Spatial equity of physiotherapy accessibility in Aotearoa New Zealand in relation to Māori and Pacific ethnicity, socioeconomic deprivation, and rurality.

This article examines how the enduring legacies of racial capitalism and discriminatory land policies shape climate vulnerability and adaptation in US cities, using Miami as a primary example. It highlights how flooding and heat waves disproportionately impact marginalized, historically disinvested neighborhoods, which are further threatened by displacement resulting from “climate gentrification.” Miami illustrates these dynamics, as affluent residents relocate from vulnerable coastal zones to higher-elevation, previously segregated neighborhoods, driving investment and property value increases that endanger longtime residents with displacement. The article explores how factors such as land use policy, zoning, and public investments embed racialized landscapes and drive displacement risk in these communities. The article calls for “just adaptation economies” that embed antidisplacement measures in resilience investments, support community ownership and stewardship of land instead of speculative development in historically marginalized neighborhoods, and prioritize policies that counteract persistent social and spatial inequities. The article explores a few examples of where adaptation economies are emerging through designated justice-oriented green urban development zones.

This article examines how the enduring legacies of racial capitalism and discriminatory land policies shape climate vulnerability and adaptation in US cities, using Miami as a primary example. It highlights how flooding and heat waves disproportionately impact marginalized, historically disinvested neighborhoods, which are further threatened by displacement resulting from “climate gentrification.” Miami illustrates these dynamics, as affluent residents relocate from vulnerable coastal zones to higher-elevation, previously segregated neighborhoods, driving investment and property value increases that endanger longtime residents with displacement. The article explores how factors such as land use policy, zoning, and public investments embed racialized landscapes and drive displacement risk in these communities. The article calls for “just adaptation economies” that embed antidisplacement measures in resilience investments, support community ownership and stewardship of land instead of speculative development in historically marginalized neighborhoods, and prioritize policies that counteract persistent social and spatial inequities. The article explores a few examples of where adaptation economies are emerging through designated justice-oriented green urban development zones.

Abstract This study investigates the effect of participation in the Global Value Chain (GVC) on Multidimensional Energy Poverty (MEPI), and the role played by the quality of institutions (QI) in the short and long run for 51 African countries over the period 1995–2018. For this purpose, the DCCE-PMG approach is employed, as well as both the GVC and QI indices. MEPI includes electricity, clean fuel, and technology for cooking. The findings show that GVC participation negatively affects MEPI in both the short and long run, meaning that the GVC reduces energy poverty in Africa. Besides, there is mixed evidence regarding the heterogeneity effect according to rural and urban locations. The evidence further shows that GVCs interact with institutions to negatively impact both energy poverty and the rural–urban MEPI gap, implying that the better the institutional quality, the larger the effect of GVC integration on energy poverty reduction. Therefore, a better quality of institution enables local firms, participating in the GVC, to easily capture technology and knowledge diffusion to promote energy development and fulfill the spatial inequality in energy poverty. Additional tests allow us to confirm the evidence and, moving forward, the implications of participation in the GVC.

Stunting remains a critical public health issue in Indonesia, particularly in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), where prevalence rates are among the highest nationally. This study aims to classify districts and municipalities in East Nusa Tenggara Province based on socioeconomic and health-related indicators associated with stunting vulnerability. Using the Gath–Geva (Fuzzy K-Means Entropy) clustering algorithm, four key variables were analyzed, including poverty rate, access to proper housing, open unemployment rate, and number of health facilities. The results identified three distinct clusters with different regional characteristics. Cluster 1 consists of areas with low poverty and well-developed health infrastructure but relatively high unemployment rates. Cluster 2 represents the most vulnerable regions characterized by high poverty, poor housing access, and limited health facilities, while Cluster 3 comprises more stable areas with better housing, low unemployment, and adequate healthcare services. The silhouette coefficient value of 0.41 indicates that the three-cluster structure provides a reasonably good level of separation and internal consistency. These findings highlight that stunting vulnerability is strongly influenced by socioeconomic disparities and the distribution of health infrastructure. Therefore, intervention strategies should be tailored to the characteristics of each cluster, emphasizing integrated actions in high-risk regions and preventive measures in more stable areas to accelerate stunting reduction across East Nusa Tenggara Province.

This article outlines the development of an inter-scale analytical tool designed to evaluate urban, intermediate, and domestic spaces from a gender perspective. Framed within feminist urbanism and ecofeminist theory, the study addresses the need to foster inclusive and equitable environments by incorporating gender-sensitive criteria into spatial planning processes. The methodology employed consists of a six-stage process: (1) a review of the existing literature; (2) the definition of scales of approach; (3) the formulation of indicators; (4) the establishment of evaluation criteria; (5) the design of data collection instruments; and (6) the refinement of the tool through field testing. The tool uses both qualitative and quantitative indicators across three spatial scales—neighbourhood, inter-block, and housing—organised into dimensions such as safety, accessibility, diversity, vitality, and representativeness. The evaluation process employs direct observation, graphic analysis, interviews, and participatory focus groups to provide a nuanced and multidimensional understanding of the built environment. The results confirm that both urban and domestic spaces have historically been designed from an androcentric perspective. They also highlight the potential of using gender-based evaluations to identify spatial inequalities and guide transformative interventions. The tool is replicable, adaptable, and scalable, and can therefore offer a robust framework for future research and public policy-making aimed at fostering gender equity in urban contexts.

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of Saudi Vision 2030 on urban mobility changes in Riyadh, focusing on how the national policies have spurred sustainable transportation reforms in a city traditionally reliant on cars. As the capital and economic center of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh has experienced rapid population growth and urban sprawl, resulting in severe traffic congestion, high energy consumption, and limited mobility options. Launched in 2016, Vision 2030 is a national development plan that emphasizes sustainable urban transportation as essential for achieving environmental, economic, and social goals. Using a qualitative approach, the research combines analysis of policy documents with secondary data on infrastructure and performance. It evaluates the progress and initial results of key projects such as the Riyadh Metro, Riyadh Bus Network, and related smart mobility initiatives. The findings demonstrate that these infrastructure efforts have significantly increased public transportation capacity and coverage. Early indications suggest a slight shift away from private cars, with expected reductions in fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions. The study also highlights ongoing challenges such as behavioral resistance, lack of sufficient active transportation infrastructure, spatial inequalities in transit access, and gaps in institutional coordination. Ridesharing services and smart mobility platforms are emerging as helpful additions, but require better integration into the formal transportation network. Overall, the research finds that while Vision 2030 has built a strong foundation for a sustainable mobility shift, long‐term success will rely on multimodal integration, inclusive planning, and increased public participation. Riyadh's experience offers valuable lessons for other cities in the Global South working toward government‐led sustainable urban transformation.

Environmental assessment in high-density urban areas faces significant challenges due to complex building morphology and the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP). This study proposes a morphology-adaptive computational framework that integrates the Homogeneous Unit of Building Morphology (HUBM) with geospatial modeling to enhance environmental assessment processes. Using Macao as a case study, the framework quantifies local and accessibility-based ecosystem service flows and evaluates ecological resilience via ecological security patterns and spatial elasticity indices. The results demonstrate that HUBM substantially reduces MAUP-induced biases compared to traditional grid-based approaches, maintaining statistical significance in spatial clustering analyses across all scales. Functionally, ecosystem service value (ESV) analysis reveals that natural green spaces provide more than three times the total ESV, predominantly offering regulating services, while artificial green spaces primarily deliver localized services. Accessibility analysis highlights considerable spatial inequities, with natural green spaces exhibiting a significantly higher recreational accessibility index. In terms of ecological security patterns (ESPs), natural green spaces function as core ecological patches, while artificial green spaces dominate connectivity, accounting for 75% of corridor length and 86% of node density. Natural green spaces exhibit significantly greater ecological resilience. These findings highlight the complementary roles of natural and artificial green spaces in dense urban environments and underscore the need for adaptive spatial analysis in urban planning.

Green infrastructure and nature-based solutions (NBSs) are, especially in urban areas, one of the key elements in building a friendly living environment that contributes to healthy longevity. This paper presents a novel method for assessing the accessibility of recreational urban green space (RUGS) at the level of individual residential buildings. We designed and piloted a new total accessible recreational urban green space area (TARUGS) index, based on real pedestrian network distances, considering spatial accessibility weighted by the total area of green space available within an approximate 15-min walk. Calculations were carried out individually for each residential building and each individual RUGS, using GIS technologies, including network analysis. The developed methodology allows for the detection of local inequalities in access to all city RUGSs. It enables the inclusion of additional socioeconomic variables in an in-depth spatial equity analysis. The RUGS accessibility ranking of buildings provides a practical tool to support urban intervention planning, as well as the design of solutions that respond to the real needs of residents and environmental challenges. Availability analyses were performed for 108,618 buildings and 146 RUGS. Areas with the highest and clearly insufficient access to RUGS in Warsaw were identified. Over 40,400 buildings were classified as having no access to RUGS (class 0), which accounts for 37% of all residential buildings, while 21,700 buildings were classified as having the best access (class 4), which accounts for 20% of all residential buildings. The districts of Wilanów and Włochy have the worst accessibility, while Wawer and Mokotów have the best. The proposed building-level methodology quantitatively reveals spatial inequalities in access to RUGS, enabling data-driven, equitable planning decisions while highlighting the need to integrate broader accessibility modes, subjective user experiences, and data improvements for a comprehensive assessment of spatial justice. The framework demonstrates how advanced geospatial data analysis, integrating GIS technologies, open data, and network-based innovative solutions, could enhance urban policy-making, improve the design of equitable public spaces, and support resilient land management strategies.

This article examines how industrial upgrading shapes the employment quality of China’s internal migrants (over 370 million). Using a 2011–2018 panel of 249 cities, we construct a multi-dimensional employment quality index and estimate spatial econometric models to capture spillovers and heterogeneity. Industrial upgrading is associated with higher employment quality on average, but gains are uneven, concentrating in coastal and digitally advanced cities and accruing less to vulnerable migrant subgroups and lagging regions. Manufacturing upgrading increases earnings and job stability yet tends to worsen working conditions, whereas services upgrading strengthens job security but may depress pay. Mediation tests indicate that policy support, digital infrastructure, and local innovation ecosystems are pivotal in converting upgrading into inclusive improvements. The findings call for justice-oriented, group-sensitive industrial and labour policies so that structural transformation yields equitable and sustainable employment gains.

The article considers organizational, pedagogical and substantive characteristics of training of medical personnel for rural health care system considering demographic, infrastructural and personnel imbalances. It is demonstrated, on the basis of international and Russian statistics, that shortage of medical personnel in rural areas is determined not only by general level of provision of physicians and paramedical personnel, but also by spatial inequality, labor conditions and limited accessibility of educational and professional trajectories. The evidence-based approaches to rural health care practice are summarized: targeted recruitment and distributed clinical training, simulation training, telementoring, inter-professional models and retention practices. The necessity of integrated ecosystem "education-clinic-community" based on regional requests and telemedicine infrastructure is grounded.

IntroductionExtreme heat events intensify health risks among vulnerable populations, raising concerns regarding climate justice. However, most existing assessments remain at the citywide scale and seldom examine inequities across different types of outdoor cooling spaces.MethodsThis study integrates the Exposure–Sensitivity–Adaptive Capacity (VSD) framework with the dimensions of distributive, recognition, and procedural justice to construct a climate justice assessment model. Outdoor cooling spaces were classified into linear and areal forms. Using Gulou District in Fuzhou as the case study, we developed a multi-source indicator system based on remote sensing imagery, street-view data, points of interest, and demographic statistics. The entropy weight method was used to determine indicator weights, and K-means clustering was applied to identify climate injustice space types.ResultsThe findings show that 37.18% of linear cooling spaces and 44.45% of areal cooling spaces face significant climate injustice risks. High-risk areas are concentrated in dense built-up zones, aging neighborhoods, and peripheral areas with limited public services. Cluster analysis identified three distinct deficit categories: distributional justice deficit, recognitional justice deficit, and systemic justice deficit, reflecting overlapping vulnerabilities and uneven adaptive capacities.DiscussionThese results highlight the need for differentiated interventions to reduce spatial inequities. Key actions include enhancing shading along traffic corridors, improving service accessibility in aging neighborhoods, and strengthening adaptive resources in systemic deficit areas. The proposed framework offers an evidence base for equity-oriented urban governance and supports resilient urban planning and public health strategies under extreme heat.

A synthesis of explanations for spatial inequalities in gambling harm: integrating social and material dimensions of place.

Exploring the underlying mechanisms of spatial blue water consumption inequality in Chinese complex topographic regions.

A symposium on spatial inequality and economic divergence in the UK: preface

Spatial inequities in childhood vaccination coverage in South Korea: A nationwide spatiotemporal analysis, 2017-2023.

Paris as a gateway? Spatial inequalities in immigrant integration across French regions

Spatial inequalities and driving factors in food accessibility: Integrating online and offline grocery services in South Korea

Semi-urban water governance in Togo remains challenged by the limitations of community-based approaches, persistent gender-based exclusion, and informal dependency. This study examines the challenges associated with water governance in the semi-urban regions of Togo, with a focus on Kovié and Noèpé. Local organizations, such as the Association of Drinking Water and Sanitation Service Users, are struggling to ensure equitable, transparent, and sustainable management of these services. This research highlights the shortcomings of the current community model and proposes reform based on inclusive governance. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study combines household surveys (n = 712) on water sources with interviews, user and manager testimonies, focus groups, and participatory mapping. Drawing on Ostrom’s theory of the commons and Fraser and Schlosberg’s framework of environmental justice, the analysis reveals that community participation is often merely symbolic and that women, despite being central to domestic water use, remain marginalized in decision-making processes. The results also reveal ineffective operational delegation, prohibitively high connection costs of up to 100,000 FCFA (approximately 152 Euros), unfavorable pricing compared to urban areas, and a significant reliance on informal sources. Access to water is further undermined by recurring outages, opaque governance, spatial and social inequalities, and extremely high user dissatisfaction (over 97%). Recommendations include establishing performance contracts to enhance accountability, strengthening the technical capacities of committees, actively including women in governance, and creating sustainable financing mechanisms to reduce dependence on donors. Thus, the article calls for an overhaul of the system to ensure that water rights become a lever for social justice and local development.

Analysis of spatial inequality and rural development in the supporting region for nusantara capital city, Indonesia