Urban Built Environments: Form, Planning and Use

Dear Colleagues,

The physical forms of our towns and cities represent an important issue, shaping how we think about places and how we experience them. The patterns of streets, plots, buildings and open spaces are shaped by history, topography, economics and the values and aspirations of generations of decision-makers and users. Many academic disciplines and professions are involved in shaping urban form, including planners, architects, urban designers, landscape architects and others. Much research has been conducted on past and present forms, with much thought given to future forms.

This Special Issue is less concerned with the study of the urban form itself (often termed ‘urban morphology’) and instead focuses on the implications of those forms. As the urban proportion of the expanding world population also grows—forecast to reach nearly 70% by 2050—understanding and managing these implications becomes ever more important. More urban people means more issues of resource availability, from food and energy to water, and more waste disposal issues. Rising expectations of living standards mean changing numbers, types and densities of housing, provision of open spaces, services, and so on. Increasing consumption brings concerns of pollution, and the desire to travel brings issues of communication and infrastructure.

Tied to these concerns, the climate crisis—however caused—brings issues of how settlements respond to changing climates, including extremes of weather, temperature, flood or drought, which are increasing in frequency and severity. Other disasters are likely to have a greater effect on settlements as they become larger and more densely populated.

This Special Issue therefore welcomes papers covering this breadth of concerns. The relationship of these phenomena to the physical form and structure of built environments is central. How can physical forms affect the impact of catastrophes? Can different forms mitigate the impacts of future events? Can physical forms change the nature, or users’ perceptions, of phenomena such as increasing temperature, atmospheric pollution, noise, wind and so on? How do residents and other users perceive and value different urban places and their varied forms? Information on these concerns and related topics will help us to plan, manage and use the settlements of the future, whether through locating and designing new settlements and expanding existing ones or managing and modifying the numerous long-established, often historically valuable, settlements we use today.

Prof. Dr. Peter Larkham
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Urban Science is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• urban form
• urban planning
• urban built environment
• climate crisis
• urban sustainability
• future settlements