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This paper analyses changes in the activity pattern of Damascus city from late modern era (late Ottoman rule) to the contemporary era. The research objective is to explore the impact of the socio-historical process on the evolving morphological structure of the urban core and to draw implications for post-war reconstruction.

Space Syntax methodology was employed to trace the historical and morphological changes in the urban core of Damascus. The timeframe was divided into five periods covering the city's socio-political transformation and five maps depicting these periods. Local and global integration measures were used to analyse the changes in the urban core across each period. Normalised angular choice (NACH) measure was used to identify the changes in the city planning system.

The results revealed that the urban core corresponded to the main streets, which had socio-economic importance across history. However, introducing a new planning system influenced by Western planning ideals led to the creation of multi-morphological patterns. At the city level, the study found that the urban core was more accessible in the preplanned areas, while the organic expansion of the informal settlements was exclusive of the core area. At the local level, some informal settlements showed an intense core. Intelligibility analysis revealed that earlier periods showed considerably higher values, implying declines in the ease of navigation of the city over time.

This study did not account for the political, economic and cultural factors that could shape morphological changes in Damascus. In addition, the study adopted historical reference points to understand the morphological changes, as high-quality geospatial data was not available to monitor the recent post-war situation.

The research findings give a foundation for a more contextualised historical understanding of spatial structure and changes, which can contribute to the post-war reconstruction and redevelopment of Damascus city.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to trace historical spatial changes in Damascus from a space syntax approach, weaving together socio-historical and configurational studies. In doing so, it shows how historically informed and spatially aware urban planning and design policies can support policymakers and built environment professionals in planning and redevelopment.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the horizontal expansion of Burayu Town between 1990 and 2020. The study typically acts as a baseline for integrated spatial planning in small- and medium-sized towns, which will help to plan sustainable utilization of land.

Landsat5-TM, Landsat7 ETM+, Landsat5 TM and Landsat8 OLI were used in the study, along with other auxiliary data. The LULC map classifications were generated using the Random Forest Package from the Comprehensive R Archive Network. Post-classification, spatial metrics, and per capita land consumption rate were used to understand the manner and rate of expansion of Burayu Town. Focus group discussions and key informant interviews were also used to validate land use classes through triangulation.

The study found that the built-up area was the most dynamic LULC category (85.1%) as it increased by over 4,000 ha between 1990 and 2020. Furthermore, population increase did not result in density increase as per capita land consumption increased from 0.024 to 0.040 during the same period.

As a result of financial limitations, there were no high-resolution satellite images available, making it challenging to pinpoint the truth as it is on the ground. Including senior citizens in the study region allowed this study to overcome these restrictions and detect every type of land use and cover.

Data on urban growth are useful for planning land uses, estimating growth rates and advising the government on how best to use land. This can be achieved by monitoring and reviewing development plans using satellite imaging data and GIS tools.

The use of Random Forest for image classification and the employment of local knowledge to validate the accuracy of land cover classification is a novel approach to properly customize remote sensing applications.

Despite the enormous need to succeed in the urban model, scientists and policymakers should work consistently to create blueprints to regulate urbanization. The absence of coordination between the crucial requirements and the regional strategies of the local authorities leads to a lack of conformance in urban development. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

This study intends to manage future urban growth patterns using integrated methods and then employ the results in the genetic algorithm (GA) model to considerably improve growth behavior. Multi-temporal land-use datasets have been derived from remotely sensed images for the years 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020. Urban growth patterns and processes were then analyzed with land-use-and-land-cover dynamics. Results were examined for simulation and utilization of the GA.

Model parameters were derived and evaluated, and a preliminary assessment of the effective coefficient in the formation of urbanization is analyzed, showing the city's urbanization pattern has followed along with the transportation infrastructure and outward growth, and the scattering rates are high, with an increase of 5.64% in building area associated with a decrease in agricultural lands and rangelands.

The research achieved a considerable improvement over the growth behavior. The conducted research design was the first of its type in that field to be executed to any specific growth pattern parameters in terms of regulating and policymaking. The method has integrated various artificial intelligence models to monitor, measure and optimize the projected growth by applying this design. Other research on the area was limited to projecting the future of Amman as it is an urbanized distressed city.

Smart urban governance research has progressed over the past few decades following changes and increasingly complicated city management difficulties. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to use a scoping review and bibliometric analysis to examine all the publications on smart urban governance, especially in Asia.

A total of 1,900 smart urban governance articles indexed in the Scopus database was analyzed through scoping review and bibliometric analysis. The articles were analyzed by the number of publications per year, contributing countries, subject areas, authors, cited documents, related issues and cited papers. Furthermore, VOSviewer was used to provide a visual analysis of the co-occurrence of keywords.

This study indicated that urban smart governance publications continue to increase yearly. Even though the area of analysis is Asia, the USA and China seriously contributed to the analysis. Therefore, the topic of smart urban governance has become a discussion for scholars in the international. From the Scopus database analysis, the top three subject areas are social sciences (28%), environmental science (20%) and medicine (16%). The synthesis using bibliometric analysis by VOSviewer obtained 13 clusters.

This study only focuses on the Scopus database and one specific topic, using one bibliometric analysis tool. Meanwhile, national and international index databases are not used.

This paper examined publication trends on smart urban governance. This paper provided a comprehensive analysis of topic-specific knowledge areas based on previous studies. Additionally, this paper suggested the direction of the development of smart urban governance in the future.

This paper is intended to assess the developments conducted on the master plan of Old Najaf, mainly in three areas: the Imam Ali Holy Shrine and its surroundings, the Great Market Area and the location of the Town of Visitors.

In order to analyse the implementation of the transformation phases in Old Najaf, the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) technique was used to identify and organise the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats related to the examined case study of the city's historic centre. At the first stage, all available data (photographs, maps, documents and reports) were collected from different sources, including previous studies by governmental institutions, departments and agencies. Ultimately, the SWOT analysis was used for each identified phase in the morphological evolution of the historic centre. This can offer an opportunity to observe the implications of urban planning practices in Old Najaf from the mid-20th century to the present day. In order to identify the well-organised urban design practices and appropriate strategies, the implemented studies and projects were examined by the four factors of the SWOT analysis.

The current results have revealed important urban transformations, already made and/or ongoing, of those aforementioned three main areas, which imply a great loss of the city's traditional character and urban heritage. Further, the environmental and socio-economic issues should be involved in the analysis to evaluate how they have influenced the current outcomes of Old Najaf in relation to the urban configuration and orientation.

The rich cultural and architectural heritage of Al-Najaf historic centre is dramatically neglected and seriously threatened to be lost. Hence, conservation on both tangible and intangible levels is urgently needed. It is the first paper which focussed on this problem and tries to learn from the British Conservation Experiences in this field.

Studies examining public insecurity and tourism tend to develop their research from the tourist's perspective, thereby focusing on its consequences, which insufficiently and poorly contribute to the development process. With that in mind, the purpose of this study is to discuss the root causes of public insecurity and the urban development process surrounding tourism dynamics in Brazil's northeast region.

The complexity method was used to collect both documentary and normative data to understand the reality beyond the data on accommodations and vertical real estate developments over time. These data were organized in ArcGIS (version 10.5) and are discussed within the context of urban development, public insecurity and tourism theories.

The results of this study demonstrate that the relationship between tourism and public insecurity is rooted in discussions surrounding the urban development process, remodeled by the physical and symbolic dimensions surrounding the production of space. Nevertheless, the symbolism of tourism is not a constant when it comes to socio-spatial changes but rather acts as a physical and secondary dynamic throughout the entire reconfiguration process.

The findings of this study indicate that this study can be used for the elaboration of security policies in tourist destinations in Latin America that present high levels of violence, considering the discourses at implementing urban legislation.

The purpose of the study is to analyze changes in land use, specifically residential area expansion, in South Tangerang City and identify the factors that influence land use change.

The study used remote sensing methods in ArcGIS 10.8 for data analysis and processing, including spatial analysis and identification of land use changes. The study analyzed satellite images from 2010 and 2020 to identify changes in land use in South Tangerang City over the ten-year period.

The study found that the most significant land use changes in South Tangerang City between 2010 and 2020 were the reduction of mixed plantation area and the expansion of residential areas. The study identified the development of small townships by private developers as the main factor that influenced land use change in South Tangerang City.

The study has several limitations, including a focus on only one aspect of land use change (i.e. residential area expansion), limited scope of the study area (South Tangerang City) and a reliance on remote sensing methods for data analysis.

The findings of the study can be used by policymakers and city planners to develop sustainable land use planning strategies that balance the need for urban development with environmental and social concerns. By understanding the factors that drive land use changes in South Tangerang City, policymakers can develop policies that encourage sustainable urban growth and development while preserving natural resources and protecting the environment.

The study has social implications as the expansion of residential areas in South Tangerang City indicates a growing demand for housing in the area. The study highlights the importance of developing affordable and sustainable housing solutions to meet the needs of the growing population in South Tangerang City. Additionally, the study emphasizes the importance of understanding the social and economic factors that drive land use change and their implications for the well-being of local communities.

The residential area development in South Tangerang City is driven by private developers who make small independent cities that have all facilities in one area. These small cities attract people to reside and also drive high population growth in South Tangerang City, considering it is a buffer city of Jakarta that has good infrastructure development.

The multidimensional complexity of urban settlements is increasing and the problem of spaces and territories brought to the scale of smart cities is a critical global issue. This study aims to analyse the scientific production in the Web of Science (WoS) on the relationship between smart cities and the eight urban dimensions defined by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the period 1990 to 2021, in order to establish which countries lead the knowledge related to the search for sustainable living conditions for people and how this knowledge contributes to improving stakeholders' decision-making.

The methodological steps followed in the study were: (1) Identification and selection of keywords. (2) Design and application of an algorithm to identify these selected keywords in titles, abstracts and keywords using WoS terms to contrast them. (3) Data processing was performed from Journal Citation Report (JCR) journals during the year 2022.

This study identified the authors, institutions and countries that publish the most globally on the topic of Smart Cities. The acceleration in the integration of new technologies and their impact on population conglomerates and their relationship with urban dimensions were also analysed. The evidence found indicates that the USA and China are leading in this field.

This bibliometric study was designed to analyse a knowledge space not addressed in the scientific literature referred to the relationship between the concept of smart cities and the urban dimensions established by the WEF, the identification of new technologies that are converging to promote developments of new ways of managing urban dimensions and propose new knowledge spaces.

Global climate change speeds up ice melting and increases flooding incidents. China launched a sponge city policy as a holistic nature-based solution combined with urban planning and development to address flooding due to climate change. Using Weibo analytics, this paper aims to study public perceptions of sponge city.

This study collected 53,586 sponge city contents from Sina Weibo via Python. Various artificial intelligence tools, such as CX Data Science of Simply Sentiment, KH Coder and Tableau, were applied in the study.

76.8% of public opinion on sponge city were positive, confirming its positive contribution to flooding management and city branding. 17 out of 31 pilot sponge cities recorded the largest number of sponge cities related posts. Other cities with more Weibo posts suffered from rainwater and flooding hazards, such as Xi'an and Zhengzhou.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the public perception of sponge city in Sina Weibo.

Achieving tenure security is a global challenge impacting cities of the global south. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the role of technology-enabled solutions as an enabler for the tenure rights of slum dwellers.

In this paper, we adopted a case study approach to analyze the use cases for technologies aiding India’s securitization of land tenure. The flagship state mission of Odisha, named the Jaga Mission, and that of Punjab, named BASERA – the Chief Minister’s Slum Development Program – were used as cases for this paper.

It was found that technologies like drone imagery and digital surveys fast-tracked the data collection and helped in mapping the slums with accuracy, mitigating human errors arising during measurement – a necessary condition for ensuring de jure tenure security. The adoption of a technology-based solution, along with a suitable policy and legal framework, has helped in the distribution of secure land titles to the slum dwellers in these states.

Odisha’s and Punjab’s journey in using technology to enable tenure security for its urban poor residents can serve as a model for the cities of the global south, dealing with the challenges of providing secure tenure and property rights.