Role of Walkability for Sustainable Urban Development: A Study of Chennai City

Special urgency for small cities in Iran represents developing problem guiding principles of transformation and development of architectural and planning structure, as well as applied technique of its evaluation in accordance with the requirements of sustainable development. This article describes leading forms of urban development settlements and identifies common principles which influence on sustainable urban development.
 The objective of this article is to assert sustainable development theories which meets city planning structure and develop a sustainability concept for Iranian small cities. This will be done through studies that were influenced by addressing a rethinking in order to emphasize adapting new trend of sustainable development which focused on city planning structure, and suitable for Iranian small cities condition. Thus, the main tasks of study could be formulated as follows: define Iranian small cities planning structure features and problems; study recent sustainability documents and related urban development forms and principles; comparative analysis; and finally suggest a creative solution for architectural and planning structure for Iranian small cities condition.
 The research used the method of analysis of latest international scientific literature and documents related to urban development sustainability in order to evaluate, compare and achieve a proper solution for Iranian small cities structures sustainability. It should be noted that such kind of analysis would be done only after analyzing and identifying the features and problems of the planning structure of Iranian small cities.
 Results of study: The article reveals recent sustainable urban development forms and its interpretations in modern urban development theories; demonstrates Iranian cities structure features; Iranian cities general plans problems; urban forms and design principles for achieving the goals of sustainable urban development for conditions of Iran.
 The scientific novelty of research is to study recent urban sustainable development forms and principles which related to urban structures; and suggest an appropriate and suitable concept for Iranian small cities development sustainability.

As a result of publishing the concept of Globalization all over the world, The rate of urbanization is vast increasing, so the cities have witnessed an unprecedented civilization acceleration., but this fast life affected the economic, social and cultural life styles of communities, These differentiations are also effective in the formation of urban spaces and architecture and in the generation of urban life quality at cities. Due to Fast does not always mean progress and more competitiveness, has appeared as sustainable model based on an alternative philosophy of globalization and fast life. It is a global organization that strives to achieve the goal of sustainable urban development through the avoidance of global culture in planning, urban design and infrastructure. Their policies promote local diversity and economic and cultural strengths, build on historic resources and traditions, and encourage a slow, relaxed pace of life. The research was based on the construction of a comprehensive theoretical framework through the review and study of literature on the subject of the concept of Globalization and its effects on the urban system and the rate of urbanization and urban problems which are increasing significantly according to the rapid changes that have developed in many cities, Within the scope of this study, ‘Cittaslow’ movement is addressed as a different approach to building sustainable cities to face the effects of the ideas of globalization and fast life on the urban system , by ensuring the notion of ‘Cittaslow’ is clearly understood, urban parameters suggested by Cittaslow within the framework of achiving sustainability as a solution to modern-day urban problems. Then the research analyze one of slow cities experiment. In an attempt to devise whether the application of Cittaslow policies would be a valuable approach for cities planners to adopt, to aid in addressing issues of small towns in Egypt and to assist them in supporting sustainable urban development includes the overall results of the search and recommendations. The study aims to take advantage of “Cittaslow policies and principles to turn the theoretical underpinnings of sustainable development and Local Agenda 21 into a more powerful and practical action plan. In an attempt to devise processes within which to activate “Cittaslow” policies and principles to implement local urban sustainable development.

Sustainable urban development (SUD) is a critical global priority to balance rapid urbanization with environmental, economic, and social well-being. Sustainable Development and Mathematics seem to be completely incoherent to many people. But Mathematics is the prime mover in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved by United Nations (UN) because of its implement abilities to real situations. Mathematical modelling plays pivotal role towards sustainable development in arriving the understanding, prediction and control of the development process. To attain the goals set for SDG, this paper puts forward some mathematical models that will be proved functional in relation to the goal of Sustainable Urban Development and Infrastructure. Urban Growth and Land Use Model, optimizes land use and reduce urban sprawl. Transportation and Mobility Model, directs to reduce traffic congestion. Waste Management Model, guides cities in optimizing recycling programs. Subsequent research shall focus on applications of these models. By illustrating key case studies and methodologies, we demonstrate how these models contribute to achieve sustainable urban environments.

Sustainable development has attracted the attention of social-economic, spatial well-being, and cultural continuity advocates across the world. However, the processes involved in land use as well as urban development have continued to affect the attainment of sustainable development. This study assessed the effects of urbanization and land use planning on achieving sustainable development goals. The data were collected using a survey questionnaire from 384 different government leaders in Greece. The study showed that the indicators of urbanization quality have a positive effect on sustainable development goals. It was revealed that there is a significant relationship between integrated land use strategies and sustainable development goals. The study showed that indicators of urbanization quality are very key to achieving different SDGs. This indicates that sustainable urbanization entails more than just converting agricultural land and forests without making any changes to them into cities, and it is equally one of the answers to the problem of the world’s population growth if it is done with vision and dedication. The study clearly shows that integrated land use strategies are important in achieving the SDGs. In this case, land use planning is mostly a local effort, though some nations employ guiding land use plans created at the regional or inter-municipal level. Furthermore, urbanization opportunities and land-use plans have a great influence on the achievement of sustainable development goals. Notably, the goal of sustainable urban development is to make urban areas “sustainable” as well as to build or reinforce the city’s sustainability-related economic, social, cultural, and environmental aspects. It then goes on to discover how to spread that idea and why it is important to be focused, using various definitions. The fundamental idea of sustainable urban development is then realized by reviewing the ideas and principles of sustainable development. Finally, some general recommendations are made regarding urban planning, sustainable urban development, and the significance of establishing the necessary conditions for its realization. Urban sustainability and proper use of land require structural changes as well as significant, fundamental shifts at all societal levels.

Sustainable urban development (SUD) requires a balance between economic growth, social well-being, and environmental protection. Oftentimes, urban policy makers can hardly fulfill all SUD goals due to inadequacy of resources to support SUD programs. Therefore, the process of allocating scarce resources to achieve and balance various SUD goals becomes a critical challenge for policy makers and researchers. To solve this problem, this study adopts fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Situation (TOPSIS) to assess and rank different indicators of SUD and evaluate different cities in an emerging economy (Vietnam). Fuzzy methods exhibit more advantages than traditional ranking methods. Fuzzy AHP is an extension of AHP, whereas fuzzy TOPSIS is an extension of TOPSIS. Fuzzy methods are used to overcome disadvantages of traditional methods and are beneficial techniques for solving complicated decision problems with a realistic solution. Using a valid sample data of ten experts in the field of SUD, empirical results show that education, healthcare, quality of life, and social democracy are the most important indicators of SUD. By contrast, social diversity, social maturity, and energy consumption are the least important indicators of SUD. For social sustainability, social democracy and quality of life are the two most important criteria, whereas social maturity and social diversity are the two least important criteria. For economic sustainability, education and healthcare are the two most important criteria, whereas infrastructure and income are the two least important criteria. For environmental sustainability, water quality and waste disposal are the two most important criteria, whereas energy consumption and ecological conservation are the two least important criteria. Furthermore, fuzzy TOPSIS results reveal the best and the worst cities in Vietnam with regard to overall SUD and its three components. This study provides evidence for researchers and policy makers to better understand the importance of different goals of SUD and efficiently allocate scarce resources to achieve and balance different SUD goals. Furthermore, researchers and policy makers should further focus on indicators such as social democracy, quality of life, education, healthcare, water quality, and waste disposal. These indicators will help obtain the goals of SUD.

Since the 20th century, the deterioration of the ecological environment around the world has challenged urban space construction. With the development of urbanization, the consumption of resources and energy has increased, the level of biodiversity has decreased, environmental pollution is approaching the critical level, and the contradiction between human habitat activity and ecological environment has become increasingly prominent. The sustainable development of urban space along with its economic and social benefits, taking into account the quality of life and ecological environment, has become a new and important subject that needs to be explored. In this study, the indices of the evaluation system for sustainable urban spatial development in regions with underdeveloped economies but rich in ecological resources are arranged in sequence through the systematic coupling analysis of collaborative evaluation information and a quantitative analysis. The influences of urban space elements on sustainable urban development are disclosed. On the basis of the generated data, an evaluation system for sustainable urban spatial development with a complete set of information is proposed. The proposed system is applicable to urban spatial development evaluation in regions in China with underdeveloped economies but rich in ecological capital. First, the basic concept of system coupling is introduced, and a coupling relationship between urban sustainable development and urban space is proposed. Second, the elements of urban space and the sustainable development in the Qin-Ba mountain area are extracted, and the precedence diagram method is used to construct a sustainable evaluation system for urban space development in the Qin-Ba mountain area. Third, the sustainable evaluation process of urban spatial development is proposed. Finally, the sustainable evaluation system for urban spatial development in the Qin-Ba mountain area is applied to evaluate the urban spatial development in Shangluo, Qin-Ling Mountains, China. The results show that, among the investigated 14 indicators, the proportion of industrial land use mainly influences sustainable urban spatial development. As for the rest of the index factors, per capita green land area and green coverage ratio of built-up areas, per capita urban construction land area, proportion of forestry area, greening rate of built-up areas, total industrial dust emission density, proportion of cultivated area, and average volume fraction of residential areas are the secondary influencing factors of sustainable urban spatial development. The evaluation system in this research is constructed with the three aspects of “green coordination”, “green development”, and “green sustainability” of sustainable urban spatial development, and it complements the evaluation contents of urban–rural ecological space coordination, land resource protection, and green development community, and so on. The conclusion of this study not only can provide a useful reference for urban spatial development planning for underdeveloped ecological capital areas of China but also can provide a theoretical basis for the management and control policy of sustainable urban spatial development.

The purpose of the article is to highlight the need to renovate a mass panel residential building of the Soviet era. Methods. The descriptive-explanatory method provides information on the need to modernisation housing based on the analysis of data on the possibilities and feasibility of renovation of panel residential buildings. Results. Old residential buildings, mainly of panel houses, constitute a significant part of the housing stock of Ukraine. The situation is similar in other post-Soviet countries, as well as in European countries, especially with the heritage of the Soviet mass panel housing development. Great attention should be paid to the recovery of residential buildings that are part of neighbourhoods. In scientific researches and studies regarding recovery of old residential buildings various similar concepts are used: renovation, regeneration, modernisation and others. Therefore it is necessary to define a concept that would correspond to new trends and involves the achievement of the goals of sustainable urban development. The article analyses and highlights the current situation and foreign experience in the recovery of residential buildings. The emphasis is mainly on rehabilitation in the energy efficiency context and the general needs for regeneration, such as the recovery of old residential buildings to avoid the degradation of old neighbourhoods and increasing the value of housing for the economic growth of cities. At the same time, the issue of global recovery, taking into account not only the current needs, but also with a view to the future in terms of full and not partial achievement of the goals of sustainable urban development, is almost not considered. Conclusions. Sustainable development has made adjustments to the view on the recovery and urban development. It became necessary to define the concepts related to architecture and urban planning regarding the recovery of housing according to new trends. Definition of indicators given a modern view of housing renovation on the basis of sustainable development has been formed, which can be described as the sustainable modernisation of residential buildings.

Sustainable urban development depends on all its stakeholders, and in particular it rests on youth empowerment because of their strong and dynamic capability to deliver more than other age groups of a population. However, this entails that the youth population needs to be trained and involved to ensure its active participation. Also, the growing urban population must be continuously monitored, and skill development areas should be strengthened to include new fields like artificial intelligence and yoga so that youth will take an interest in new areas to contribute to sustainable developments more efficiently. These objectives can be fulfilled by population projections as well as by using sampling techniques, especially by a cost-effective sampling method like ranked set sampling. In this chapter, we have referred to both methods while keeping sustainable urban developments in view. It is hoped that this chapter will be of particular interest to those who strive to achieve the goal of sustainable urban development to create a better world for the future generations to come.

Harnessing urbanisation for human wellbeing and planetary health

Cities in the world transformed from traditional aspects to sustainable aspects, this transformation need to consider preserving urban heritage as one of the goals of sustainable development agenda 2030. From this view, the research problem appears from the lack of clarity of preserving urban heritage as part of culture and urban sustainability. So, the research aim tries to reach the role of urban preservation to achieve goals of sustainable urban development, and chose Erbil citadel as the first implemented preservation project in Iraq, which adopted 2014 in the world heritage list by UNESCO, which need to integrate preserving urban heritage with sustainable development goals. That will lead to prevent loss of heritage stock, and integrate all goals that contribute to revive the historical buildings in the life of city and society. The research concludes the continuation of this cultural heritage and its effectiveness in completing principles of sustainable development, especially, resettlement of the original inhabitants who removed from it, to be as integrated global model for the traditional human natural and cultural life, and integrated with surrounding urban fabric, instead of their decision to converted citadel as a museum.

The need to measure and evaluate urban development has led to the development of numerous social-economic indicators. However, depending upon the large set of indicators, we find difficulties in interpreting the progress and often reach different conclusions regarding economic and social development of towns and evaluating the sustainability. The aim of the research reported in this paper was to develop the research methods and analysis tools for assessing and implementing the goals of sustainable urban development, including the presentation of information needed for decision making in the Internet. The research presented in this paper uses factor and cluster analysis methods to generate a set of underlying attributes (factors) that capture the sustainable urban development. Based upon the factor scores of systems’, the study finds the towns with similar characteristics (clusters). We demonstrate an application of the model using a database of economic and social development of towns in Lithuania.

The urban sustainable development goal: Indicators, complexity and the politics of measuring cities

Despite the new urban planning thinking and legislation evolution since 2016 towards sustainable development, in practice, there is a limited legal framework for planning which makes it more challenging for local governments. As a result, two main scenarios have taken place in the Metropolitan Area of Lima: the unsustainable urban growth at the metropolitan level, and sustainable urban development building at the local level. In an attempt to contextualize the current state of Lima’s territorial planning, the research captures the nature and trajectory of this contradiction to conduct the various trade-offs inherent in sustainable urban development. The results show that urban planning unawareness, and fragmented governance without continuity across government periods, have led to distrust at the metropolitan level diminishing its urban development towards social and environmentally sustainable development. However, integrated planning and collaborative governance with stakeholders enabled the strengthening of resilience with risk mitigation in informal urban settlements at the local level. The research concludes that new transformations call for new behaviors. Consequently, appropriate collaborative governance becomes a collective power for sustainable urban development growth.

The goals and transformation of sustainable urban development require fundamental innovation; however, urban innovation is a cyclical process, the paradigm of innovation itself needs to be dramatically transformed, and all innovation key elements need to be coordinated with each other to achieve sustainable urban outputs. Based on this, this paper uses the absorptive capacity theory to construct a model of the relationships between the acquisition dimension, digestion dimension, conversion dimension, utilization dimension, and sustainable development in the innovation process of smart cities and uses the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (FSQCA) method to investigate the configuration mechanism in depth to show how the innovation process of these cities affects their sustainable development, taking the top 72 cities in China in terms of innovation capacity in 2020 as the research objects. The results of the study form three complex configuration paths that affect sustainable urban development, centered on the transformation of technological achievements, innovation management drive, and smart cities, and reveal that the economic and market foundations as the dimensions of urban innovation acquisition are not the core conditions for sustainable urban development. Based on this, this study develops a configuration classification for innovative cities that can achieve sustainable development, i.e., industrial paths, governance paths, and technology paths, and proposes strategic directions for sustainable urban innovation development.

Heritage and historic buildings deserve attention not only as a significant part of the building stock or from energy efficiency or carbon emissions points of view. They constitute and shape historic urban landscapes that are an integral part of sustainable urban development and sustainable development in a broader sense of humanity in general. However, the sustainable links between the heritage building and historic urban landscape are not well analyzed yet. Meanwhile, the idea that heritage should be a driver of sustainable urban development is more and more explicitly expressed and the concept of historic urban landscape is considered favorable in this regard. The aim of this research was to formulate the theoretical model demonstrating the links between the heritage building, historic urban landscape and sustainable development that would be applied in policy making and planning for heritage driven sustainable urban development. The methods of research included literature review, analysis and synthesis. In order to reach this aim, the analysis of literature on sustainability of cultural heritage, especially heritage buildings was carried out, the concept of historic urban landscape and its implications for sustainability were analyzed and the Halstar approach [29]. based on the systems model adding the dimensions of time and scale to sustainability model developed by the English engineering firm Halcrow was elaborated in the context of heritage buildings and historic urban landscape. The result of the research is the model of the links between heritage building, historic urban landscape and sustainable development, which could be applied in urban development policy design and planning.