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Informal housing stands out as a major challenge surrounding the massive reconstruction of Syrian cities, devastated by a bloody war and a terrible earthquake. The purpose of this article is to assess the adequacy of the Syrian Law to adequate provide a solution to this problem.

With the purpose of informing the question, this paper offers a legal-institutional analysis of the informal housing phenomenon and the corresponding regulatory responses in Syria. A literature review is conducted, and functional analysis of the legal texts and their effective implementation is provided.

First, informal housing in Syria has been fostered by the existence of an erratic regulation, particularly burdened by the incoherence of passing repressive provisions against informal housing while master plans were conspicuously absent or incomplete. Second, the regulatory policy seems to be leaning toward the urban renewal option, indicating a supply-oriented housing approach that may face serious challenges due to the scarcity of capital. In this context, regulation should not underestimate any policy tools at hand (renewal and upgrading; with the contribution of public, private and cooperative sectors).

Although there have been several studies on informal housing in Syria, none has taken a legal institutionalist approach. Furthermore, this study offers an up-to-date account of the problem, taking into account the problematic after the 2023 earthquake and the content of Law 2/2023.

This paper aims to discuss the place-making processes of street art within the context of Toronto, Canada, and potential for street art as alternative tourism to contribute to new urban tourism and encourage urban regeneration in the city.

The study applies reflexive thematic analysis to analyse secondary data sources such as reports, maps, videos, websites, news articles and official documents alongside photographic documentation and field research.

Street art in Toronto has been found to coincide closely with processes of creative place-making. While there is some indication that municipal street art organizations and destination marketing organizations are aware of the possibilities for street art to contribute to tourism in the city, it remains an untapped resource for new urban tourism. As a component of creative place-making, it has great potential as a form of alternative tourism to regenerate a still struggling tourism economy.

This paper explores the nascent research area and practical application of street art as an alternative form of urban tourism in Toronto, Canada. It also fills a gap by connecting the concept of creative place-making with street art, urban regeneration and tourism specifically; a focus that needs wider attention.

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) have shown great potential in addressing the current contradiction between underinvestment and sustainable development of urban regeneration in China, as well as in further facilitating the transformation and upgrading of China's urban development. In this regard, this study aims to investigate critical success factors (CSFs) and explore the relationships among these factors, and serve as a reference to provide recommendations and strategies for the successful implementation and sustainable development of urban regeneration REITs.

In this study, an integrated total interpretive structural modeling–matriced impact croises multiplication applique (TISM–MICMAC) approach using the TISM technique and MICMAC analysis is then implemented to explore the relationships among CSFs, demonstrate the hierarchical structure and classify these factors into clusters based on calculated driving powers and dependence.

This study has determined a final list of 11 CSFs through literature review and expert survey. The TISM model demonstrates a six-level hierarchical structure encompassing the influence transmission paths of CSFs, in which the most significant factors and links are established, while the MICMAC analysis further classifies CSFs into four clusters as a complement for the findings of the TISM technique.

This study offers practical implications for governments, individual and institutional investors, REITs and property managers, and other stakeholders concluded in urban regeneration REITs. The final list of determined CSFs can serve as the decision points for management and control of the implementation processes, while the findings of the TISM–MICMAC approach can be a significant reference to provide strategies for optimization and enhancement of urban regeneration REITs.

This study is a novel attempt to use both the TISM technique and MICMAC analysis to investigate CSFs for the implementation of urban regeneration REITs, and to address the theoretical and methodological research gaps in the existing literature.

The maintainability of urban spaces has become critical with rapid urbanization to create an effective and safe environment for the increasing population. The absence of scientific studies exploring the factors that affect urban space maintainability (USM) has hindered the incorporation of maintainability aspects during the urban space planning and designing stages. This paper aims to establish critical factors for USM.

Qualitative content analysis is performed under an abductive approach to developing USM factors. A bibliometric search is conducted using databases including Scopus Elsevier, Emerald Insight, Science Direct, IEEE XPLORE and the American Society of Civil Engineers. The selected primary data set comprises journal papers on USM published after 2000. Seventy-three journal articles are selected through a comprehensive screening procedure and subjected to further analysis. The literature findings are processed via a software-assisted systematic coding and visualizing of the key data using NVivo 12 software. The coded USM factors are validated based on experts’ consensus statements by conducting an expert focus group discussion.

Twelve critical factors are established for USM; they include six design stage-related factors, one construction stage-related factor and five operational stage-related factors.

Established USM factors give an insight into the main focus areas when incorporating maintainability into urban spaces.

The authors establish a set of maintainability factors for urban spaces based on the life cycle stages. USM factors such as vegetation management, interdepartmental coordination and work zone safety draw attention to context-specific aspects of USM.

Micro-regeneration can effectively enhance a neighborhood’s commercial vitality and serve as a viable approach to boost economic benefits. However, the small scale of micro-regeneration efforts and the fragmented nature of information currently limit the availability of strong empirical evidence demonstrating its impact on neighborhood commercial vitality. The aim of the study was to examine the link between micro-regeneration and neighborhood commercial vitality, focusing on the average, time-lag, spatial spillover, and spatial heterogeneity effects.

Using the panel data set of 1,755 neighborhoods in Chongqing from 2016 to 2021 as the research sample, the difference-in-differences (DID) method was employed in this study to explore the impact micro-regeneration has on neighborhood commercial vitality.

The results illustrate that: (1) micro-regeneration can promote neighborhood commercial vitality in terms of the number and types of local consumption amenities by 27.76 and 5.89%, respectively, with no time-lag effect; (2) the positive spillovers can exist within the range of 5,000 meters–5,500 meters of regenerated neighborhoods; and (3) the effect of micro-regeneration on neighborhood commercial vitality can be greater in peripheral areas than in core areas of the city.

The findings fill the knowledge gap on the relationship between micro-regeneration and neighborhood commercial vitality. Additionally, the results on the time-lag effect, spatial spillover effects, and spatial heterogeneity provide practical implications that can support the government and private sector in developing temporal and spatial arrangements for micro-regeneration projects.

The facility management (FM) sector, which is developing rapidly, is making slower progress in Turkey compared to Europe and the USA. This paper aims to research the underlying issues leading to FM practices and offer insights into the implications of FM-related policies, especially for large urban transformation projects.

The study used a mixed-methods research design and collected qualitative data through semi-structured interviews with building/site managers and quantitative data through structured surveys with residents. Forty-nine building/site managers and 660 residents participated in the interview and survey from Turkey’s North Ankara and Dikmen Valley urban transformation projects.

The FM by residents, performed by the managers selected among homeowners, was preferred to the professional FM in Turkey. Education level, age, homeownership and duration of living in the region were associated with selecting FM practices. Cost also had an important place among the selection criteria, and the standard view from the residents was that professional FM would cause a cost increase. However, interviews with building/site managers in North Ankara and Dikmen Valley Urban Transformation areas revealed that a significant part of the problem resulted from insufficient knowledge and experience in FM.

Within the scope of the research, two urban transformation projects in Ankara Province were selected, and the survey was limited to the North Ankara Entrance Urban Transformation Project and Dikmen Valley Urban Transformation Project areas. Although there is a need to improve the understanding of FM in all facilities, built environments and collective buildings, collective buildings in urban transformation areas due to several constraints, those other identified areas are postponed for future study. In addition, collective buildings located in transformation areas differ from others in discussing the social dimension and the impact of management.

Within the scope of the research, two urban transformation projects in Ankara Province were selected, and the survey was limited to the North Ankara Entrance Urban Transformation Project and Dikmen Valley Urban Transformation Project areas. Although there is a need to improve the understanding of FM in all facilities, due to several constraints built environments and collective buildings in urban transformation areas, are postponed for future study. In addition, collective buildings located in transformation areas differ from others in discussing the social dimension and the impact of management.

This study evaluates two different FM approaches: FM by residents and professional FM, implemented in Turkey and identifies the criteria for choosing the FM practice. In addition, both building/site managers and residents evaluate different perspectives on FM. This study is unique because it compares different FM practices in Turkey and the criteria for residents to prefer different FM practices.

Climate change is occurring around us and impacting on our daily lives, meaning that we have to deal with our cities in a different way. There is also increasing awareness of the need for daily contact with green spaces and the natural environment in order to live a happy, productive and meaningful life.

This reflective essay tells the narrative of how urbanisation has been disconnecting humans from nature. Non-sustainable, non-resilient patterns of urbanisation, along with the neglect of inner-city areas, have resulted in fragmentation and urban decline, led to a loss of biodiversity, and caused the deterioration of ecosystems and their services. Urban regeneration projects allow us to “repair” and restore some of this damage whilst enhancing urban resilience. Connecting existing and enhanced ecosystems, and re-establishing ecosystems both within cities and at the peri-urban fringe is vital for strengthening ecosystem resilience and building adaptive capacity for coping with the effects of climate change.

Cities worldwide need to look for suitable solutions to increase the resilience of their urban spaces in the face of climate change. This essay explores how this can be achieved through the integration of nature-based solutions, the re-greening of neighbourhoods and by correctly attributing value to natural capital. Transforming existing cities and neighbourhoods in this way will enable ecosystems to contribute their services towards healthier and more liveable cities.