropolitan Istanbul.

A questionnaire survey, adapted from an empirically well-tested and robust social sustainability framework, was used to collect data from 197 residents from Balat and Rasimpasa neighbourhoods in Metropolitan Istanbul. The study then employed quantitative analytical techniques such as independent sample t-tests and Pearson correlation to analyse the sample data.

In both neighbourhoods, accessibility and participation were ranked the highest and lowest dimensions of social sustainability, respectively. However, the t-test analysis revealed a statistically significant difference between the two neighbourhoods regarding social networking and interaction, safety and security and participation. The differences align with emerging studies on urban social sustainability in the Mediterranean and European cities that when considered from urban spatial contexts, significant differences emerge from a social network and safety perspective.

Our study invites urban planners and policy makers attention to and emphasise on lowly evaluated social sustainability dimensions such as participation in their efforts to promote sustainable urban development at the neighbourhood level. We reason that opening the decision-making process to include diverse voices and experiences of residents through participatory workshops might offer opportunities for context-specific, citizen-led urban planning and design strategies that are socially sustainable.

Previous studies have not fully accounted for how various socio-spatial contexts at the neighbourhood level shape differential evaluation of social sustainability. This paper extends the emerging work on urban social sustainability by situating residents’ evaluation of social sustainability indicators across two unique neighbourhoods with gridded and organic spatial characteristics in Istanbul. This paper is an important addition to ongoing work on how spatial organisation of neighbourhoods can influence experiences of social sustainability from an urban planning and design 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.