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As a distinctive type of historic urban area shaped by complex topography, historic urban areas in mountainous cities have undergone multiple rounds of urban regeneration and social–spatial restructuring amid the continuous influx of capital and the development of the industrial economy. Under these multifaceted influences, the spatial form of historic urban areas in mountainous cities has undergone a series of transformations. To reveal the characteristics and underlying mechanisms of spatial evolution in historic urban areas in mountainous cities, this study has established a research framework tailored to such areas. Selecting the Yuzhong Peninsula Historic District in Chongqing—a typical example of historic urban areas in mountainous cities in China—as the study area, the research employs land transfer matrices, spatial design network analysis (sDNA), spatial overlay and statistical methods to analyse its spatial evolution characteristics across three dimensions: land-use evolution, road network evolution and building renewal. Seven key indicators were selected for historic urban areas in mountainous cities, and the GeoDetector was utilised to investigate the driving forces and interactions among these factors. The results indicate that in the Yuzhong Peninsula Historic District, residential and special-purpose land use has decreased whilst commercial land use has increased; the road network has been continuously improved, leading to increased choice and accessibility; and the proportion of small-scale buildings has decreased whilst that of large-scale buildings has increased. The primary factors influencing spatial evolution are elevation, social and location factors, with the combined interaction of these factors exerting a greater influence than any single factor alone, indicating that topography acts as a significant persistent spatial constraint guiding the spatial evolution of historic urban areas in mountainous cities. Finally, based on the above findings, recommendations are put forward for the sustainable conservation and utilisation of historic urban areas in mountainous cities, covering land-use management, traffic guidance and the typological control of urban architectural fabric. Full article

With the advancement of healthy city development and community renewal practices, the influence of perceived community environmental quality on residents’ psychological well-being has attracted increasing attention. Previous research has shown that the built environment is closely related to residents’ well-being; however, most studies have focused on objective spatial elements or facility provision and have paid insufficient attention to the mechanisms through which subjective environmental perceptions operate in the process by which the environment affects psychological well-being. From the perspective of Homo Urbanicus theory, this study takes 36 communities in Yangpu District, Shanghai, as cases and uses data from 882 valid questionnaires. Structural equation modeling is employed to examine the relationships among perceived community environmental quality, perceived environmental restorativeness, and residents’ psychological well-being, and to further explore age-related patterns among young-old, middle-old, and oldest-old groups. The results show that perceived community environmental quality has a significant positive effect on residents’ psychological well-being and produces a significant indirect effect through perceived environmental restorativeness. Exploratory age-stratified analyses further suggested different pathway patterns among the young-old, middle-old, and oldest-old groups. On this basis, the study further proposes a four-quadrant model of spatial contact opportunities and a five-category accessibility classification and accordingly develops community environment optimization strategies for older adults of different ages. The findings provide a theoretical basis and practical reference for healthy-community development and age-friendly community renewal. Full article

This study focuses on the Northern New District of Liaoyuan City, Jilin Province, and develops an indicator-based relative spatial assessment framework for geological environmental carrying capacity. Fourteen indicators were selected from the geological, ecological, and socio-economic dimensions to characterize spatial differences in regional geological environmental conditions. The weights of the indicators were determined by integrating subjective and objective methods, where the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and the CRITIC method were applied respectively, and the final composite weights were obtained through a game theory-based combination weighting approach. Based on the weighted results, ArcGIS was used to perform spatial analysis, and the geological environmental carrying capacity was classified into four levels: excellent, good, moderate, and poor. The results indicate significant spatial heterogeneity in geological environmental carrying capacity. Moderate-capacity areas dominate the study area, with poor-capacity areas mainly distributed in the central and southeastern regions. The proposed framework provides spatial information for identifying areas with different geological environmental conditions and supports differentiated environmental management and planning in mining areas. Full article

As cities accelerate climate adaptation and decarbonisation, municipally owned companies (MOCs) play an important role in delivering sustainable urban infrastructure, accessing transition finance, and supporting Positive Energy Districts (PEDs). However, the expansion of sustainability reporting requirements under the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) raises questions about the preparedness of public infrastructure providers to meet evolving sustainability-information demands. This study examines ESG reporting readiness among Polish MOCs, focusing on current reporting activity, reporting intentions, regulatory awareness, indirect ESG information pressures, sustainable-finance and investment plans, and potential transition-risk exposure. The analysis is based on a Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing survey of 226 municipal enterprises conducted in August 2025. The results indicate substantial reporting gaps. Only 8% of surveyed MOCs had already prepared or planned to prepare a non-financial report. When companies planning EU Taxonomy reporting only were also included, 14% of the sample had some form of current or planned reporting, while the remaining 86% had neither current nor planned non-financial or EU Taxonomy reporting. Reporting readiness was lower among smaller companies, while indirect ESG information pressures arising from business relationships, stakeholder requests, and financing plans were also evident across the surveyed sample. The findings suggest that limited reporting preparedness, when combined with external sustainability-information demands, may contribute to potential transition-risk exposure relevant to municipal investment and financing processes. More broadly, ESG reporting readiness represents an organisational capability relevant to sustainable finance, municipal climate investment, and the development of PEDs and smart cities. Full article

Taxi fleets operate intensively, accumulate high annual mileage, and contribute disproportionately to urban greenhouse gas emissions, making them attractive candidates for transport electrification. Despite growing interest in electric mobility, integrated evaluations of the environmental, energy, and economic implications of taxi fleet electrification remain limited, particularly for medium-sized cities in Türkiye. This research examines the replacement of the commercial taxi fleet operating in the central districts of Denizli with battery electric vehicles (BEVs) through a framework that integrates operational emission estimation, electricity demand, charging infrastructure, and life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA). Operational emissions were quantified using the IPCC Tier 1 fuel-based approach together with a distance-based consistency check. Under the adopted assumptions, electrification reduced annual operational CO₂ emissions by 4217.48 tCO₂ (57.9%). The electrified fleet required 18.36 MWh of electricity per day (6.70 GWh annually), while estimated peak charging demand varied between 1.22 MW and 5.57 MW, depending on the charging strategy. Economic evaluation showed a positive net present value (NPV) of 1.32 million TL per vehicle, an internal rate of return (IRR) of 80.86%, and a discounted payback period (DPP) of 1.37 years. Although profitability varied with energy prices, vehicle costs, and annual mileage, fleet electrification remained economically feasible across all scenarios considered. These results suggest that electrifying commercial taxi fleets can support urban decarbonization while remaining financially attractive when accompanied by appropriate charging infrastructure and coordinated transport planning. Full article

Rapid urban expansion in arid intermediate cities often produces fragmented urban structures that exacerbate inequalities in public transport accessibility and hinder sustainable mobility. However, the relationships between urban fragmentation, transport accessibility, and travel behavior remain insufficiently explored in pre-Saharan cities. This study investigates these interactions through the case of El Bayadh, Algeria, using an integrated methodology combining urban morphological analysis, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), a household survey of 577 households, traffic counts, institutional interviews, and spatial equality assessment based on the Gini coefficient. Public transport accessibility was evaluated using a 300 m walking threshold, complemented by sensitivity analyses at 400 m and 500 m. The results indicate that approximately 65% of the population lives within 300 m of a bus stop, although coverage is strongly concentrated in central districts. A Gini coefficient of 0.41, provided by the El Bayadh Directorate of Transport and computed across 20 urban zones, indicates moderate-to-high spatial inequalities in accessibility that persist despite increasing the service threshold, suggesting that these disparities are more closely associated with urban fragmentation than with the specific walking-distance threshold used to define service coverage. The transport network comprises 11 bus routes, approximately 160 bus stops, and 90 km of routes; however, limited service quality and uneven spatial distribution contribute to a high dependence on private transport, with 45% of trips made by private car, 35% by taxi, and only 20% by bus. These findings are consistent with accessibility inequalities arising from the mismatch between fragmented urban morphology, centralized urban functions, and the configuration of the public transport network. The proposed framework provides transferable insights for planning more equitable and sustainable mobility systems in rapidly urbanizing arid intermediate cities. Full article

Background/Objectives: South Korea faces one of the world’s most rapid demographic transitions. As population ageing accelerates, creating environments that support healthy ageing-in-place has become a critical public health priority. Grounded in environmental gerontology and the WHO Age-Friendly Cities framework, Ko and colleagues developed the Age-Friendly City Index to assess physical, social, and service environments influencing older adults’ health and well-being; however, the index had only undergone face validity testing. This study empirically evaluated and refined the Index at the district level and examined regional disparities in age-friendliness across South Korean municipalities. Methods: Data from 89 randomly selected municipal (si-gun-gu) districts across 7 metropolitan and 8 provincial cities were drawn from 2020 national public administrative sources. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using Mplus 7.0. The retained indicators were standardized and aggregated into dimension and total scores. Exploratory comparisons between metropolitan and non-metropolitan municipalities were conducted using Welch’s t-tests. Results: The refined Index retained ten indicators across the three dimensions, including four for the physical environment, three for the social environment, and three for the service environment. The physical environment showed the strongest empirical coherence, whereas the social and service environments were weakly defined. Non-metropolitan municipalities had higher observed scores across all three dimensions and in the total score. Effect sizes ranged from moderate to large, with the largest difference observed in the physical environment. Conclusions: The refined Index offers a preliminary diagnostic framework for benchmarking age-friendliness, with the physical environment score providing the most dependable basis for comparison. Findings reveal pronounced regional disparities in per-older-resident environmental provision and underscore the need for region-specific public health and urban planning strategies to foster inclusive, supportive, and health-promoting communities for older adults. Full article

Walking plays an important role in improving public health and creating more livable cities. Participatory planning incorporates the local knowledge and preferences of residents, community organizations, and other stakeholders into the identification of walking routes. However, whether these routes are actually used after implementation remains insufficiently understood. Using Fukuoka, Japan, where community walking maps and routes have been developed through local participation for over two decades, this study combines these participatory walking routes with crowdsourced walking data, built environment indicators, and spatial analysis to substantiate their actual use and inform route improvement. The results show that these routes generally have higher walking usage than the citywide average, although substantial spatial differences remain. Hotspot routes were concentrated around waterfront areas, commercial districts, and public transport hubs, whereas coldspot routes were more common in suburban, mountainous, and island areas. Route usage was positively associated with street visibility, land-use diversity, population density, and public transport accessibility. Significant spatial dependence and heterogeneity further indicate that these associations vary across urban contexts. These findings highlight the value of local knowledge in identifying walking routes and the value of crowdsourced walking data in evaluating their actual use. Communities can build on this approach by involving local people in identifying walking routes and then using crowdsourced behavioral data to evaluate and refine them, supporting better walking environments. Full article

This study presents a comprehensive spatial analysis of the public transport network across the Almaty agglomeration, encompassing 211 routes within eight urban districts and seven adjacent administrative divisions. Drawing on digitized geodata from 3634 unique bus stops, the research methodology integrates quantitative and qualitative spatial metrics, including distribution density, average stop spacing, elevation gradients, and topological connectivity. The analysis highlights significant territorial imbalances: while 70.53% of all unique stops are concentrated within Almaty’s city limits, the surrounding regional network is highly fragmented, with an average stop spacing of 2579.53 m. Furthermore, topographic assessments confirm substantial operational challenges for north–south routing due to steep elevation changes, reaching 984.48 m within the city and 1243.23 m regionally. A critical evaluation of topological connectivity reveals that 44.63% of suburban bus stops lack transfer intersections, underscoring severe deficits in peripheral public transport provision. By assessing 56 distinct connection types, the study categorizes administrative districts based on their route integration levels. Ultimately, the derived spatial parameters offer a robust evaluation of the current transport framework. These insights establish a crucial scientific and empirical foundation for optimizing route geometries, bridging infrastructural gaps, and guiding sustainable transit planning in alignment with Almaty’s transition toward a polycentric urban model. Furthermore, the developed 3D spatial-topological framework provides a scalable, data-driven blueprint for municipal authorities to prioritize infrastructure investments, deploy multimodal hubs and enhance transit equity in other rapidly growing and topographically complex agglomerations worldwide. Full article

Disamenity and amenity facilities pull property values in opposite directions, yet prior studies have treated disamenities as a homogeneous category and have been constrained by data scattered across agencies and by mismatched spatial scales. This study integrates multi-source spatial data, comprising 3426 sub-districts (eup-myeon-dong) nationwide, a 500 m population grid of 376,668 cells, and the actual point locations of individual facilities, into a single spatial framework and applies a multi-method design that combines a spatial Durbin model (SDM), explainable machine learning (XGBoost–SHAP), an environmental-justice analysis, and a micro-siting analysis. Four findings emerge. First, not all disamenities are associated with lower prices: only pollution-emitting facilities with a clear emission signature, namely, sewage treatment plants and incinerators, capitalize robustly as cross-sectional associations, into both housing prices and officially assessed land values, with the effect extending into neighboring sub-districts rather than staying purely local. The other disamenities show no robust total effect on either price; their estimates are small or unstable across specifications. Second, capitalization of pollution-emitting facilities is pronounced in the urban sample and disappears in the rural one, and the coefficient structure differs overall between urban and rural areas (global Chow test, p < 10⁻²¹). Third, micro-siting analysis shows that where a facility is placed (siting) and what it leaves behind in prices (capitalization) are distinct layers, and that capitalization tracks the population a facility keeps nearby rather than its nuisance type: pollution-emitting facilities retain enough nearby housing for their burden to register, whereas funerary facilities sited far from people do not. Fourth, the environmental inequity of pollution exposure runs along income rather than age and concentrates in cities rather than in rural areas: the exposure rate among residents of low-income urban sub-districts (49%) is 2.5 times that of the urban population as a whole (19%), while the greater Seoul metropolitan area remains comparatively insulated. These layered findings were possible only once the dispersed spatial data had been integrated and standardized, and the study demonstrates that fusing and efficiently managing spatial data is a precondition for evidence-based land-use and environmental policy. Full article

Rapid urbanization has increasingly posed risks of inducing land subsidence in newly developed urban districts, posing growing threats to infrastructure safety. This study focuses on a selected rectangular area within the Shannan New District of Huainan City. Based on 94 Sentinel-1A images acquired from 2023 to 2025, the SBAS-InSAR technique was employed to obtain high-density spatiotemporal surface deformation data. The discrete monitoring points were mapped onto a 100 × 100 regular grid according to their spatial coordinates, with null-value cells retained. A spatial attention mechanism was then embedded into the Convolutional Long Short-Term Memory (ConvLSTM) network to construct a Spatial Attention–ConvLSTM (SA-ConvLSTM) model for spatiotemporal prediction, which was systematically compared with LSTM, CNN-LSTM (Convolutional Neural Network combined with Long Short-Term Memory), and standard ConvLSTM. The results demonstrate that SA-ConvLSTM achieves optimal prediction performance on the temporal hold-out test set, with a root mean square error of 2.09 mm and a coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.77. For subsidence hotspot identification, the intersection over union (IoU) reaches 0.56, and the F1-score reaches 0.72—substantially improving from 0.25 for standard ConvLSTM, confirming that the spatial attention mechanism effectively enhances the model’s capability to focus on key deformation areas. Rolling predictions of the deformation field for 2026 (12 time steps, each covering one Sentinel-1A acquisition interval of approximately 12 days) yield an estimated deformation trend ranging from −16.58 to 0.28 mm over the 12-step forecast period (approximately 144 days). This integrated framework provides a methodological reference for subsidence risk identification and mitigation in the Shannan New District. Full article

Data-driven urban governance increasingly seeks to incorporate the needs of different population groups, yet child-sensitive evidence for public street-space renewal remains limited in older urban districts. Most studies still evaluate environmental conditions through population averages, with insufficient attention to heterogeneous child groups that may require differentiated planning responses. Based on an analytic sample of 314 children retained from 343 usable questionnaire responses collected from children aged 6–12 in the older urban districts of Xi’an, China, this study integrates street-activity characteristics and age- and sex-standardized body mass index (zBMI) using an established person-centered analytical approach. Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was used to identify children’s activity–health profiles, and multinomial logistic regression was used to examine associations between individual, family, and perceived street-environment factors and profile membership. Three profiles were identified: high-activity–healthy, high-intensity active, and low-activity–high-risk. The model-estimated low-activity–high-risk profile represented 35.7% of the analytic sample, and children assigned to this profile reported the lowest perceived safety and convenience. The findings suggest that profile-based analysis may inform child-sensitive street-renewal prioritization. Perceived safety and convenience showed the strongest and most consistent associations with membership in either the high-activity–healthy or high-intensity active profile relative to the low-activity–high-risk profile. These findings are associative and do not establish the effects of street interventions. The study therefore represents a context-specific extension and planning application of established analytical methods. Full article

Historic urban manufacturing territories are increasingly being reconsidered as strategic components of metropolitan sustainability rather than obsolete remnants of industrial economies slated for redevelopment. While these districts have long been associated with pollution, environmental degradation, and post-industrial decline, growing interest in circular economy strategies, Urban Resource Recovery (URR), and climate adaptation has renewed attention to their territorial significance. Using the North Brooklyn Industrial Business Zone and the Newtown Creek watershed as a case study, this paper argues that certain historic manufacturing territories possess an inherent capacity to evolve into Metropolitan Metabolic Infrastructure because of inherited geographic, infrastructural, and institutional characteristics, including waterfront access, freight networks, industrial zoning, large industrial parcels, and utility systems. Drawing upon research developed through the New York City Department of Design and Construction’s Town+Gown Urban Resource Recovery Working Group, the study combines historical analysis, spatial interpretation, planning policy, and case-study research to examine the evolving relationship among urban metabolism, circular economy, environmental justice, and Healthy Cities. Rather than advocating industrial preservation irrespective of environmental performance, the paper argues that these territories can support metropolitan material circulation while advancing cleaner industrial practices, environmental remediation, and more equitable urban development. The Metropolitan Metabolic Infrastructure framework offers a planning perspective for understanding how inherited manufacturing landscapes may contribute to resilient, circular, and healthier metropolitan regions while informing future comparative research on industrial territories undergoing similar transitions worldwide. Full article

On 18 May 2026, a M5.2 double earthquake struck the Taiyangzhen area of Liunan District, Liuzhou City, Guangxi, China, triggering shallow surface collapses in this karst terrain. We conducted three UAV orthophoto surveys of the meizoseismal area on 20 May, 23 May, and 24 May, and interpreted 17 collapse monitoring units from the imagery. The total collapse area increased from 75.3 m² on 20 May to 499.1 m² on 23 May, and further to 553.9 m² on 24 May. On 20 May, only 7 of 17 units exhibited collapses; by 23 May, all 17 units were affected. Among them, 7 pre-existing collapse patches expanded, and 10 new collapses emerged between 20 and 23 May. Depth measurements revealed measurable depths of 0.18–7.60 m for 7 collapses, and all 6 units with bi-temporal depth data showed continued deepening from 23 to 24 May. Ponding water was observed in up to 10 units, consistent with the 98.7 mm of rainfall recorded during 18–24 May. Multi-temporal UAV surveys reveal that post-seismic surface collapse development in karst terrain extends well beyond the mainshock, with both rapid expansion of pre-existing failures and delayed emergence of new collapses driven by the coupled effects of seismic weakening and hydrologic forcing. Full article

This paper studies the automatic berthing control of an unmanned surface vessel under cyber attacks. An adaptive neural-network-based fault-tolerant control method is developed. Unknown vessel dynamics, external disturbances, measurement noise, and cyber attacks are considered at the same time. First, the signal scaling, bias, and power-type distortion caused by cyber attacks are described by a unified nonlinear measurement model. The model has a known structure and unknown parameters. It converts different attack effects into structured uncertainties. Based on the corrupted position and attitude measurements, the tracking errors are defined. The vessel heading is reconstructed by integrating the unaffected yaw-rate signal. A Nussbaum-type function is introduced to handle the unknown gain in the measurement channel. A first-order filter is used to generate a smooth approximation of the virtual control signal. A neural network is then employed to approximate the unknown vessel dynamics. Adaptive laws are designed to estimate the composite uncertainties and external disturbances. Lyapunov analysis shows that all closed-loop signals remain bounded. The berthing tracking errors ultimately converge to a compact set around the origin. Finally, a berthing simulation with time-varying cyber attacks, measurement noise, and marine disturbances is conducted to evaluate the proposed method. Full article