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“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

Uncontrolled and unsustainable urban development has a significant impact on the overall quality of the environment. Contemporary spatial management does not take into account the non-economic conditions of ecosystem functions and their biophysical limits, which results in a deterioration of the environment. Furthermore, urban development continues all over the world, which is associated with a projected population increase, particularly in cities. Therefore, there is need to include analyses in the field of environmental carrying capacity (ECC) for more sustainable spatial management and development. The ECC concept is a tool for sustainable development of human settlements. It could be defined as threshold level of anthropopressure, which the environment is able to balance and withstand without serious degradation and irreversible changes. The use of ECC assessment will help ensure the needs of the city’s residents, which are conditioned by the environment. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This review study presents an overview of the ECC concept and its potential for use in spatial management at local level, especially for cities. The content analysis introduces definitions of spatial management and others main actions of spatial economy as well as the definitions of ECC. The overview of existing ECC models is a part of presented review.

The paper shows the ECC approach from global to local level on Poland as an example country.

The literature review identified that the idea of ECC could be a useful concept and tool for sustainable spatial development and management. This concept allows for verification of the resources and environmental state of given territory unit. Therefore, the assessment of ECC allows to verify if development of given area, for instance country, region or even city, is conducted within the framework of sustainable principles. Despite this, the assessment of ECC is not taken into account when future spatial management is defined. Thus, this circumstance could be a reason for this research area development.

This study delves into 17th-century colonial port cities – Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta – examining the impact of British imperialism on urban sustainability and heritage conservation. It explores historical development, spatial organization, and connectivity.

This study intricately explores the interplay among urban sustainability, morphology, and heritage conservation using space syntax analysis. It focuses on examining White and Black Town dispersion during British imperialism.

The investigation reveals varying degrees of dispersion of White and Black Towns, with Calcutta exhibiting the most consistent distribution among the three cities. These findings underscore the profound influence of British imperialism on the spatial organization of colonial port cities, offering valuable insights into their historical evolution and layout.

While this study provides valuable insights, it is limited by its focus on the colonial period and the specific cities of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. The findings may not be directly generalizable to other contexts or time periods. Additionally, the study’s reliance on historical data sources may present data accuracy and completeness challenges.

This study contributes to understanding colonial port cities, guiding sustainable urban development, heritage preservation, and equitable resource access for global sustainability. By focusing on the historical impact of British imperialism, the research provides original insights into the spatial dynamics of these cities, contributing to the broader discourse on urban sustainability and heritage conservation.

European spatial governance underwent substantial changes over the past two decades with the expansion of European territorial cooperation programmes, the introduction of new instruments for cooperation and an increasing role of financial and regulatory framework in sector policies. Against this background the paper develops the argument that today’s European spatial governance has become more diversified and fragmented, leading to an increasing role for sector policies, and that the cumulative effect of these diverse activities on domestic planning processes are under researched.

This paper summarises the legal recognition of spatial planning and categorises European spatial governance as being composed of spatial policies, financial instruments and governance frameworks. This paper then presents three explorative case studies: the Common Transport policy as one European Union (EU) sector policy, a cross-border cooperation supported by the European Regional Development Fund and macro-regional cooperation.

This paper concludes that the increasing regulatory impact of European spatial governance on domestic spatial planning goes far beyond the pure Europeanisation of narratives and agendas or “ways of doing things”. Furthermore, this paper illustrates that European spatial governance is characterised by a process of sectoralisation, supported by the EU’s regional policy and the provision of governance tools. The paper calls for further investigation of the interrelatedness of these processes and their reciprocal influences on planning practices.

The value lies in recognising the incremental changes that have come alongside European integration, and highlighting the importance of these processes for domestic planning processes. This paper highlights the hidden process of sectoralisation that leads to an increase in planning competences at the European level.

This work aims at developing guidelines and methods for establishing urban hazard information infrastructure (UHII) for the City of Windhoek (CoW) in Namibia, to set up an institutional and technical framework for spatial data exchange and sharing in development control and hazard management. An analysis of UHII requirements in the Twente Fire Brigades (The Netherlands) was first conducted and the Spatial Information Management Reference Model (RSIMM) was created. RSIMM was used as a reference to the Case‐Specific Spatial Information Management Model (CSIMM) for the CoW, where young institutions face financial, structural, legal and technical uncertainties. The new methodology to introduce UHII to the CoW was developed using combined soft and structured system development methods. The policies and strategies supporting UHII development were identified. The Urban Hazard and Emergency Management Information System (UHEMIS) development was chosen to initiate UHII introduction creating data and metadata management base for decision making in spatial development control, risk assessment and emergency response planning. The UHII and UHEMIS models are being designed next in this on‐going research.

This paper deals with the spatial impact of cooperative entrepreneurship on territorial human development in Morocco. Within the background of the new development model in Morocco, this study aims to explore how the social and solidarity economy (SSE) through the cooperative model can reduce territorial inequalities by promoting economic dynamics in territories with suboptimal human development.

The empirical material is compiled from a database of 75 provinces in Morocco. After establishing a typology of the SSE in these territories, a test of the spatial effect of some indicators, such as the rate of urbanization and female employment, was undertaken. Moreover, a spatial impact study of the cooperatives' entrepreneurship and the local human development index will be carried out among the cooperatives' numbers and the share of their members.

This study's results indicate a diversity in the participation of the SSE in the regulation of territories. First, there is a heterogeneous relationship in the Moroccan space. Then, the cooperative model in Morocco shows that it plays a central role in readjusting social and spatial inequalities, pointing territories with suboptimal human development.

Although our theoretical contribution covers the impact of the three components of the SSE on territorial human development in Morocco. The empirical work of this study is limited to only one component of the SSE which are the cooperatives. The future perspectives of this work are to follow the impact of the three components after the implementation of the new development model in Morocco.

The main implication of this study is to map out the spatial role of cooperatives in territorial planning in Morocco. Policy makers still need to consolidate the implication of the cooperatives as a tool for promoting spatial equity, through the governance and the convergence between the different support and accompaniment programs for cooperatives in areas of human development deprivation.

The originality of this work comes from the exploration of the spatial dimension for the analysis of the role of the cooperatives for the promotion of a territorial human development. The SSE typologies described in the Moroccan provinces can allow actors to develop a business plan for the implementation of SSE initiatives.

This paper aims to firstly depict the theoretical links between place branding and strategic spatial planning to provide further theoretical and conceptual foundations. Secondly, it aims to explore the roots of place branding theory and practice in Portugal, as well as how place branding has been approached (or not) in spatial development plans, strategic initiatives and policy documents by stating the territorial, spatial-economic and sectoral development trajectories for the country and its northern region.

A content analysis of 20 spatial development plans, strategies and policy documents (of 30 identified), published by Portuguese authorities, the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, mainly for the period between 2014 and 2020, has been used.

Empirical evidence shows that tourism-oriented promotion initiatives, investment-oriented marketing campaigns and communication strategies uniquely supported by visual elements and aesthetic values (e.g. logos and slogans) deserve more attention from authorities in charge of spatial planning and policy-making. Place branding is an absent term. Moreover, there is inconsistency between current research and practice on place branding and how it has been incorporated in strategic spatial planning at EU, national and regional levels.

Whilst some of the research findings are place-specific (Portugal and its northern region), this exploratory paper aims to present a better understanding of the way in which places and branding can be conceptually addressed, primarily by assigning a spatial dimension to the idea of branding places and its alignment with strategic spatial planning and spatial plan-making.

This paper critically explores the actual or potential roles of place branding as an instrument for the attainment of strategic spatial planning goals through its integration in plan and policy-making. By guiding the attention of academics, practitioners and policymakers towards a strategic spatially oriented approach to place branding, the paper brings an alternative view to the scholarly and professional debate on place branding.

This paper aims to explain the impact of spatial planning regulations in the development of hotels in Bali, particularly as regards environmental damage. It then analyzes the factors that cause spatial planning to fail to prevent environmental damage.

This paper is based on both fieldwork and library research, and a broadly socio-legal approach is adopted, involving a combination of doctrinal research and empirical legal method.

This paper finds that interrelated legal, political and economic factors contribute to this failure, including conflicting regulations on the review and amendment of spatial plans, the pursuance of economic enrichment and an unsustainable approach to economic development. Although some or even all of these factors may have seemed obvious from the start, because they are common causes of regulatory failure, this paper demonstrates empirically that they are exacerbated and made more challenging because of the interrelationship between legal, political and economic factors.

Given the existence of intertwined legal, political and economic factors behind the regulatory failure of spatial planning, more studies need to be undertaken to restore spatial planning objectives as a means of preventing tourism projects in Bali from damaging the environment.

The author proposes a reform to make spatial planning regulations more effective, particularly in preventing environmental damage by tourism projects.

This study aims to explore the spatial distribution characteristics and spactial reciprocity between industrial parks (IPs) and vocational education parks (VEPs): agglomeration density, functional matching, spatial organization efficiency, as well as space intensive utility. To achieve this objective, IPs and VEPs in urban centers of Jiangsu Province are selected as the objects of the study. First, spatial analysis of thermodynamic diagrams is employed in this study to qualitatively analyze the evolutionary characteristics of the spatial distribution of IPs and VEPs to explore the spatial aggregation characteristics of their clustering, integration, and comprehensive crossover. Second, a horizontal comparison of the data and indexes concerned reveals that areas with high agglomeration and functional matching exhibit a sound spatial reciprocity. Third, this study crystallizes the four structural prototpye paradigms formed during the reciprocity evolution between IPs and VEPs; it compares spatial organization efficiency, with the agglomeration–core structure ranking first, followed by the circle–core structure. Finally, SPSS is used to analyze the space intensive utility in order to verify the conclusions of qualitative analysis. The findings can comprehensively explain the regularities of the spatial distribution and reciprocity between IPs and VEPs. The findngs can also elucidate the design of regional industrial development and educational programs.

Due to the close connection between urban cluster and carbon emissions (CEs) but a lack of study on it of the construction industry, this paper aims to explore the relationship between the polycentric spatial structure (PSS) of the urban clusters and CEs of the construction industry (CECI).

This research uses panel data of 10 Chinese urban clusters from 2006–2021, calculates their PSSs in the aspects of economy and employment and adopts a panel regression model to explore the effect of the spatiotemporal characteristics of the PSSs on the CECI.

First, the CECI in 10 Chinese urban clusters showed a rising trend in general, and the CECI in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) was much higher than those in the rest of urban clusters. Second, both Shandong Peninsula (SP) and Guangdong-Fujian-Zhejiang (GFZ) exhibited high degrees of polycentric characteristics, while Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) showed weaker degrees. Third, the results demonstrated that the polycentric development of urban clusters did not help reduce the CECI but rather promote the CE. The polycentric index, considering the linear distance from the main center to sub center, had a more significant impact on the CECI.

Previous studies have investigated the impact of urban spatial structure (USS) on CEs; however, few of them have studied in the field of construction industry. Moreover, most research of CEs have concentrated at the national and provincial levels, with fewer studies on urban clusters. This paper contributes to this knowledge by investigating how the PSS of urban cluster influence the CECI.