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Existing old building stock needs retrofit of structures and performance upgrading. Retrofit is often neglected, either lacking understanding of maintenance importance or to keep living costs low. Retrofit is inevitable. Depending on a buildings geographical location, condition or expected time of use; demolition of building or increment space is worth considering. This study looks at the economics about which is the best option: renovation and energy efficient upgrading of existing building or replacement of existing building.

Research method is case study. The same case building – size, age, existing performance as well as renovation and new performance – studied at different regions. These are (1) growing city, (2) stable city and (3) shrinking city. Life cycle cost analysis bases on payback periods. The most important input data are the rent and occupancy rate on each area.

In growing cities, both renovation and replacement of existing buildings are feasible options. In other two areas, payback periods of renovations are rather long and acceptable only if building is in own use. Often retrofit is necessary because of the poor condition of the building.

This study looks at the subject only from building owners economical point of view and ties building to its location. Life cycle assessment (energy use and greenhouse gas emissions) has analysed earlier (Nippala and Heljo, 2010).

Analysis gives the most feasible option to different regions.

This study raises the debate on how realistic it is to expect the building stock to meet the EU’s energy saving and greenhouse cut targets.

This study/paper aims to evaluate the floral richness of the central part of Chattogram city, Bangladesh. Chattogram is recognized as the largest port city and the commercial capital of Bangladesh, which confronts faster urbanization and swift infrastructure development. Green spaces in and around Chattogram city are shrinking sharply, which resulted in rapid loss of floral and faunal resources in this area. The present study was carried out from February 2018 to January 2019 to enumerate the vascular plant species of the Sulakbahar ward located in the central part of Chattogram City, Bangladesh.

The study area was categorized into 10 habitats to assess the variation of floral composition. The extensive whole area survey method was applied to record the flora from all sorts of plant habitats of the research area.

The study enumerated 418 vascular plant species under 315 genera and 120 families including natural, planted and cultivated from the study area. The habit form of the recorded plant composition indicated that herbs (35%) constitute the major plant category followed by trees (34%), shrubs (17%), climbers (12%), ferns (1%) and orchids (1%). The study also indicated that exotic species (50.3%) became dominant than native species (49.7%) in Chattogram city because of their scenic beauty, easy propagation and ornamental value to the city planners and inhabitants.

It appeared that floral resources of the Chattogram city area are in great threat due to aggressive and unplanned infrastructure development for housing, offices and institutions by replacing the green spaces. The study recommended that urgent protection measures should be taken to conserve and protect the existing floral resources for the well-being of the urban people.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how rural entrepreneurship is discussed by analyzing articles in the leading journals of the two main research fields, entrepreneurship studies, and rural studies, through the concept of rural proofing.

The systematic literature review centers on the two main fields where rural entrepreneurship is studied and covers papers in nine leading journals in entrepreneurship studies and two leading journals in rural studies, between the years 1989 and 2020. In total, 97 papers were reviewed and we utilize and operationalize the rural proofing concept based on Fahmy et al.'s (2004) 3 characteristics of rural: remoteness, accessibility, and rural locale and sense of place. The authors take stock of the dimensions of rural proofing addressed within each of the research fields to find similarities and differences; that is, if articles are rural proofed (or not) when discussing rural entrepreneurship.

The classification of articles across the three dimensions of rural proofing shows that the field of rural entrepreneurship is being addressed mainly in the dimensions of remoteness and accessibility, while few authors in rural studies journals give priority to the rural locale and sense of place dimension. The results of the authors' review reveal that out of a total of 97 articles on rural entrepreneurship, 56 articles address at least one dimension of rural proofing and 41 articles do not address any dimension. Among the 41 articles not rural proofed, rurality is not problematized when discussing rural entrepreneurship. Instead, the authors focus on specific topics such as social capital, community entrepreneurship/networks, entrepreneurs'/farmers' identity, illegality in rural areas, and institutional framework. The number of non-rural-proofed articles in entrepreneurship journals is almost double that in rural studies journals. This means that authors in entrepreneurship journals do not problematize rurality to the same extent as authors in rural studies journals when addressing rural entrepreneurship.

The authors emphasize the need for increased cross-fertilization between the fields of entrepreneurship and rural studies as an avenue to develop the entrepreneurship field in the direction towards rural proofing. A close collaboration with academia and policymakers is essential to promote interdisciplinary research in order to make a distinctive contribution to rural development. Scholars in either of the two fields will benefit from our review and identification of similarities and differences in the research. The review is one step towards promoting a closer dialog between the two fields.

Previous reviews have focused mainly on what rural entrepreneurship entails (e.g. what topics are discussed) rather than how rural entrepreneurship is discussed. This paper centers on the differences and similarities of the two main fields and provides an in-depth qualitative analysis of how rural entrepreneurship is discussed by utilizing the rural proofing concept.

The purpose of this paper is to study the user experiences of the futures wheel method to investigate its suitability to advance futures thinking in the real estate field.

The user experiences of the futures wheel method are investigated through questionnaire answers of 114 master’s level students and real estate experts taking part in future wheel workshops.

The futures wheel method could enhance future-oriented thinking and decision-making in the real estate field. The respondents see futures thinking as an important skill and recognize several advantages concerning the method.

The futures wheel method bears great potential to be used in the real estate sector and it could be a fruitful addition to the curriculums at different education levels in real estate studies.

Futures thinking is essential when aiming for sustainable decisions in the real estate field which again would benefit the whole surrounding society.

This paper is the first published paper concentrating on the user experiences of the future wheel method in the real estate sector. The benefits and the disadvantages of the method are investigated but also the attitudes indicating the potential of the method to be successfully adopted in the field are analyzed.

This study aims to explore the spatial externalities of apartment vacancy rates on housing rent by considering multiple vacancy durations.

This research uses smart meter data to measure unobservable vacant houses. This study made a significant contribution by applying building-level smart meter data to housing market analysis. It examined whether vacancy duration significantly affected apartment rent and whether the relationship between apartment rent and vacancy rate differed depending on the level of housing rent.

The primary finding indicates that there is a significant negative correlation between apartment rent and vacancy duration. Considering the spatial externalities of apartment vacancy rates, the apartment vacancy rates of surrounding buildings did not show any statistical significance. Moreover, quantile regression results indicate that although the bottom 10% of apartment rent levels showed a negative correlation with all vacancy durations, the top 10% showed no statistical significance related to vacancies.

This study measures the extent of spatial externalities that can differentiate taxation based on housing vacancies.

The findings indicate that landlords have asymmetric information about their buildings compared with the surrounding buildings, and the extent to which price adjusts for long-term vacancies differs depending on the level of apartment rent.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the first major federal education policy, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and the most recent federal policy, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, through a Black critical theory (BlackCrit) lens to understand better how these educational policies have served as antiblack projects. Furthermore, this study locates examples of educational Freedom Dreams in the past and present to imagine new possibilities in Black education.

By analyzing education policy documents and history through BlackCrit methods, the authors expose how education policy is inherently an antiblack project. Freedom Dreams catalyze possibilities for future education.

The data confirms that while these policies purport equity and accountability in education, they, in practice, exacerbate antiblackness through inequitably mandated standardized testing, distributed funding and policed schooling.

This paper applies BlackCrit analysis of education policy to reimagine Black educational possibilities.

The purpose of this study is to develop new type of reverse mortgage contract. How to provide adequate services and housing for an increasing number of people that are dependent on the help of others is a crucial question in the European Union (EU). The housing stock in Europe is not fit to support a shift from institutional care to the home-based independent living. Some 90% of houses in the UK and 70%–80% in Germany are not adequately built, as they contain accessibility barriers for people with emerging functional impairments. The available reverse mortgage contracts do not allow for relocation to their own adapted facilities. How to finance the adaptation from housing equity is discussed.

The authors have extended the existing loan reverse mortgage model. Actuarial methods based on the equivalence of the actuarial present values and the multiple decrement approach are used to evaluate premiums for flexible longevity and lifetime long-term care (LTC) insurance for financing adequate facilities.

The adequate, age-friendly housing provision that is appropriate to support the independence and autonomy of seniors with declining functional capacities can lower the cost of health care and improve the well-being of older adults. For financing the development of this kind of facilities for seniors, the authors developed the reverse mortgage scheme with embedded longevity and LTC insurance as a possible financial instrument for better LTC services and housing with care in assisted-living facilities. This kind of facilities should be available for the rapid growth of older cohorts.

The numerical example is based on rather crude numbers, because of lack of data, as the developed reverse mortgage product with LTC insurance is a novelty. Intensity of care and probabilities of care in certain category of care will change after the introduction of this product.

The model results indicate that it is possible to successfully tie an insurance product to the insured and not to the object.

The introduction of this insurance option will allow many older adult with low pension benefits and a substantial home equity to safely opt for a reverse mortgage and benefit from better social care.

While currently available reverse mortgage contracts lapse when the homeowner moves to assisted-living facilities in any EU Member State, in the paper a new method is developed where multiple adjustments of housing to the functional capacities with relocation is possible, under the same insurance and reverse mortgage contract. The case of Slovenia is presented as a numerical example. These insurance products, as a novelty, are portable, so the homeowner can move in own specialised housing unit in assisted-living facilities and keep the existing reverse mortgage contract with no additional costs, which is not possible in the current insurance products. With some small modifications, the method is useful for any EU Member State.

Deepor Beel is one of the Ramsar Site and a wetland of great biodiversity, situated in the south-western part of Guwahati, Assam. With urban development at its forefront city of Guwahati, Deepor Beel is under constant threat. The study aims to calculate the lake water volume from the water surface area and the underwater terrain data using a triangulated irregular network (TIN) volume model.

The lake water surface boundaries for each year were combined with field-observed water level data to generate a description of the underwater terrain. Time series LANDSAT images of 2001, 2011 and 2019 were used to extract the modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI) in GIS domain.

The MNDWI was 0.462 in 2001 which reduced to 0.240 in 2019. This shows that the lake water storage capacity shrank in the last 2 decades. This leads to a major problem, i.e. the storage capacity of the lake has been declining gradually from 20.95 million m³ in 2001 to 16.73 million m³ in 2011 and further declined to 15.35 million m³ in 2019. The fast decline in lake water volume is a serious concern in the age of rapid urbanization of big cities like Guwahati.

None of the studies have been done previously to analyze the decline in the volume of Deepor Beel lake. Therefore, this study will provide useful insights in the water resource management and the conservation of Deepor Beel lake.

The world is experiencing democratic backsliding such that the situation is down back to 1986. This has resulted in the global shrinking of civic space for civil society organizations (CSOs). NGOs engaging in advocacy activities are seen to be among the CSOs affected. Using four NGOs cases from Tanzania, the study contributes to the civic space debate by uncovering how advocacy NGOs become resilient.

The study is anchored in interpretivism and a cross-sectional case study design, following a qualitative approach path. Data were collected through interviews and a documentary review.

Results show that several strategies such as complying, building community back-up, collaboration, strategic litigation, using digital media and changing the scope are applied. However, strategies face obstacles including scope limitations, expected democratic roles, high cost, changes in the scope and being outsmarted by the government, and hence their effectiveness is questionable.

This study focused on advocacy NGOs. More studies can be conducted for other advocacy-related CSOs on how they become resilient.

While NGOs are allowed to exist in the country, their freedom continue to be curtailed. Even the effectiveness of resiliency becomes temporary and depends on the political will of the existing regime.

Tanzania NGOs have to build strong bonds with citizens, expand the scope of strategies and use deliberative democratic principles to educate the government to change laws and tolerate plural political culture. Also, NGOs in other countries with confined civic space can apply the same.

This paper aims to consider the relationship between urban events and urban public space, asking whether cities have enough space for events and whether events have enough space in cities.

Policy analysis surrounding events and festivals in the Netherlands is used to understand the dynamics of urban events, supported by content analysis of policy documents. A vignette of event space struggles in Amsterdam illustrates the contradictions of the event/space relationship.

The research identifies a policy shift in the Netherlands towards urban events from expansive, festivalisation strategies to defensive, NIMBYist policies. It exposes contradictions between protecting space as a living resource and the exploitation of space for regenerative purposes. Three future scenarios for urban events are outlined: conflict and competition, growth and harmony and digitalisation and virtualisation.

Develops scenarios for the future relationship between events and urban space.

Provides an analysis of the recursive spatial implications of the growth of the events sector for cities and the growth of cities for events.