Search Results (257)

Digital platforms are reshaping urban consumption spaces and altering the trajectory of commercial gentrification. However, research on how physical and virtual factors jointly shape commercial gentrification at the city scale remains limited. Taking the main urban area of Nanjing as a case, this study integrates platform and spatial data and applies machine learning methods to identify patterns of commercial gentrification and examine the roles of physical and virtual factors across different spatial types. The results show that: (1) typical commercial gentrification spaces in Nanjing exhibit a clear core-oriented pattern, concentrated in the traditional urban center and a limited number of emerging districts; (2) virtual factors become significantly more important as commercial gentrification intensifies, with online interaction intensity emerging as the most influential factor overall, while sentiment evaluation, influencer presence and proximity to platform hotspots play stronger roles in specific spatial types; and (3) physical and virtual factors have differentiated effects, combining in different ways to produce four distinct spatial patterns of commercial gentrification. This study reveals the differentiated roles of virtual and physical factors in shaping commercial gentrification at the city scale and enriches current understanding of urban commercial restructuring in the platform era. Full article

Urban green spaces play a critical role in mitigating heat stress and enhancing urban livability, in line with the objectives and expectations of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). This study employs Physarealm (Grasshopper), a lightweight agent-based simulation (ABS) model, to dynamically simulate pedestrian behaviors for different mobility groups. Together with Space Syntax, the results—time-extended movement and interaction patterns—are conceptualized as a relational configuration of green space provision (supply), pedestrian activity intensity (demand), and thermal exposure (environmental resistance). Three contrasting urban areas in northern Italy (Lambrate, Bolognina, and Ispra) are selected as case studies. The results demonstrate that urban inequality cannot be sufficiently explained by the inadequacy of single components, but emerges from imbalanced relational configurations of supply, demand, and environmental resistance. In May, 100% and 95% of traversed cells in Lambrate and Bolognina fall within the high-heat-stress range (>32 °C), compared with 59% in Ispra. Correspondingly, average green provision within the 5 min walking range is 5.4% in Lambrate, 7.2% in Bolognina, and 37% in Ispra. By uncovering relational mismatch patterns that are often overlooked in conventional urban analyses, this study enables a multi-dimensional diagnosis of imbalances. By positioning ABS as a front-end process generator and Space Syntax as a structural interpretation step, it demonstrates how dynamic behavioral processes can be reorganized into network-scale diagnostic representations. The study supports a climate-sensitive and human-centered diagnosis of walkability and green space accessibility, while contributing a transferable analytical approach for identifying relational inequality patterns within open urban data science contexts. Full article

This study deciphers the impacts of urban forests and green spaces (UFGSs) on housing prices through a systematic review of 180 peer-reviewed articles (440 empirical cases) to delineate how various UFGS attributes drive housing price changes, focusing on the direction, intensity, and contextual dependency of these impacts. We identified specific UFGS attributes (e.g., proximity, size, type, quality, accessibility, landscape patterns) and the methodologies assessing their price impacts, primarily hedonic pricing models. Our findings confirm a consistent, albeit highly variable, positive premium from urban forests and related green infrastructure on housing prices. Key drivers include not only proximity and size, but also crucial qualitative attributes like perceived UFGS quality (e.g., tree canopy coverage, wooded park maintenance), which often show stronger or more consistent effects than simple quantitative measures. The analysis also highlights that negative impacts can arise from poorly managed urban forests or certain disamenity-prone green typologies. Significant spatio-temporal heterogeneity is evident, with price effects varying by urban context (e.g., density, development stage) and over time. Socio-economic factors, particularly manifesting as “green gentrification”, which can exacerbate inequalities by disproportionately benefiting higher-income groups, critically moderate these relationships. Furthermore, prevalent non-linear effects (e.g., distance-decay patterns, threshold effects for UFGS size) and complex interactions between different UFGS attributes underscore the nuanced nature of the UFGS–price nexus. This review provides a structured understanding of urban forest and green space capitalization drivers, emphasizing the need for nuanced, evidence-based urban forestry planning and green space management that considers UFGS quality, diversity, and equitable distribution for sustainable urban development. Full article

This systematic literature review comparatively examines two largely parallel research streams: the 15-minute city (15MC) and neighbourhood satisfaction (NS), identifying their overlaps, divergences, and unresolved tensions. It combines a bibliometric analysis of two thematic corpora with an in-depth full-text synthesis of empirical studies, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) reporting practices. The bibliometric results show a rapidly expanding 15MC field since 2020, centered on proximity, accessibility, and sustainability, while NS research has a longer tradition focused on subjective well-being and perceived neighbourhood experiences, including environmental comfort, social cohesion, safety, and neighbourhood quality. Across the literature, the synthesis shows that spatial proximity and measured accessibility are important but insufficient to explain NS without also considering service quality, environmental comfort, perceived safety, and social relations. The review highlights persistent gaps in linking objective accessibility metrics with subjective outcomes, as well as mismatches in neighbourhood definitions and spatial scales. It also identifies limited evidence on temporal dynamics, population heterogeneity, and the social effects of proximity planning, including gentrification and displacement. Building on five conceptual bridges, the review proposes an integrated framework connecting objective proximity-based planning conditions with subjective, social, and contextual determinants of neighbourhood satisfaction. Full article

This research addresses the latent disconnect between citizens and World Heritage sites, analysing how intensive tourism and declarations focused on monuments (1980s–1990s) have created a distance that makes managing these heritage sites very difficult. The main objective is to propose and validate participatory methodologies that restore social bonds and strengthen urban governance. The identified knowledge gap lies in the lack of operational tools that allow the theory of participation to be put into actual practice, overcoming the current methodological void in assessing social and economic impacts. Under the methodology of the WHATS-UP project, an action-research approach is employed that combines ethnographic work, mapping of key actors, and participatory workshops with shared walking tours in the Alhambra and the Alcázar. This data is integrated into Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) to map social perceptions of values and risks. The results show that, although tourism has led to alienation and gentrification, the participatory process succeeds in rescuing “invisible values”, such as memories and traditional trades, that are absent from official narratives. In conclusion, the study proposes a consensus-based co-management model between institutions and the community, transforming heritage into a resource for urban cohesion and resilience. This integration of methodologies, which combines collective mapping with safeguarding plans, enables progress toward protection strategies that are more effective and better reflect contemporary social realities. Full article

Gentrification refers to a transformation in the composition of land users whereby in-coming users possess a higher socio-economic status than those they replace, accompanied by reinvestment in the built environment and the physical transformation of urban space. Displacement is an essential part of this process. Gentrification has become one of the central analytical concepts in urban studies. Gentrification has become one of the central analytical concepts in urban studies enabling the analysis of socio-spatial restructuring processes in cities and has been applied to a broad range of geographical settings and historical conditions. Originally coined in the context of post-war London, the concept has since traveled widely and has been applied to a broad range of geographical settings and historical conditions. This entry provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the concept, its principal theoretical interpretations, and its empirical applications. It reviews the major strands of explanation—demand-side, supply-side, and institutionalist approaches—and situates them within broader debates in urban theory. Particular attention is devoted to the relationship between gentrification and displacement, including both classical conceptualizations and recent efforts to capture its more diffuse and subjective dimensions. The entry concludes by arguing that while gentrification remains a key concept for analyzing urban change, it must be continuously reworked in light of emerging dynamics such as financialization, digitalization, and trans-local housing practices. It calls for more systematic and genuinely comparative research in order to better understand the evolving geographies of gentrification. Full article

Urban forestry research increasingly promotes proximity-based benchmarks, such as the 3–30–300 rule, to expand tree canopy, enhance access to nature, and support healthier and more climate-resilient cities. However, a growing body of evidence links green proximity to rising property values and residential displacement, raising concerns regarding green gentrification. These tensions suggest that proximity-based greening cannot be understood solely as an environmental or accessibility intervention; rather, its social outcomes are mediated by the broader housing system. This Perspective argues that the 3–30–300 rule operates as a value-generating urban forestry intervention whose distributive effects are conditioned by housing governance, tenure structures, and the presence of affordability protections. We advance a governance-conditional framework that reconceptualises the rule as a housing-conditioned greening strategy, illustrating how environmental improvements may translate into escalating housing costs and displacement pressures in contexts where housing regulation is weak or fragmented. The analysis highlights the institutional mechanisms through which environmental value is captured, retained, or redistributed across scales, without positing a deterministic relationship between greening and displacement. Aligning urban forestry initiatives with affordability measures and tenant protections is therefore essential if proximity-based greening is to contribute not only to greener and healthier cities, but also to more equitable ones. Full article

Urban heat risk is intensifying globally, yet the relative contributions of climate warming and demographic restructuring to spatiotemporal risk change remain poorly understood, particularly in post-socialist cities experiencing simultaneous thermal intensification and population aging. This study develops a Heat Risk Population Index (HRPI) integrating satellite-derived land surface temperature, CERRA reanalysis air temperature, and census-based demographic sensitivity for 218 Zagreb neighborhood councils (2001–2024). A multi-scale analytical framework combining additive decomposition, enhanced partial correlations, and geographically weighted regression (GWR) was applied to disentangle the drivers of heat risk change. HRPI increased significantly across all neighborhood councils (mean ΔHRPI = 0.197, p < 0.001), with strong positive spatial autocorrelation (Moran’s I = 0.416). While air temperature change dominated the city-wide mean increase (72.1%), demographic sensitivity change explained the largest share of spatial variance across neighborhood councils (partial r = 0.677 vs. 0.524 for air temperature), driven by spatially heterogeneous demographic transitions—youth out-migration, aging-in-place in southeastern post-socialist estates, and gentrification in central districts. GWR substantially outperformed global OLS (ΔAICc = 60.1; Adj. R²: 0.649 → 0.816), with local demographic effect sizes varying fivefold across the city. These results demonstrate that heat risk drivers operate at distinct spatial scales: climate dominates city-wide magnitude while demographics determine spatial differentiation. Effective adaptation requires universal thermal interventions combined with spatially targeted demographic strategies in identified hotspot neighborhoods. The multi-scale framework is applicable to other post-socialist cities undergoing concurrent climate and demographic change. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed interest in proximity tourism as a driver for culturally sustainable local development. Against this backdrop, this study examines the Province of Latina, Italy, evaluating the potential of proximity tourism flows originating from the Metropolitan City of Rome to reduce the socioeconomic and infrastructural disparities that affect the provincial territory. Using a multi-stage quantitative framework, the research identifies key determinants of municipal attractiveness and assesses the structural relationships between tourism activities, economic development, and demographic trends. Results reveal a clear spatial polarization: while coastal municipalities successfully leverage natural and cultural assets for development, they increasingly face challenges related to overtourism and gentrification. Conversely, marginalized hilly and mountainous peripheries remain underdeveloped despite their high heritage value. Empirical evidence suggests that while proximity tourism does not directly drive demographic growth, it acts indirectly as a catalyst by stimulating economic development. The study concludes that proximity tourism can foster territorial cohesion and socioeconomic resilience only when coupled within integrated strategies that improve accessibility, valorize peripheral assets, and keep the added value of tourism embedded within host communities. These findings offer actionable insights for policymakers aiming to transition toward more inclusive and culturally sustainable tourism models in the post-pandemic era. Full article

Urban tourism is frequently promoted as a driver of regeneration, competitiveness, and local economic growth. However, its expansion increasingly generates overtourism, environmental degradation, social inequality, gentrification pressures, and cultural commodification in densely populated cities. Although existing tourism research has examined these challenges from managerial, planning, and sustainability perspectives, less attention has been paid to their ethical foundations. This conceptual paper addresses that gap by developing an integrated ethical framework for sustainable urban tourism through a structured, theory-driven synthesis of literature in environmental ethics, social justice theory, virtue ethics, and urban tourism studies. The paper makes three main contributions: it reframes urban tourism growth as a moral and normative issue rather than merely an economic one; it organizes the key ethical dilemmas of urban tourism as interconnected outcomes of growth-oriented development; and it links ethical principles to stakeholder responsibilities and desired governance outcomes. The proposed framework positions tourists, businesses, and policymakers as moral agents and identifies ecological integrity, social equity, and cultural protection as core criteria for evaluating tourism development. As a conceptual study, however, the framework remains theoretical and requires future empirical application and testing across different urban contexts. Full article

After major disruptive events, particularly natural and human-made disasters, community leaders face the challenge of rebuilding societal infrastructure and managing the allocation of funds, which can affect the duration of recovery periods. Decision-makers must quickly determine how to allocate financial resources while minimizing population distress. Conventional methods of assessing damage and evaluating relief requirements fall short of meeting the urgent recovery needs after a disaster, potentially leading to negative effects on communities, such as involuntary relocation and neighborhood gentrification. The study evaluates current methods and technologies to propose a new approach that leverages low-cost consumer drones and modern image analysis techniques to support initial damage assessments and track recovery progress, thereby promoting the dynamic allocation of limited resources. Using low-cost drone imagery enables rapid, cost-effective data collection and dynamic analysis through iterative reviews during the disaster response and recovery phases that can adjust baseline disaster funding allocations. The study investigates the potential of temporary blue tarp roofs (“blue roofs”) as a metric for recovery progress during the 2020 tornado in Middle Tennessee and conducts an R-squared and error analysis. The goal of this research is to evaluate an affordable and efficient data analysis method (e.g., modern image analysis; artificial intelligence; low-cost drones) that can improve post-disaster resource allocation and inform decision-making for governmental and planning officials. Full article

Sóller, a highly touristic town in Mallorca, has been affected by gentrification problems related to the tourism industry. Recently, another gentrification process has appeared, affecting the retail fabric and leading to the disappearance of traditional locally owned shops and their substitution with tourist-focused stores. Using data from different sources, such as the City Hall documentary data, the Commerce Association archives and Google Street View images, this research highlights the gentrification process affecting two of the main commercial areas of the town. The results confirm that a commercial gentrification process, already identified in large cities such as Barcelona or Venice, can also affect medium-sized towns, creating a retail mutation that impacts local residents and their shopping capabilities. Full article

Neoliberal privatization models, emphasizing economic advancement over universal fairness, present considerable challenges to the urban regeneration process in post-conflict environments. The Solidere project in Beirut shows how architectural development in the Central District establishes social obstacles through its transformation of 1.8 million m² of war-destroyed territory. This research applies UNESCO’s Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) framework to distinguish regeneration from gentrification systematically and to assess the impact of privatized governance. By employing rigorous case study methodologies to assess master plans, legal statutes, corporate reports, and academic publications, four evaluation criteria for the HUL: historical layering, social participation, spatial connectivity, and physical integrity, were developed. The results show that while Solidere’s physical reconstruction was successful; it did not incorporate HUL principles fully. This resulted in the forced relocation of between 40,000 and 60,000 individuals, the commercialization of heritage through façadism, with 24% of the original buildings being preserved and 76% being destroyed. Sarajevo serves as a point of comparison, revealing the vulnerabilities of profit-driven approaches. The study shows that market-driven reconstruction efforts lacking public engagement will foster exclusionary gentrification, resulting in the erosion of urban identity and ownership, challenging neoliberal urban theories. Full article

This article analyses the Museo de los Desplazados (Museum of the Displaced), a collaborative platform conceived by the Left Hand Rotation collective to foster shared reflection on gentrification processes. This project takes the form of a collective and decentralised digital archive, functioning as an open, ‘in-process’ collaborative tool. Within the context of the proliferation of self-organised digital archives, this study explores how the Museum acts as a dynamic social object that articulates dispersed narratives. Drawing on Derrida’s concept of the ‘anarchive’, the research validates the hypothesis that there is a direct relationship between the profiles of autonomous collectives and their specific epistemic practices. The findings reveal that activists utilise the archive as a tool for legal defence, ‘heat-of-the-moment’ ethnography, and networking, thereby resisting ‘archival violence’ and constructing collective counter-memory. Ultimately, the Museum demonstrates that memory is not a guarded site, but a living network built through horizontal and rhizomatic collaboration. Full article

Urban regeneration is increasingly expected to integrate environmental resilience, social equity, and cultural heritage alongside economic objectives. This narrative review examines how nature-based solutions (NbS) can be embedded within regeneration strategies through ecological landscape planning and design. A structured search of peer-reviewed literature and policy reports identified 34 academic studies and 13 reports that were coded and synthesised into three thematic areas: (i) NbS typologies and applications, including urban forests, blue–green infrastructure, and landscape-led regeneration; (ii) governance frameworks addressing equity, participation, anti-displacement safeguards, and cultural sensitivity; and (iii) methodological advances such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based spatial analysis, multi-criteria decision frameworks, microclimate modelling, and participatory co-design tools. The review finds that NbS can enhance climate adaptation, biodiversity, and community wellbeing, yet implementation often remains fragmented because of governance barriers and uneven policy integration. Strengthening participatory processes, embedding culturally informed design principles, and incorporating anti-displacement measures are essential to ensure socially just outcomes. Strategic instruments, particularly Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), combined with GIS and multi-criteria tools, can support more coherent long-term decision-making. Future research should prioritise cross-sectoral policy coordination, long-term monitoring, and inclusive governance to ensure that NbS-driven regeneration contributes to equitable, resilient, and culturally grounded urban futures. Full article