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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the historical, cultural, and social significance and the role in landscapes of Lithuanian villages with churches and to formulate the hypothetical framework for their revitalization and consequent sustainable development of country's rural landscape.

The methodology of the research encompassed the desktop study (analysis of literature, archival data, maps, and statistical data) and the analyses on site (observation, measurements, and recording in photographs of buildings and urban structures).

The findings of the research include the analysis of the historical development of country's rural settlements with the religious function, formulation of the notion of the contemporary village with church, identification of the contemporary network of country's villages with churches and analysis of their current socioeconomic and sociocultural situation and the role in rural landscape. The results of the analyses were used formulating the hypothetical framework for the revitalization of the villages with churches and the sustainable development of the rural landscape.

The analysis of literature demonstrated that Lithuanian villages with churches and their significance for the sustainable development of country's rural landscape are paradoxically neglected subjects. Meanwhile, the foreign experience has demonstrated that historic rural settlements, including the settlements with the religious function, are important not only as separate cultural assets but also can play an important role in the identity, viability, and the sustainable development of rural landscapes. Thus the findings of the research demonstrating the peculiarities and potential of Lithuanian villages with churches can be used in the fields of heritage preservation, landscape management, and rural development.

The main objective of this paper is to critically assess sustainable development in the context of Behramkale, a vernacular village in Türkiye.

Vernacular Heritage Sustainable Architecture analysis framework has been adopted to understand and assess vernacular architecture and sustainable development in Behramkale.

The vernacular design of the old Behramkale settlement has shown more sustainable characteristics as compared to the new development area. Key findings show that trade-offs were made with respect to environmental and sociocultural aspects of sustainable development to achieve economic sustainability.

Future research with more in-depth interviews would be helpful to find out the inhabitants’ response to the conservation practices.

Based on the research conducted, life cycle analysis and sustainable strategies of vernacular settlements can be useful tools to design, develop and improve old settlements, as well as newly established settlements.

Key lessons learned from conservation practices can help to identify well-adapted solutions to respond to the needs of local communities in Türkiye and similar vernacular settlements in the Mediterranean region.

This paper critically assesses sustainable development in the context of vernacular architecture, heritage conservation and rural sustainability. Conservation practices in Türkiye are evaluated deeply as there is limited research in this field within the Mediterranean heritage conversation and sustainable development context.

A key development in South Africa's response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been the recognition that there are a number of external factors in the socio-economic and physical environment in which people live that are central to the spread of the epidemic. A growing body of evidence suggests that poverty, inequality, inadequate shelter, overcrowding and other symptoms of underdevelopment are fundamental drivers in undermining people's ability to practice and negotiate safe sex, thereby enhancing vulnerability to HIV infection. Similarly, these factors affect the ability of individuals, households and communities to cope with the subsequent health and socio-economic effects of infection. In a context where large numbers of South Africans live in poverty, without adequate shelter and access to basic resources and services, HIV/AIDS will thus have far reaching and serious impacts, not only on citizens and communities but also for and on the state.

The South African government has shifted its approach to housing development from the provision of housing to a sustainable human settlements approach, as encapsulated in its 2004 development plan ‘Breaking New Ground’. This paper explores the conceptual and theoretical links between this sustainable human settlements agenda and HIV/AIDS. It argues that the creation of sustainable and integrated human settlements is potentially a crucial component in the response to HIV/AIDS. However, this can only be achieved if HIV/AIDS becomes an explicit component of sustainable human settlements planning, development and management. In light of this, the paper discusses key characteristics of integrated, sustainable human settlements and reviews the current instruments for the implementation of a sustainable settlement agenda in South Africa in relation to the dynamics and implications of HIV/AIDS both for the South African state and its people. The paper concludes with a set of policy recommendations to make HIV/AIDS an integral component of the sustainable human settlements agenda.

Research was undertaken within the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental RTDI Programme during the six‐month period from March to August 2001 by a partnership formed by the Centre for Environmental Research (CER), University of Limerick, and the Centre for Urban and Regional Ecology (CURE), University of Manchester. This project aimed to inform the development of spatial policies emerging from the National Spatial Strategy (NSS) aimed at finding optimal ways in which to accommodate Ireland’s growing population in a manner consistent with balanced regional development and environmental sustainability. To obtain data and information on settlements, three modes of analysis were adopted. First, for a single city and two villages, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected to provide a comprehensive analysis of the local social, economic and physical environments, track record in enhancing sustainability, current policies in place, and the likelihood of these policies proving successful. Second, for 11 Irish settlements selected to include a range of functions and locations, 29 quantified sustainability indicators were developed and used to compare the level of sustainability achieved by settlements of differing sizes. Third, a review of international literature was undertaken to search for comparable data, models and case studies, so as to provide a context for analysis of Irish data. The framework of significant environmental themes adopted here is taken from recent Irish EPA publications. Results based on all three research methods suggest that on balance larger settlements in the recent past, at present and in the foreseeable future are more likely to create conditions in which sustainability is enhanced. This work provides the basis for a large‐scale three‐year study which commenced in March 2002, which examines the sustainability and future development patterns of settlements in Ireland.

This paper introduces the state of informal settlements in Latin America and the Caribbean, and it explores potential relationships between informal settlements and national policies on urban development and disaster risk reduction, especially on how risk governance and disaster resilience are conceived and practiced by governments.

17 Habitat III National Reports issued during the preparatory process toward the New Urban Agenda in 2016 are analyzed using statistics and qualitative methods. Some quantitative variables, such as access to drinking water and sewerage in the region, are combined with qualitative data from references to the Sendai Framework and national urban policies in the mentioned reports. Countries in the study include Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.

Results show that the situation of informal settlements in the region is complex and presents two different realities that coexist: one group of countries in which provision of basic urban services poses great challenges for a significant proportion of the urban population, while the other group in which urban informality and precariousness persists despite better statistics. Risk governance and disaster resilience principles are scarcely articulated in existing urban development discourses in the region.

The preparatory process toward the New Urban Agenda allowed to conduct an original updated cross-country analysis and to identify cross-cutting issues on informality, risk reduction, and urban development in the region.

The American agricultural economist Marion Clawson advised the Israeli government during 1953–1955. Clawson, a protégé of John D. Black and Mordecai Ezekiel, criticized the government for ignoring economic considerations, and stated that Israel’s national goals – defense, Negev Desert irrigation, immigrant absorption via new agricultural settlements, and economic independence – were mutually contradictory. His major recommendations were to improve the realism of Israel’s agricultural plan; end expensive Negev irrigation; enlarge irrigated farms eightfold; freeze new settlements until the number of semi-developed settlements falls from 300 to 100; and limit new Negev settlements to 10 over 5–7 years. Thus, Clawson ignored political feasibility and made value judgments. Minister of Finance Levi Eshkol and Minister of Agriculture Peretz Naphtali rejected Clawson’s recommendations because they ignored Israel’s national goals. By September 1954, Clawson shifted towards greater pragmatism: He acknowledged that foreign advisors should not question the national goals or make value judgments, and sought common ground with the Ministry of Agriculture. At his initiative, he wrote Israel Agriculture 1953/54 in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture. Israel Agriculture was a consensus document: Clawson eschewed recommendations and accepted that the government might prioritize non-economic goals. In proposing Israel Agriculture, Clawson made a pragmatic decision to relinquish some independence for (potentially) greater influence. Ultimately, Clawson was largely unsuccessful as an advisor. Clawson’s failure was part of a general pattern: Over 1950–1985, the Israeli government always rejected foreign advisors’ recommendations unless it was facing a severe crisis.

Construction practices used in the development of self-help housing and upgrade of informal settlements are believed to have negative effects on the natural environment. The purpose of this paper is to examine this idea by conducting a study on purposely selected informal settlements located in Mbabane, Kingdom of Eswatini, to determine the environmental sustainability of construction practices used in these areas and to offer an approach that can mitigate the environmental degradation witnessed in informal settlements.

The study comprised of three major components – literature review, situational analysis and research output. A literature review informed the extent of the problem and served to identify categories of assessment. A situational analysis of construction practices in informal settlements was done through the use of a structured checklist tool. Pattern matching was used as an analysis to evaluate the environmental sustainability of the identified construction practices.

Empirical results indicate a lack of environmental sustainability in the identified construction practices used. The challenges identified included the wrong choice of building material, inefficiency in energy use, a threat to biodiversity, poor planning and a lack of construction control measures. The research output was a framework encouraging affordable, sustainable and regenerative construction practices believed to be a viable solution to the environmental challenges within informal settlements. It was concluded that current construction practices used within informal settlements lead to negative environmental effects.

The framework offered in this study is believed to mitigate the negative effects on the natural environment in informal settlements.

The twenty-first century is noted globally as the urban century because more than half of the world's population lives in cities. This population is projected to increase to 70% by 2050. South Africa is no exception to this phenomenal increase in urban population. More than 60% of South African population lives in urban areas, and this figure is projected to increase to 71.3% and 80% by 2030 and 2050, respectively. Access to human settlement by this teaming population remains a challenge. The problem of access to human settlement is compounded by historical apartheid's spatial geography characterized by racial segregation, fragmentation of urban space and separate development. During the apartheid period, settlement patterns were designed and planned in accordance with racial differentiation. This resulted in fragmented, segregated and dysfunctional residential settlements pattern that forced many people to travel long distances between place of work and home. Since 1994, the various housing policies, programmes and legislations have not been able to find solution to the spatial challenges that South Africa faces. The objective of this book is to investigate and unravel mixed-income housing development planning strategy and how this housing typology with a new framework can bring about spatial integration, inclusive cities, improved access to services and the promotion of social cohesion and economic inclusion. This book utilized the case study research design and employed the Delphi method for the investigation. The findings reveal that proper coordination across all sectors of government and good working relationship between the private and public sectors will increase the sustainability of mixed-income housing development. This study also supports existing theory that mixed-income housing might not be able to bring about the overall social integration, and solve all housing problems but has the unique tendency and potential in the South African case to address spatial imbalances by increasing the affordability of low-cost housing. This book concludes that there is need for both inter-sectoral and intergovernmental collaboration as well as proper coordination/adequate urban planning policies to address the increasing human settlement challenges in South Africa and for effective implementation of mixed-income housing development.

This study aims to develop an innovative and comprehensive framework to address water-related challenges faced by communities located in urban settlements in the area of Greater Cairo. It is commonly accepted that such global challenges that border issues of resilience, community development, social equity and inclusive growth, call for a collaboration of disciplines. Such collaboration allows for the identification of synergies in ways that can enlighten and enrich the space of potential solutions and create pathways towards robust solutions.

The research process has been participatory, and it involved, apart from site interviews, engagement via a photographic exhibition, during an outreach and engagement event, of the researched sites in one of the academic institutions of the authors. A total of 12 women were interviewed and the expert’s workshop was attended by 12 experts.

Social innovation can promote agile processes to prototyping services, involving multiple sectors and stakeholders through open ecosystems. For urban settlements undergoing rapid expansion, social innovation can help communities and governments to build resilience in the face of resource gaps – often making use of advancements in technology and improvements from other disciplines (Horgan and Dimitrijevic, 2019). For the unplanned urban areas around Greater Cairo, input from different knowledge areas can offer valuable contributions; in terms of the project and the study that we report on in this paper, the contributing areas included architecture and urban planning, as well as women-led entrepreneurship targeting economic growth, social and community impacts.

In this paper, we demonstrate the significance of a transdisciplinary framework based on social innovation, for the study of women-led entrepreneurship as a response to water-based challenges within an urban settlement. The creation of such a framework can be a significant contribution to conceptualise, examine and respond to “wicked challenges” of urban sustainability. This paper also believes that the readership of the journal will be subsequently benefitting from another way to conceptualise the interplay of theoretical perspectives at the level of organisations and the individual to support the inquiry into such challenges.