Search results

Despite city authorities in Bangladesh being concerned about urban sustainability, they often face difficulties in addressing predominant urban challenges threatening urban sustainability, due to limited relevant literature. To reduce this gap, this study aims to address the predominant urban challenges and assess their severity levels in four city corporations of Bangladesh, e.g. Rajshahi, Sylhet, Barishal, and Gazipur.

Using a mixed-method approach, this study rigorously analyzed field-level data obtained from 1,200 residents across selected cities using diverse statistical techniques. The quantitative analysis included descriptive analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and chi-square tests, whereas qualitative insights were derived through thematic analysis.

The study uncovered nine predominant urban challenges under two crucial factors “Feeble Urban Management” and “Illicit Activities” that collectively explain 62.20% variance. “Feeble Urban Management” explains 44.17% variance, whereas “Illicit Activities” accounts for 18.13%. Within these challenges, uncontrolled urban sprawl, inadequate disaster management, congested roads, and shabby drainage and waste management pose significant threats to urban sustainability. Illicit activities, manifested by encroachment on water sources, grabbing roadside, destruction of natural properties, and activities undermining social security, compound the urban sustainability issue. Severity analysis reveals Sylhet (54.5%), Rajshahi (46.4%), and Barishal (31.2%) as highly impacted, whereas Gazipur exhibits moderate severity (66.7%).

The findings of this study reveal intrinsic insights into urban challenges in Bangladesh that will provide valuable guidance to city authorities, equipping them to implement integrated and effective initiatives and programs that overcome these predominant urban challenges, with a specific focus on Rajshahi, Sylhet, and Barishal city corporations.

The concept of green urban mobility has emerged as one of the best approaches for promoting environmental-friendly transportation in local communities. Green urban mobility aims to reshape public transportation system and enhance mobility, with emphasis on deploying digital technologies to promote sustainable public transportation. Therefore, this study aims to analyze existing public transportation policies by exploring how local communities can facilitate green urban mobility by developing a sociotechnical urban-based mobility model highlighting key factors that impact regions transitioning toward sustainable transportation.

This study investigates “the role of data for green urban mobility policies toward sustainable public transportation in local communities” in the form of a systematic literature review and insights from Norway. Secondary data from the literature and qualitative analysis of the national transport plan document was descriptively analyzed to provide inference.

Findings from this study provides specific measures and recommendations as actions for achieving a national green mobility practice. More important, findings from this study offers evidence from the Norwegian context to support decision-makers and stakeholders on how sustainable public transportation can be achieved in local communities. In addition, findings present data-driven initiatives being put in place to promote green urban mobility to decrease the footprint from public transportation in local municipalities.

This study provides green mobility policies as mechanisms to be used to achieve a sustainable public transportation in local communities. Practically, this study advocates for the use of data to support green urban mobility for transport providers, businesses and municipalities administration by analyzing and forecasting mobility demand and supply in terms of route, cost, time, network connection and mode choice.

This study provides factors that would promote public and nonmotorized transportation and also aid toward achieving a national green urban mobility strategy. Socially, findings from this study provides evidence on specific green urban mobility measures to be adopted by stakeholders in local communities.

This study presents a sociotechnical urban-based mobility model that is positioned between the intersection of “human behavior” and “infrastructural design” grounded on the factors that influence green urban mobility policies for local communities transiting to a sustainable public transportation. Also, this study explores key factors that may influence green urban mobility policies for local communities toward achieving a more sustainable public transportation leading to a more inclusive, equitable and accessible urban environment.

This study aims to explore the potential dynamics between performance measurement at the organisational level and emerging urban development projects at the macro-institutional field level of sustainability governance and accountability.

Using a theoretical triangulation between three theories, namely contingency theory, institutional theory and social cognitive theory, this study investigates not only the macro-micro dynamics, but also the (recursive) micro-macro dynamics between performance measurement and urban development. Using an Egyptian public sector urban development organisation and its sustainable energy project as an empirical example, interviews, documents and observations were collected.

The dynamics emerged between field urban development projects and the (unintended) organisational implementation of the performance measurement system, the sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) reporting system. Contributing to previous literature, these dynamics have been institutionalised through (three) interrelated levels: the (macro-field) urban development contingencies and pressures for sustainability KPIs reporting, the (organisational) institutionalisation of the urban development performance measurement system and then the (micro-organisational) cognitive role of sustainability KPIs reports in (re)making political urban development decisions.

This study faced some limitations that paved the way for future research axes. For political and security reasons, difficulties were encountered in conducting interviews with government actors in the sustainable energy project under study. Also, due to the practical separation of the environmental sustainability system from the sustainability KPIs reporting system in this case study, environmental sustainability is outside the scope.

Sustainability reports may influence public sector decision-making processes in a specific urban development context. These KPIs reports may also increase public sector management opportunities for urban auditing, transparency, accountability and sustainability governance. These KPIs may also guide public sector management to lower prices in poor villages to increase smart energy consumption and improve community health.

Sustainability reports may increase decision-makers' understanding of consumer behaviours and societal changes. This may help in making appropriate political decisions to improve their welfare and regular smart energy consumption. Not only urban citizens, but this social advantage may also extend to urban development employees through employees' promotion, training and access to government-funded academic and professional scholarships.

This study is an attempt to develop current public sector performance measurement analyses in the emerging urban development field using a triadic analytical approach. This study also fed the literature with an extended case study that clarified the (multi-level) and (two-way) dynamics between performance measurement and urban development.

Meat overconsumption by tourists is one of the key issues in the sustainability of tourist destinations. The objective of this paper is to assess the impact that a promotion of meatless gastronomy and its actual increased availability would have on the attractiveness and visitation of a popular European urban destination.

The research uses an innovative foresight approach that combines environmental scanning and scenarios. The authors formulated the scenarios using the Delphi technique and working with 27 scholars whose insights into the topic were enhanced through theses that resulted from the environmental scanning. They provided their insights into how a promotion of meatless gastronomy would affect a destination. Subsequently, the authors synthetized their insights and formulated the scenarios.

Based on two defined scenarios, the authors found that a meatless image represents an opportunity for the future development of an urban European destination. A long-term growth in visitor numbers can be achieved while ensuring environmental, economic and socio-cultural sustainability providing that relevant stakeholders are involved in the promotional activities.

Management of tourists' unsustainable eating habits is currently an unexplored issue. The present research addresses this topic and provides valuable insights that will help to address sustainability issues while making tourism destinations more attractive.

Public spaces, which offer opportunities for social, cultural and recreational activities, enhance urban life quality (ULQ). Thus, this study aims to investigate the impact of public spaces and physical-environmental criteria affecting the usability of ULQ in Adana city, Turkey.

The study method consists of three stages. Firstly, public spaces and physical-environmental criteria that can be effective in ULQ were determined. Secondly, the effect of the determining criteria on ULQ was evaluated through a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire (1 = very negative, 5 = very positive). The survey was conducted with 601 people in the four central districts of Adana, including Çukurova, Seyhan, Sariçam and Yüregir. Participants evaluated ULQ for both the residence district and Adana city. Lastly, factors affecting ULQ were determined using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). In addition, MANOVA was used to determine the changes in factors according to socio-demographic characteristics.

Based on the EFA, the results show that the criteria affecting the ULQ are grouped into four factors, including (1) open spaces, (2) cultural, sports and recreation, (3) environmental and (4) transportation. In evaluating these factors, while gender does not affect the perception of ULQ, residence districts show a statistically significant difference in the perception of ULQ. Cultural and transportation factors show statistical differences according to education and age.

This study has a limitation in that it relies solely on the quantitative perceptions of residents with varying demographics, such as age, gender and educational level, to evaluate public spaces and physical environment criteria. While these perspectives are valuable, they may not necessarily reflect the qualitative reality of the urban environment. Therefore, future studies combining quantitative and qualitative data could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the factors affecting ULQ in urban areas.

The implementation of the survey showed the subjective perception of ULQ in Adana city. Urban green spaces, including cultural, sports and recreational areas, should be improved in areas with insufficient facilities that affect the quality of urban life. Additionally, the impact of climate conditions on the quality of life should be taken into account when designing the city to ensure maximum utilization of public spaces. Furthermore, safe cycling transportation networks should be developed.

The novelty of this study lies in its unique approach to investigating the effects of public spaces and physical environmental criteria on ULQ based on combining residents' perceptions, literature review and data analysis. The study provides a valuable perspective often overlooked in urban planning research, especially in developing countries like Turkey. Additionally, the study's findings can inform the development of strategies to enhance ULQ.

Due to the limitations of conventional urban planning, it is essential to develop novel techniques of urban futruing. This paper aimed to use the scenario technique to create four plausible narratives of the future of Isfahan. Also, the authors described the problems of city foresight in the Global South.

This paper chronicles the Schwartzian steps taken to build explorative scenarios of Isfahan City in Iran in 2040. After using a STEEPV (Social, Technological, Environmental, Economic, Political, Value) analysis, the authors prioritized the collected variables by combining influence diagrams, the iceberg metaphor and an expert-based survey. Once the key uncertainties were derived, four scenarios were developed and discussed.

Through thematic analysis of the official visions of Isfahan’s future and the juxtaposition of these narratives with insight yielded in the scenario-development process, the paper concludes that the Northernness of the prevailing urban imaginaries, uncritical mimetic benchmarking, depoliticization of urban futures and the decorative reductionistic visions colonize urban futures in Isfahan/Iran. Critical/deconstructive city foresight and application of discomfort/ignorance criteria in the generation of scenarios can improve the rigor and quality of city foresight in the Global South.

The application of city foresight in the Global South has been limited. The paper is a step toward bridging this gap and providing some recommendations on how city foresight in the Global South might differ from its counterparts in the Global North.

This article poses the question on whether and how youth participation in environmental sustainability makes a difference within participatory budgets (PBs). This is a question worth asking because PBs have pursued, from the very beginning, goals of social sustainability through the inclusion of social groups that struggle to make their voices heard, as in the case of the youth. As young people show an increasing capacity to self-organise around environmental issues, a knowledge gap emerges as to the contribution that youth can give to environmental sustainability within PBs.

The 2021 edition of the Lisbon PB (2021PB) has been analysed through desk research – document analysis using the city council's website as the main source of information, and fieldwork – an organisation of one two-day workshop with 20 young students through a partnership between the local authority and the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon. Methods were applied to retrieve findings on youth participation in environmental sustainability in the 2021PB.

The youth show a relative increase of participation in the 2021PB and emerge as a key target group in funded proposals. Convergence with student proposals suggest shared awareness on the role of youth in the pursuit of social sustainability. The success of health-related proposals confirms ownership of (young) citizens over the concept of environmental sustainability, which further relies on the various scopes of funded proposals at both city and neighbourhood levels. In the workshop, students did not stick to specific themes and struggled to connect present criticalities and future imaginaries.

Focus on one case study necessarily limits the generalisation of findings. Nevertheless, the 2021PB illuminates pathways of research on youth participation in environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting that are worth clearing in the future, such as the role of digital participation, dynamics induced by extreme events as the COVID-19 pandemic and PBs' capacity to intercept environmental activism.

Decision-makers and practitioners can take advantage of findings to acknowledge the potential of youth participation in PBs to reframe the take of environmental sustainability.

The article provides new inputs for future developments in the operationalisation of social and environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting.

This article examines original data retrieved from the 2021PB. Data analysis is backed by the literature review of key democratic challenges in social and environmental sustainability within participatory budgeting.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the regulatory barriers to achieving sustainable buildings in Kosovo. The present paper focuses on regulatory barriers viewed from the perspective of construction industry experts in achieving sustainable buildings.

The present study uses a qualitative research method and semi-structured interviews as a research instrument. The present study interviews around 20 experts in construction and property management, property development, spatial planning and energy management.

The study finds that Kosovo building laws and regulations provide for the materials assessment criteria, but the materials assessment criteria are only for mechanic strength. The study further finds that the sustainability concept is not included and incorporated in Kosovo's urban planning laws and regulations. The study also finds that despite specific clauses mentioning energy performance certificates in the Law on Energy Performance of Buildings in Kosovo, energy performance certificates appears to be not enforced and the nature of the barrier is more organizational rather than regulatory. Finally, the study finds that Kosovo laws are silent as far as green labeling of building materials is concerned.

The implication of the present finding is that policymakers in Kosovo not only should include clear sustainable materials assessment criteria in the law, but also enforce those criteria through testing and inspection mechanisms included in the law and implemented in practice through funding and organizational support. Nonetheless, policymakers in Kosovo should contemplate amending the urban planning laws in Kosovo and include both the term of sustainability at the planning level and conformity guidelines for sustainable design that can be done at the administrative directive level. Further, the clauses in the law do not suffice if the clauses are not accompanied by specific systemic and organizational support in the issuance of energy performance certificates. Policymakers in Kosovo should be proactive in designing clauses that specify green labeling standards for materials; however, these labeling standards should not adversely affect the cost of construction and reduce the demand for real estate.

The study is the first qualitative study about the perception of construction professionals in Kosovo, regarding the regulatory barriers of sustainable buildings in Kosovo.

This study aims to present a methodological experience using geodesign as a process and instrument that facilitates citizen awareness and the use of alternative urban parameters in a discipline of an undergraduate course in architecture and urbanism, about urban planning at a local scale.

Aiming to develop solutions more suited to the reality of the area and attentive to contemporary practices of collaborative urban planning – for and with people – the methodological approach was divided into two complementary steps. The first step was elaborated through a general plan of ideas, with the aid of the Geodesign Hub platform, and for the more detailed second step, we used the Brazilian virtual GISColab geodesign platform. Both steps were conducted in workshop format.

In this experience, by incorporating geoinformation technology resources, geodesign proved to be a potential tool for creating opinions and decision-making regarding co-creative planning and experimenting with alternative urban parameters.

In the context of a current scenario of city growth oriented from the perspective of motor vehicles, the urban sprawl and in turn, the progressive loss of the human dimension in the urban space, students were introduced and encouraged to reflect on the different functions of the street and on the possibility of measuring urban quality from alternative parameters: completeness indicators.

This paper aims to determine the significance of tourist walkability on three community-based tourism sustainability indicators, namely, the economic, social and environmental benefits and costs impacting community’s quality of life through the lens of the triple bottom line approach with the institutional theory.

This study views institutions as either enabling or restricting the sustainable community-based tourism because institutions influence resource integration and value assessment by the beneficiary. Moreover, institutions also lead the co-creation of sustainable community-based tourism among various stakeholders. Drawing on this conceptualisation, the notion of sustainable community-based tourism is filtered through the lens of institutional theory. Thus, this work approaches sustainable community-based tourism as a dynamic process of co-creating a tourist destination formed by different actors’ and institutions within the ecosystem of the tourist destination. Meanwhile, the triple bottom line benefits and costs experienced by the overall community would produce net effects on the residents’ perceptions of sustainable tourism.

This paper classifies both tangible and intangible costs and benefits because of tourist walkability and its triple bottom line trade-offs experienced by tourists and residents. This paper penetrates new grounds by reviewing the triple bottom line impacts of tourist walkability on residents’ quality of life. Government policies as mediating variable and national culture and individual personalities of tourists and residents as moderating variables were discussed. A conceptual framework named Tourist Walkability Sustainable Tourism Impact on Residents (TWSTIR) is proposed. Finally, a Sustainable Community-based Tourism Strategic (SCBTS) model which is based on the two dimensions of intensity of tourist walkability and residents’ quality of life is proposed.

Research limitations may include a lack of assessment on political, technological and legal issues, and therefore, future research is warranted in these three areas. Some emotions and attitudes of the residents may not be captured since the Gross National Index (Gross National Happiness) may have its inherent blind spots.

This paper would be of interest to the scholarly world, as its original idea and concluding research agenda are burrowing into a new sub-field of tourism research. In view of growth and degrowth of sustaining community-based tourism, the SCBTS model is presented to provide directions for tourism policymakers and entrepreneurs to formulate and implement appropriate strategy for the tourist walkability activity per se and investment in the accompanying infrastructure.

This paper also presents the sacrifices and inequities in the communities and the relevance of government policies, national culture and individual personalities of tourists and residents, in which the attention of tourism policymakers and the communities that thrive on the travel and tourism industry should not be neglected.

The idea and discussion of this paper is original. This paper burrows into a new sub-field of tourism research. Tourist walkability needs more attention from the scholars, as this tourist activity can have positive and negative effects on residents’ quality of life. The TWSTIR framework is developed to discuss the relationships of tourist walkability, triple bottom line concept and residents’ quality of life within the sustainable community-based tourism scope. The SCBTS model is presented for tourism policymakers and entrepreneurs to perform appropriate strategy for the tourist walkability activity and investment in the accompanying infrastructure.