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Appreciating spatial scale is crucial for our understanding of the sociospatial context. Multiscale measures of population have been developed in the segregation and neighborhood effects literatures, which have acknowledged the role of a variety of spatial contexts for individual outcomes and intergroup contacts. Although existing studies dealing with sociospatial inequalities increasingly explore the effects of spatial scale, there has been little systematic evidence on how exposure to sociospatial contexts changes across urban space, both within and between cities. This article presents a multiscale approach to measuring potential exposure to others. Using individual-level register data for the full population of The Netherlands and an exceptionally detailed multiscalar framework of bespoke neighborhoods at 101 spatial scales, we measured the share of non-Western ethnic minorities for three Dutch cities with different urban forms. We created individual and cumulative distance profiles of ethnic exposure, mapped ethnic exposure surfaces, and applied entropy as a measure of scalar variation to compare potential exposure to others in different locations both within and between cities. The multiscale approach can be implemented for examining a variety of social processes, notably segregation and neighborhood effects.

This study explores the concept of urban heterogeneity in modern cities. Traditional planning and design methods tend to treat all areas of a city in a uniform way, applying the same urban codes throughout. However, in many cities, especially historical ones, different areas require diverse codes to maintain their heterogeneity, rather than enforcing homogeneity across the entire urban environment. In order to explore the heterogeneity in urban form, Duhok City in the Kurdistan region of Iraq is selected as a case study, which is characterized by a mix of traditional and modern architectural forms and implies the heterogeneity in urban form, although the municipal codes deal with it as a homogenous entity. Duhok presents a unique urban growth and transformation mechanism. It has its roots in a small town; over the period, the urban area gradually extended its geographic borders, integrating surrounding villages into its entity that have been transformed into parts of the city as urbanized villages. In order to reveal how the city's heterogeneous urban form resulted from old and newly developed parts and was influenced by the implicit and explicit urban codes. A mixed parametric approach is utilized, combining an objective spatial statistics analysis (Moran’s I) and visual analysis. The main contribution of the current study is providing a framework for investigating the heterogeneity in urban form. As the findings indicated, the urban form of Duhok City is characterized by being heterogeneous. Consequently, to preserve this identity while regulating growth, at least two types of codes should be applied to the development area. That will offer valuable insights for urban planners, designers, and policymakers in Duhok, providing practical strategies for managing urban growth while preserving its unique identity.

As complex man-made systems that are home to the majority of the world population, cities have always faced a wide range of risks such as earthquakes. As the backbone of urban systems, physical components, including buildings, transportation networks, communication networks, and open and green spaces, are also vulnerable to disasters. To enhance the capacity to deal with disaster risks, enhancing urban resilience has recently become an essential priority for cities. This study aims to develop and pilot test a framework to evaluate urban physical resilience based on resilience characteristics and associated physical indicators. Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) was used to determine the relationships between physical indicators, and Multi-Criteria Decision-Making methods were applied to determine the relative importance of the characteristics. The results showed that the ‘Robustness of Building’, ‘Building Density’, ‘Aspect Ratio’, and ‘Street Width’ are the most important among the twenty physical indicators considered in the proposed framework. Subsequently, the proposed framework was applied to one of the districts of Kerman, a major city located in the southwest, earthquake-prone part of Iran. Overall results indicate low levels of physical resilience. The findings of this study can provide urban planners and decision-makers with more transparent and practical insights into the physical resilience of cities. Results can also be used to design and implement policies and programs to improve the current conditions.

Vertical urbanization to maximize land use in many cities has led to a shortage of urban spaces that could adequately meet people's needs. In response, CityWalk has emerged as a new urban form to solve this problem by attracting people to go from inside closed buildings to outside walks. Thus, it is promoting health, economy, and tourism. Locally in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), especially in Dubai, a limited number of CityWalks have been developed. Despite the increasing popularity of CityWalks, there has been a gap in research examining their distinct emerging urban typologies and their urban configuration. This study seeks to address this gap by first conceptualizing CityWalk as an emerging urban public space based on the exploration of global and local experiences. Second, the study categorized the morphological configuration of three selected case studies of CityWalks in Dubai using Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. These case studies represent three different developments of CityWalks in three different contexts in the UAE. First, CityWalks within the inner city's urban context are represented by ‘City Walk’ in Al Wasel. Second, CityWalks surrounded by the sea represented by 'The Walk’ in Marsa Dubai. Third, CityWalks developed next to traditional buildings represented by ‘Al Seef’ in Al Hamriya. The findings of the research investigations reveal that the emerging ‘CityWalks’ developments in each of the three different urban contexts in Dubai do not represent a single familiar urban space typology but rather a ‘harmonious’ blend of global and local urban design typologies. In addition, the urban morphological analysis of these three urban developments underscores the distinctive characteristics of each of them in terms of street network, urban form, urban compactness, land use, and shading. This contributes to better understanding of these emerging urban forms and hence pave the way for more research about their socio-economic robustness to ultimately contribute to more successful future designs of ‘CityWalks’ in Dubai and other cities in the region.

This study investigates the influence of scattered (irregular) and grid (regular) settlement layouts on local climate and thermal comfort versus rural open areas. Research in Erzurum, Türkiye, utilized 2022 year-round on-site measurements, satellite imagery, and statistical analysis of climatic parameters and the Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) thermal comfort index. Findings reveal distinct climatic responses: scattered urban forms consistently created cooler conditions year-round, exhibiting a winter cold island effect (−1.8 °C in December) and lower summer air temperatures (−3.4 °C in July). According to land surface temperature (LST) results, the grid urban form (−12.1 °C) is 0.9 °C colder than the scattered urban form (−11.2 °C) in winter. The scattered urban form (27.9 °C) is 1.5 °C warmer than the grid urban form (26.4 °C) in summer. The grid urban form exhibits a wind velocity range from 0.2 m/s to 1.2 m/s, and the scattered urban form’s wind velocity ranges from 0.0 m/s to 0.5 m/s. On the other hand, PET analysis indicated scattered forms offered more favorable thermal comfort. Average PET for scattered forms was 16.6 °C in summer and −3.3 °C in winter, compared to grid forms’ 15.1 °C and −4.7 °C, respectively. Wind velocity was a primary determinant, with lower speeds reducing heat loss and improving comfort in cold regions. This highlights urban planning’s critical role in optimizing thermal comfort across climates.

The research results show that urban form has a significant impact on urban building energy consumption. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the relationship between urban form and urban building energy consumption. This study selects 26 cities in China across four climate zones and studies the relationship on a macro scale. In terms of urban building energy consumption, this study summarizes a set of data collation methods for calculating the total energy consumption of residential buildings and public buildings. In terms of urban form, this study constructed three types of urban form indicators (basic indicators, two-dimensional indicators, and three-dimensional indicators) and proposes a set of methods for calculating the urban built-up area, the total urban building area, the urban residential building area, and the urban public building area. This research finds that in the four climate zones, total urban building energy consumption is extremely strongly correlated with indicators such as resident population, GDP, total building area, building base area, and built-up area, and urban building energy consumption per unit area is extremely strongly correlated with indicators such as clustering, building intensity, urban building orientation, shading factor, and shape coefficient of building, but the relevant indicators are not exactly the same in each climate zone.

The new urban order in the territorialization of cities, in general, is based on the principles of an ever more fragmented and dispersed growth across the territory. However, the growth of the urban area of Maringá diverges from this new order, retaining its compact form. In this study, the urban area of Maringá is composed of the cities of Maringá, Sarandi and Paiçandu in the State of Paraná, Brazil. The objectives of this article are to define the urban form of Maringá considering the variables compact city, fragmented city and disperse city and to identify the periods of urban expansion for each variable. The timeline of this study begins with the implantation of the cities in the 1940s and continues until the year 2016, since the urban area been mapped in a decennial diachronic series. Originally compact, the urban area fragments as it expands, in a movement that continues until the 2000s. After that, the occupation of its center predominates, making it compact again. Given these points, the beginning of a new cycle or new model of urban expansion is evident for Maringá.

Evidence about the impacts of the physical activity environment on adults' weight in the context of Asian countries is scarce. Likewise, no study exists in Asia examining whether Walk Score®—a free online walkability tool—is related to obesity. This study aimed to examine associations between multiple physical activity environment measures and Walk Score® ratings with Japanese adults' body mass index (BMI). Data from 1073 adults in the Healthy Built Environment in Japan study were used. In 2011, participants reported their height and weight. Environmental attributes, including population density, intersection density, density of physical activity facilities, access to public transportation, and availability of sidewalks, were calculated using Geographic Information Systems. Walk Scores® ratings were obtained from the website. Multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to examine the association between each environmental attribute and BMI. Adjusting for covariates, all physical activity environmental attributes were negatively associated with BMI. Similarly, an increase of one standard deviation of Walk Score® was associated with a 0.29 (95% confidence interval (CI) of −0.49–−0.09) decrease in BMI. An activity-friendly built environment was associated with lower adults' BMI in Japan. Investing in healthy community design may positively impact weight status in non-Western contexts.

Sustainable development has become an immense challenge, one further complicated by rapid population growth in developing countries. Therefore, analyzing the existing compactness of urban areas is essential for guiding future urban development. Most of the previous research on urban compactness has been conducted in developed countries, whereas limited research has been conducted on urban compactness in developing countries. This study fills this research gap and contributes to the current body of knowledge by offering empirical evidence of compactness measurement based on the existing urban form using Multan city as its context. Multan is a metropolitan city in the growing phase, so measuring its compactness for the promotion of sustainable development is crucial. For this research study, various indicators are adopted from the literature, such as land cover changes, density, land use, road network, congestion index, walkability index, and shape performance index, in order to evaluate compactness. The above-mentioned indicators were analyzed using ArcMap and ERDAS IMAGINE software. This study concludes that Multan city presently lies between compactness and dispersion. To achieve full compactness, highly dense vertical development with a better public transport network should be encouraged. In addition, the prevailing building regulations should be revised to increase the floor area ratio, and incentives should be devised for developers to promote vertical infill development. Moreover, there is an emerging need to formulate and implement compact city policies. By retaining the compact character of Multan city, sustainable development will be promoted. Ultimately, this research study would be a valuable resource for urban planners, decision-makers, and relevant authorities in proposing future compactness policies for sustainable development. This research can be applied to other cities with similar demographic characteristics, population, area, geographical conditions, and structure to that of Multan.

Decentralization development and changing urban form will increase the mobility and contribute to global CO2 emissions, in particular for developing countries which are experiencing rapid economic growth and urban expansion. In this paper, an integrated analytical framework, which can quantify the impact of changing urban form on commuting CO2 emissions, is presented. This framework simultaneously considers two emission dependent factors, commuting demand and modal share based on the concept of excess commuting and accessibility analysis, and ensures its applicability to other cities where the detailed individual travel data is not available. A case study of Beijing from 2000 to 2009 is used to illustrate this framework. The findings suggest that changing urban form in Beijing did have a significant impact on commuting CO2 emission increase. Changing to a more decentralized urban form in Beijing had a larger impact on commuting distance and increased usage of cars, which resulted in a significant rise in CO2 emissions. There is a larger space and an urgent need for commuting CO2 emission reduction, in 2009 in Beijing, by planning and by strategic measures in order to promote sustainable transport.