Social cohesion is a central goal of inclusionary housing policy. Classical urban theories highlight the role of social ties in fostering cohesion, yet evidence from public housing indicates more complex underlying mechanisms. This study distinguishes between two types of neighbourhood ties: familiar ties, formed through affective interactions such as friendships, and invisible ties, emerging from routine encounters with familiar strangers. Using a mixed-methods design that combines a survey of 628 tenants with 21 in-depth interviews in 14 public rental housing (PRH) neighbourhoods in Beijing, we examine how different ties shape perceptions of neighbourhood cohesion. The findings show that familiar ties significantly enhance cohesion, whereas invisible ties remain socially inert, offering recognition without translating into meaningful solidarity. Situated in the context of urban China, the study underscores the central role of friendship-based ties in strengthening PRH neighbourhoods. The results suggest that housing policy and neighbourhood planning should prioritise creating conditions for repeated and meaningful interactions that can transform casual encounters into durable relationships and help cultivate more cohesive public housing neighbourhoods.

This article – part of a six‐year ethnographic research project – aims to deconstruct and ‘decolonize’ essentialized notions of adolescence and youth, primarily through the application of the category of intersectionality. The research focuses on a series of educational initiatives implemented in San Siro, one of Milan's largest public housing neighbourhoods, where half of the population comprises large families with migratory backgrounds, mainly from North Africa. Following a prolonged period of youth policy vacuum, San Siro has recently re‐emerged in public discourse due to the national and international success of a local group of rappers, which simultaneously contributed to a surge in social fear. In response to this fear, public institutions decided to allocate new funding for youth welfare. The research, conducted among a group of teenagers within and outside of schools, as well as within some social services, demonstrates the fluctuating attachments these young people have to their neighbourhood and their varying aspirations towards the future. Their narratives suggest a relativistic construction of the notions of adolescence and youth that can account for the diversity that characterizes San Siro, between individual agency and structural constraints.

This paper aims to highlight the potential application of Renewable Energy Community (REC) concept in large Affordable and Public Housing neighbourhoods, particularly those in the European cities’ suburbs developed between the 1970s and the 1990s, in order to achieve carbon neutrality and mitigate barriers to energy provision for low-income groups. The research aims to provide a qualitative overview of energy community policies and initiatives at the European level. By identifying common approaches and strategies that are framing the development of best practices in the European and Italian contexts, it explores the characteristics that enable an Energy Community to act as a driver of local sustainable transformation and social cohesion.

This qualitative study examines how children living in a public housing neighborhood engage in multimodal, embodied meaning-making to restory their community. Focusing on two participants and in partnership with The Kids Club, this paper explores children’s spatial reclamation through embodied and spatialized literacies, complicating stories where children assert whose stories matter and why. Drawing on nexus analysis and narrative inquiry, this study conceptualizes the body as central to cognition and comprehension through texts in action. The sisters spatially reclaim neighborhood narratives via walking tours, heart maps, and photographs that function as multimodal action texts. These practices invite a rethinking of comprehension beyond traditional textual modes, illuminating how children navigate and transform literacy landscapes. This work contributes to conversations about equity in literacy environments and calls on educators and researchers to honor children’s multimodal literacy practices as vital forms of critical comprehension, storytelling, and belonging.

Abstract This article aims to investigate a relatively underexplored aspect in the literature on retail financialisation, namely, retail landlords. It empirically examines a Hong Kong‐based Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), which is the largest retail landlord in the city's public housing neighbourhoods. The study illustrates the connection between the REIT's pursuit of shareholder value, its rent‐extraction strategies and the resulting retail gentrification. Specifically, the REIT's commitment to delivering shareholder value in the stock market translates locally into the displacement of individual stores and the affordable consumption space. This article argues that, in this particular case, financialisation becomes a mechanism of retail gentrification, as the monopolist retail landlord's relentless pursuit of higher rent ultimately serves the accumulation of finance capital and contradicts local retailers and residents. By focusing on retail gentrification in Hong Kong, this article also contributes to broader debates on planetary gentrification within the context of East Asian urbanism.

Rapid urbanization has intensified public housing development and building density, posing significant challenges to residents’ well-being and urban sustainability. With the population of the Greater Bay Area on the rise, enhancing the spatial quality of public housing is now essential. The study proposed a quantitative framework to evaluate the relationship between the residential design elements and perceived density in high-density public housing neighborhoods. It employed a virtual reality perception experiment to analyze the relationship between significant spatial indicators and perceived density by investigating 16 high-density residential layout models in 3 configurations: Tower-Enclosed, Balanced Slab-Enclosed, and Staggered Slab-Enclosed. The results indicate that: (1) greater building height intensifies perceived density, leading to sensations of overcrowding and discomfort; (2) an increased sky ratio mitigates perceived density, fostering a more open and pleasant environment; (3) recessed residential facades enhance residents’ density perception; and (4) Staggered Slab-Enclosed Layout configurations receive the most favorable evaluations regarding perceived density. The authors attempt to go beyond current regulations to propose tailored solutions for Shenzhen’s high-density context, improving spatial efficiency and residential comfort in future public housing designs. The finding provides scientific evidence to support urban planners and policymakers in developing more resilient and sustainable high-density neighborhoods.

This study explores the association of “Sensory Environment” and “Playfulness” with Depression and Cognition (SEPDC) among older adults living in high-density public housing neighborhoods in Singapore. The research conducted cross-sectional surveys with 400 adults aged 55 and above living in 20 such neighborhoods. Path analyses suggest that sensory environment (multi-sensory richness of a place and its capacity to engage) and playfulness (personality trait that enables rendering situations as playful) are associated with reduced depressive symptoms, memory problems, and loneliness in older adults, mediated by the increased “neighborhood cohesion” and sense of “at-homeness.” Hence, sensory environment and playfulness are critical for healthful aging in place and should be considered carefully for better design and planning of aging-friendly housing neighborhoods.

Redefining active mobility from spatial to social in Singapore

Abstract Community gardening is situated against the backdrop of the ‘Bumi Hijau’ campaign, which aims to foster urban agriculture engagement in Malaysia. It emerges as a vital practice that promotes inclusivity, diversity, and empowerment within urban areas. This study explores the experiences of community gardening among residents of Seri Perlis 2, a public housing neighborhood in Kuala Lumpur. The study reveals diverse identity formation, empowerment, and knowledge acquisition among participants who span various ages, professions, and backgrounds, embodying the broader demographic spectrum of the community. The study employs qualitative semi-structured interviews to gather rich data, enabling an in-depth exploration of participants’ experiences. It illustrates how community gardening participants shape their understanding of participation beyond mere crop cultivation. According to LB, his commitment to participation reflects a sense of accountability to government calls for food security and cost reduction. HC’s transformation through his participation showcases identity reshaping. AK’s active involvement has boosted cooperative income, while AM’s participation has highlighted its educational aspect, providing access to vast agricultural knowledge from multiple sources. Data analysis and interpretation have uncovered themes that point to the capacity of community gardening participation to empower potential in identity formation and its role as a platform for continuous learning. The exploration of their experiences has encapsulated other themes like unity, agricultural heritage preservation, and empowerment, transcending crop cultivation as it redefines participants’ engagement. These diverse experiences reinforce the transformative capacity of community gardening participation, aligning with previous research and government campaigns. Amid differing perspectives and experiences, the potential for personal growth and community cohesion through community gardening becomes evident, contributing to sustainable urban community development.

Defining procedural processes to support the involvement and empowerment of citizens, the main target of climate change, in order to integrate them into the holistic process of adaptation to extreme events is nowadays an extremely topical issue. Research is working towards the progressive standardisation of this process. The paper focuses on the outcomes of research on integrating the participatory approach into a methodology for climate proofing of the urban environment. The research results are include directions for increasing resilience through a cyclic step-by-step process for planning, prevention and management of the effects of disasters, centred on the involvement of different stakeholders, as well as the outcomes of the experimentation of such a process on three public housing (ERP) neighbourhoods in Rome.

Assessing the equity and evolution of urban visual perceptual quality with time series street view imagery

In several Western European countries, a significant share of social rental housing stock has been sold since the 1980s as part of government policies aimed at promoting homeownership societies. Research has shown that tenure conversion has contributed to increasing socio-spatial segregation of lower-income groups, with diverging spatial patterns of homeownership among immigrants. This paper examines the impact of recent public housing privatization schemes in Milan in relation to micro-segregation and peripheralization processes of foreign populations, which represent distinctive features of immigrant residential distribution in this city. By employing name analysis, an unconventional approach in segregation studies, I inferred the geographical origins of homebuyers and mapped their distribution across the city. The findings reveal divergent purchasing behaviors, whereby Italians predominantly acquire properties in semi-central areas currently undergoing urban regeneration. In contrast, immigrants tend to concentrate their acquisitions in peripheral post-war public housing neighborhoods or in areas predominantly inhabited by residents with similar geographical origins. This paper contributes to the existing literature on ethnic residential segregation in Southern European cities by shedding light on the underexplored role of public housing privatization policies in shaping specific residential patterns and housing outcomes among different groups.

The transformation of cities and urban and peri-urban neighborhoods into flexible, adaptive, and sustainable organisms, in the context of the latest European policy proposals on climate, energy, transportation, land use and resources, have become today's issues that can no longer be postponed. These issues introduce the focus that has been experimentally analyzed through the study, census, and subsequent cataloging of more than 100 tree and shrub species found in the Mediterranean basin according to their carbon uptake and storage capacities, defining a synoptic framework useful, for actors in the field, in silviculture and urban reforestation. These solutions led to the compilation of a detailed database through experimental research that took place in a public housing neighborhood of the Municipality of Rome Capital, the subject of a proposed urban redevelopment, numerically quantifying the carbon absorbed and stored for each individual species. The topic is of great scientific relevance considering national and European strategies and the proposal, put forward by the European Commission, on the New EU Forestry Strategy Fit for 55. Keywords: urban reforestation, urban district, natural carbon sinks

ABSTRACT Declines in sensory and cognitive capacity are common with ageing and deeply affect daily functioning of older adults. However, empirical studies investigating seniors’ multi-sensory spatial experience are scarce. This study employs mobile eye-tracking and post-walk interviews in two high-density public housing neighbourhoods in Singapore to empirically examine the ways they perceive their familiar outdoor settings. Methods prove to be fruitful for gathering and interlinking complex and dynamic, quantitative and qualitative data on multi-sensory experience, through active and embodied spatial engagement. Key findings indicate that the majority of seniors spend most of their time visually engaged with the ground. This may result from higher safety concerns among seniors, but also from the lack of engaging features in investigated neighbourhoods. Comfort, safety, aesthetic and ethical/social judgement, inter-generational interaction, health and wayfinding are among the most reoccurring themes revealed, which can inform better multi-sensory integration for empathetic and enabling ageing-friendly neighbourhood design.

On November 29, 2020, 500 inhabitants gathered in a parade around the public housing neighborhood AKB Lundtoftegade in Copenhagen. Uniting spiritual, aesthetic, and political forms and under the name The Healing, the inhabitants fought against the Danish government’s so-called ”Ghetto Law” – a set of comprehensive laws and policies targeting low-income, largely minority public housing neighborhoods.
 The present paper examines The Healing using Judith Butler’s elucidation of transient, public assembly and precarity – in this case, the ”Ghetto Law’s” destruction of the conditions of livability – in Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015).
 While The Healing as a public assembly exemplifies the critical potential of a transient, unexpected political and aesthetic assembly, the paper emphasizes how the aesthetic and spiritual elements help to ensure that The Healing can be repeated – that the fight against the ”Ghetto Law” can be recurring, caring, and healing.
 The Healing, I argue, is thus both a transient prefiguration, and a proof of AKB Lundtoftegade’s historical democratic, vivid, and caring way of organizing that is made invisible by the current discourse surrounding the ”Ghetto Law” describing social housing as AKB Lundtoftegade as ”ghettoes”, ”holes in the map of Denmark”, and ”stone deserts”.

How do forms and characteristics of Asian public housing neighbourhoods affect dementia risk among senior population? A cross-sectional study in Hong Kong

Neighborhood environments have been positively associated with older adults’ engagement outcomes. As mid- and late-life work participation gains traction, the scope of productive engagement in later life expands concomitantly. However, current age-friendly neighborhood paradigms remain largely retirement-centric, with minimal applicability for older adults with work aspirations. Therefore, the objective of this research was to examine whether neighborhood land use had significant impact on older adults’ work participation and well-being while working. Neighborhood variables were measured at the postal code level and statistically analyzed in relation to work participation and quality of life (QOL) scores for 850 older adults in Singapore. Significant variables were evaluated again for 28 planning areas, and statistically analyzed in relation to workforce participation rates. The findings suggest that neighborhood spatial attributes are significant for mid- and late-life work participation: Strategic provision of amenities was associated with individual work participation and well-being, while density and distribution of specific land-use types were associated with workforce participation rates. The article concludes with a discussion on the gaps in planning approaches for work-supportive and age-friendly neighborhood paradigms.

The relationship between food and cities has been recognized as an area of interest for urban planning only recently, thanks to measures adopted at various government levels, locally and internationally. Rethinking the processes of food production, distribution, sale, consumption and recycling in a sustainable and socially equitable way can contribute to making cities fairer, healthier and more resilient to climate change. Starting from these premises, our contribution explores, in particular, the hypothesis that rethinking the relationship between food and urban space can provide an opportunity to promote socio-spatial regeneration processes of public housing neighbourhoods, through projects and actions that involve their inhabitants. This hypothesis is argued starting from a project experience developed in Borgo San Sergio, a district of Trieste, Italy, which aims to consolidate and enhance practices of cultivation and distribution of food, but also of environmental education. The aim of the project is to create a short supply chain in which social agricultural enterprises are involved. The critical reflection stemming from the case study outlines some possible fields of intervention for an urban planning practice aimed at bringing the food system back to an urban and local scale—downscaling—with social and environmental justice goals consistent with the European Green Deal.

Abstract This article introduces the concept of retro‐utopian urbanism to analyse post‐2008 urban interventions in three state‐socialist public housing neighbourhoods in Eastern Europe. Through a comparative study of Petržalka (Bratislava, Slovakia), Lasnamäe (Tallinn, Estonia) and Bródno (Warsaw, Poland), I examine different approaches to combating the stigma associated with socialist housing. It is shown that these urban interventions are a double‐edged sword, in that they challenge the widespread notion that socialist urbanism is totalitarian by weakening the significance of socialist ideas. The article argues that urban interventions contribute to foreclosing socialist alternatives in the present when they normalise “postsocialism”, a term I use to refer to neoliberal capitalism’s ideological framework that sees socialism as obsolete. The concept of retro‐utopian urbanism provides a lens through which to reflect on the limitations and challenges of urban interventionism, and to rethink the debate on, and the persistence of, postsocialism in and beyond Eastern Europe.

In the processes of urban regeneration, in a circular transition perspective, a multiscalar, integrated and systemic approach allows intervention scenarios to be defined, based on a renewed conception of environmental-economic-social sustainability characterised by circular flows of material and non-material resources. Research results translate these demands into a methodological model at the district scale, trialled in two public housing neighbourhoods in Rome, to turn them into “circular districts”. It is demonstrated that, by applying a circular model of ecological transition to urban districts, the 2050 goal of climate neutrality may be attained, while at the same time improving ecosystemic quality, environmental performance and bioclimatic adaptivity in a wide vision of green cities.