Search Results (314)

Disaster resilience has become a key focus of risk reduction efforts, but measuring it remains complex due to differences in hazards, development paths, and data systems. This study modifies the Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC) approach, based on the Disaster Resilience of Place (DROP) framework, to evaluate community resilience in Serbia and highlight regional differences. An initial list of 186 indicators was created from international BRIC studies and resilience research, then tailored to Serbian conditions through contextual review and data checks. Indicators were normalized using min–max scaling (0–1), and indicators with negative orientation were inverted to ensure that higher values indicate greater resilience. Scores for each dimension were calculated as equally weighted averages across six areas: social, economic, social capital, institutional, infrastructural, and environmental. The overall BRIC index was derived as the average of these dimension scores. Z-scores facilitated the classification of resilience levels and the comparison between regions. The results show clear regional disparities: in the complete model, Belgrade has the highest resilience (BRIC = 0.557), while Southern and Eastern Serbia have the lowest (BRIC = 0.414). Patterns across dimensions show that Belgrade excels in social and economic capacity but lags in environmental indicators; Vojvodina has the strongest institutional and infrastructural capacity; and Šumadija and Western Serbia perform best in environmental indicators. Correlation analysis revealed multicollinearity, leading to the removal of 14 redundant indicators and the refinement to a set of 57. After this reduction, regional rankings change, with Vojvodina (BRIC = 0.530) and Šumadija and Western Serbia (BRIC = 0.522) emerging as higher-resilience regions, while Southern and Eastern Serbia remain the least resilient (BRIC = 0.456). The adapted BRIC-DROP model offers a clear, locally relevant tool for mapping resilience and guiding targeted policies in Serbia, enabling region-specific efforts to address structural resilience gaps. Full article

Black Modernist architecture offers a powerful yet underexamined pathway for advancing restorative capacity in American cities. This paper argues that Black Modernism functions as a restorative design methodology, addressing social, economic, and ecological harm imposed on Black communities through slavery, racial capitalism, urban renewal, and infrastructural violence. Grounded in the restorative economics framework pioneered by O’Hara, the paper explores the role Black Modernism plays in sustaining sink capacities defined as the social, ecological, and emotional processes that absorb stress, pollution, waste, and trauma. Conventional economic models ignore these capacities, despite their necessity for economic productivity. Black communities, like all marginalized communities, have historically been forced to provide them without compensation. Situating Black Modernist architecture within this framework, the paper demonstrates how Black architects have designed buildings and landscapes that restore dignity, memory, health, and cultural identity, thereby expanding community sink capacities. Drawing on the works of various scholars, the paper examines case studies from Washington, DC, Atlanta, and Chicago, which reveal how Black communities have borne the burden of unremunerated restorative labor while shaping the American built environment. The paper positions Black Modernism as both a design language and a political–economic intervention, challenging architectural value systems that privilege monumental production over community restoration. It concludes by proposing a Restorative Design Framework that integrates Black Modernist principles with restorative economics, offering policy and planning pathways that recognize cultural labor, emotional restoration, and community well-being as essential components of sustainable urban development. Full article

As urban renewal shifts toward inventory optimization, studentification-driven socio-spatial conflicts in university-adjacent communities have intensified. This study examines Changsha Hexi University Town using structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze residential satisfaction and spatial injustice. Findings reveal that university–community interaction and indoor space perception are primary determinants of satisfaction, highlighting the demand for residential dignity under “spatial squeeze”. Conversely, public resources and social capital exhibit a “decoupling effect” caused by infrastructure “functional alienation” and social fragmentation. A profound “perceptual rift” exists between indigenous owners, facing “spatial deprivation” in resource competition, and student tenants, lacking “spatial dignity” in subdivided units. These tensions are exacerbated by “institutional gating”—where physical openness coexists with administrative restrictions. Consequently, renewal strategies must transcend aesthetics to implement systemic “spatial compensation”. We recommend opening institutional assets, regulating informal rental standards, and establishing collaborative platforms. This research facilitates a paradigm shift from “spatial squeeze” toward “university–community symbiosis”, providing a framework for socio-spatial justice in high-density academic enclaves. Full article

The governance of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) has emerged as a critical issue for sustainable local development, particularly in cities where cultural vitality is largely community-driven but institutionally under-supported. This study examines the case of Kalamata, Greece, a medium-sized city with a dense network of community-based cultural associations, in order to analyse how ICH is governed in practice and how it contributes to social capital formation and sustainability outcomes. The research is based on 49 semi-structured interviews with representatives of 25 cultural associations and public or municipal bodies and employs qualitative thematic analysis. The findings demonstrate that cultural associations function as key governance actors at the community level, generating strong bonding social capital through participation, informal education, and collective memory. At the same time, limited bridging and linking social capital constrain inter-organisational cooperation, institutional coordination, and the integration of ICH into long-term development strategies. The study identifies significant governance challenges, including fragmented policy frameworks, unstable funding mechanisms, limited professional support, and weak participatory decision-making structures. By explicitly linking empirical findings to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDGs 4.7, 11.4, 16.7, and 17, the paper highlights the importance of participatory cultural governance and co-governance models for enhancing the sustainability of local cultural ecosystems. The article contributes to policy-oriented debates on cultural sustainability by providing evidence from a Mediterranean medium-sized city and by proposing governance-relevant directions for integrating community-based ICH into sustainable local development planning. The findings offer practical guidance for local authorities and cultural organizations seeking to integrate community-based ICH into sustainable urban development strategies. Full article

Identifying real-world saturation points and grid-hosting capacity in mixed-use urban Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) requires dynamic spatial evaluation. To address this, this paper introduces a novel simulation framework that integrates GIS spatial analysis with an iterative heuristic selection algorithm. The proposed method evaluates the energetic interaction between a primary generation node and surrounding consumers, utilizing a dynamic function to calculate the collective Self-Consumption Rate (SCR). Applied to the Flaminio Stadium in Rome, the model incrementally aggregates users to determine the optimal cluster size for economic feasibility. The results demonstrate that the heuristic selection algorithm successfully refined the community from an initial pool of 854 buildings to an optimal cluster of 734. This targeted selection eliminated energy surplus and achieved a near-perfect collective SCR of 99.8%. Furthermore, by strategically reducing the required installed PV capacity by 52.6%, the initial capital investment dropped from € 89.9 million to € 42.6 million, significantly de-risking the project while maintaining a competitive payback period of approximately 13 years. Ultimately, this study presents a scalable spatial optimization tool that empowers decision makers to transform large-scale urban infrastructure into the energetic and economic engines of district wide decarbonization Full article

Young women from historically marginalized backgrounds face significant barriers to accessing the professional guidance and social capital necessary for career advancement. To address this problem, a flash mentoring digital tool was developed to expand underrepresented young women’s access to time-limited guidance from pre-screened professional women within Step Up Women’s Network, a mentorship nonprofit program. This community-based program evaluation used a user-centered design approach to develop and refine the platform. In-person workshops and informal group discussion sessions with young Step Up women aged 18 to 29 provided feedback on networking approaches and mentorship needs, which informed the platform design. A total of 285 female mentors and 363 female mentees downloaded and engaged with the platform over two years. Implementation metrics included 5008 messages exchanged with 2528 sent by mentees, 316 meetings held, and high usage of goal-setting features with 1445 goals set and check-ins with 72 percent of mentees. Evaluation findings suggested that the intervention was acceptable and feasible, fostering new, short-term supportive relationships within Step Up Women’s Network. Although additional evaluation with rigorous outcome measures is needed, this program evaluation highlights the potential of a scalable intervention for Step Up Women’s Network that extends the framework of youth-initiated mentoring interventions, which have shown considerable promise in recent years. Full article

In the digital era, even the most remote communities are increasingly connected to global networks. However, a critical question persists: how can such connectivity translate into tangible economic growth and sustainable development for isolated mountainous villages? Guided by the sustainable livelihood framework, this study investigates how digital capital—specifically the use of social media to showcase a village’s natural and cultural assets—drives tourism development and improves local livelihoods. Focusing on Dazhai Village in China, a rural community that gained substantial online attention and tourism inflow through social media promotion, this research employs qualitative methods, including 17 semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using thematic analysis and matrix coding techniques via NVivo 12 Plus. Findings reveal that the introduction of digital capital enhances village visibility, stimulates tourist interest, and initiates a development trajectory describe as “going live.” In contrast, “going alive” refers to the process of revitalizing a once abandoned, impoverished mountain village, enabling it to survive and thrive once more. However, the sustainability of this trajectory is fragile as the departure of influential digital promoters can deplete digital capital, undermining diminishing online engagement and risking renewed marginalization. To transform “going live” into “going alive,” remote communities must continuously adapt and reinforce their online presence to secure long-term stakeholders’ engagement and resilient tourism flows. An interesting finding of this study is that the village achieved regenerative tourism, whereby its environmental conditions improved as a result of tourism development. This unexpected outcome was facilitated by sustained visibility, both online and offline, which prompted residents to place greater emphasis on environmental protection. This study enriches the sustainable livelihoods framework by integrating digital capital and regenerative tourism into the understanding of livelihood assets and outcomes in remote settings. Ultimately, it underscores the transformative potential of digital capital in revitalizing “hollowed-out” villages, offering a strategic pathway for remote communities to reclaim their developmental agency and achieve sustainable rural revitalization. Full article

The overall objective of the study was to propose the application of the IRA principles and the WWP model in the Tejemujeres Cooperative, with the aim of strengthening its production and management system without compromising its social identity. To this end, a mixed descriptive and explanatory methodology was used. Surveys were conducted among the organization’s 110 members, and focus groups were conducted with internal and external stakeholders, in addition to a review of documents and bibliographic sources. This revealed structural limitations in the production system, such as a shortage of raw materials, low innovation, marketing difficulties, and limited technical training. However, the perception of economic sustainability remained positive, thanks to the social and cultural cohesion of the cooperative. Likewise, most of the members expressed openness to incorporating IRA principles and the WWP model, highlighting training, active participation in decision-making, strengthening internal governance, and creating commercial networks as priorities. In conclusion, it was determined that Tejemujeres’ main strength lies in its community identity and human capital, rather than in traditional economic indicators. The proposed theoretical frameworks were found to be relevant and adaptable to the context of the organization. Finally, a hybrid strategy is proposed that combines the participatory flexibility of the WWP model with the methodological rigor of the IRA principles, which will enable the cooperative to consolidate an innovative, sustainable, and culturally legitimate production system. Full article

Blue tourism has become a central pillar of blue economy strategies, yet the governance foundations required to support this expansion remain weakly theorised in tourism management research. This study reframes blue tourism as a governance regime shaped by institutional capacity, platform power, and social legitimacy. Drawing on a systematic review and critical interpretive synthesis of 562 peer-reviewed journal articles, the paper examines how blue tourism has been conceptualised and managed across the literature. Bibliometric and qualitative analyses reveal a persistent imbalance: while demonstrating strong engagement with environmental management and destination optimisation, the literature marginalises governance capacity, distributive outcomes, and community consent. Furthermore, there is epistemic asymmetry between regions that dominate theoretical influence and those experiencing the most acute coastal tourism pressures. The study advances a governance-centred framework that helps destination managers, DMOs, and regulators anticipate legitimacy risks and align blue tourism development with institutional capacity under intensifying climate and capital pressures. Full article

This study is grounded in the premise that local media should be understood beyond a market-oriented framework, with their social role theoretically redefined through the concept of symbolic capital. The central thesis is that the survival of local media must be regarded primarily as a matter of public interest and as a prerequisite for strengthening the democratic capacity of communities in contemporary socio-communicative contexts. Representative examples of both active and defunct local media in Serbia were analyzed to assess how, across different historical periods, they contributed to the formation and transformation of symbolic capital in local communities. The theoretical framework draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital and Jürgen Habermas’ theory of the public sphere. The analysis indicates that local media functioned as institutional carriers of legitimacy during the socialist period, as spaces of resistance during the transitional period, and as sources of moral and professional capital in the contemporary era. Nevertheless, current project-based funding models and precarious working conditions undermine their autonomy and long-term sustainability. It is therefore concluded that the disappearance of local media represents not merely an economic problem but also a profound symbolic and democratic loss, as communities lose spaces of trust, dialogue, and public representation. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed large cross-country differences in mortality that cannot be explained by short-run policy responses alone. This study investigates how pre-pandemic electrification and human capital jointly shaped pandemic outcomes, emphasizing their potential non-linear complementarity. Using cross-country data and pre-pandemic averages of electricity access and schooling, we examine how long-run development conditions influenced COVID-19 mortality during 2020–2021. We estimate fixed-effects models and a threshold regression framework that allows the interaction between electrification and human capital to vary across infrastructure regimes. The results identify a sharp electrification threshold at approximately 96 percent. Below this threshold, higher levels of schooling are not associated with lower pandemic mortality and may even coincide with increased vulnerability, consistent with binding infrastructure constraints that prevent human capital from being effectively deployed during a health crisis. Above the threshold, the interaction between electrification and schooling becomes statistically insignificant, indicating that in highly electrified economies, the benefits of human capital are already embedded within integrated systems of healthcare delivery, communication, and public health governance. These findings reveal a non-linear complementarity between infrastructure and human capital. Education alone does not enhance pandemic resilience when basic infrastructure remains incomplete, while in near-universally electrified societies its protective role is largely internalized. The results highlight the importance of long-run infrastructure completion as a structural prerequisite for translating human capital into effective pandemic preparedness and resilience. Full article

This article offers a structural reappraisal of central bank Monetary Policy Transparency (MPT) by explicitly incorporating two dimensions that have long remained peripheral in the literature: Accounting Information Transparency (AIT) and Financial Stability Transparency (FST). Building on a rigorous theoretical foundation, we develop two original transparency dimensions centered on AIT and FST, designed to extend a widely recognized monetary policy transparency index developed in the existing literature. This extension aims to capture, in an integrated manner, the institutional and macroprudential foundations that underpin the credibility, coherence, and effectiveness of modern monetary policy. The empirical analysis relies on a balanced panel of 25 countries over the period 2000–2019 and employs both Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to address potential endogeneity concerns and ensure the structural robustness of the estimations. The results provide strong evidence that both AIT and FST exert a positive, statistically significant, and economically meaningful effect on MPT. These findings substantially enrich the analytical framework of central bank transparency by demonstrating that high-quality financial reporting and transparent macroprudential communication constitute fundamental pillars of central banks’ credibility capital in an increasingly complex and globalized financial environment. Full article

Global population growth necessitates sustainable food systems, positioning Circular Bioeconomy as a key transition framework. In Oaxaca, Mexico, semi-intensive tilapia aquaculture faces economic viability issues due to a critical reliance on expensive external commercial feeds. This study proposes a “Backyard Integrated System” specifically designed for rural contexts with limited capitalization, connecting traditional entomophagy with aquaculture to reduce operational costs and close nutrient cycles. Using a mixed-method approach, we first conducted a sociocultural diagnosis (n = 140), revealing a 97.14% acceptance of insect consumption. Subsequently, to validate technical viability, a long-term (280-day) feeding trial was conducted using standardized insect meals (Tenebrio molitor and Acheta domesticus) as total substitutes (100%) for commercial feed in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) diets. Results showed a Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) of 1.61–1.62, comparable to the commercial control (p > 0.05), while significantly enhancing fillet protein content. Crucially, microbiological analysis confirmed the absence of pathogens in the final product, empirically validating the safety of the waste-to-feed cycle. Consequently, this strategy ensures food sovereignty, decouples producers from volatile external markets, and offers a scalable solution for community resilience without compromising food safety. Full article

Background: Democratic participation depends on three foundational social mechanisms: communication, interpersonal relationships, and socialization. While these mechanisms are well-understood in physical civic settings, their operation in digital environments remains unclear. For the purposes of this review, “fragility” is defined as a structural property of participatory systems, referring primarily to the conditional and variable alignment of these three mechanisms—an alignment that physical environments tend to support by default but that digital environments reproduce only under specific conditions. Methods: This study conducted a targeted high-impact review of twenty-two highly cited Scopus publications (2004–2025) to assess whether communication, interpersonal relationships, and socialization continue to function as core, but not individually sufficient, conditions for democratic engagement online. The review synthesizes findings across three research questions examining each mechanism, using narrative thematic analysis to identify dominant patterns within citation-established scholarship. Results: Across the reviewed corpus, participation strengthens when communication is informationally rich and heterogeneous, when relationships foster trust and bridging social capital, and when socialization environments support civic learning and identity formation. Weak informational content, homogeneous networks, and reduced socialization produce thinner or unstable democratic outcomes. The findings reveal that the three mechanisms operate interdependently: their democratic effects depend on simultaneous alignment rather than individual presence. Conclusions: Digital environments can support meaningful participation only when platform architecture reinforces these core social mechanisms. Strengthening informational diversity, relational openness, and digital socialization is essential for robust platform-mediated democratic engagement. Synthesizing these findings, the study proposes a Conditional Model of Digital Democratic Participation, which argues that digital fragility arises not from the medium itself but when the qualitative conditions required to validate the core social mechanisms fail to align. The Conditional Model differs from existing frameworks by treating communication, relationships, and socialization as interdependent mechanisms whose democratic effects are conditional on their simultaneous presence. Digital participation is not weak—it is conditional. Full article

Social capital influences community disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. In 2020, Kyne and Aldrich introduced the Social Capital Index (SoCI), a pioneering, publicly available county-level measure capturing bonding, bridging, and linking social capital across the United States. Since then, the SoCI has been widely adopted across disciplines and applied in diverse research contexts. Five years later, emerging theoretical developments and expanded data availability offer an opportunity to reassess its diffusion and strengthen its methodological foundations. This study addresses three objectives: (1) revisiting the conceptual roots that informed the original index, (2) examining its diffusion through citation and co-citation analyses of published literature, and (3) updating and extending its measurement framework using 2022 data. The results show that theories of bonding, bridging, and linking social capital shaped the index’s design; that the SoCI has diffused across environmental science, public administration, geography, public health, and sociology; and that expanding the index from 19 to 26 indicators enhances its theoretical alignment and empirical coverage. These updates improve the SoCI’s ability to complement existing indicators and deepen understanding of relational capacity, vulnerability, and resilience across U.S. counties. Full article