Urban Sustainability – serie

Since 2014, and the start of the New-type Urbanization Plan (NUP), we see a turning point in the sustainability agenda of China. One of the main indicators is greening cities and the built environments, which will be covered holistically in this edited book. From the perspective of green infrastructure, in particular, the book approaches key areas of ‘forest city development’, ‘sponge city program’, ‘green roofing’, ‘nature-based solutions’, ‘urban farming’, ‘eco-city development’, etc. This is the first time that such important areas of research come together under the perspective of green Infrastructure. The results would be beneficial to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in China and across the globe. The comprehensive set of findings from this book will benefit other countries, as we aim to highlight some of the best practices of the current age.The main aim of the book is to put together an excellent group of scholars and practitioners from the field, focusing on the topic of ‘Green Infrastructure in Chinese Cities’. In doing so, we aim to cover some of the key ‘best practices’ for sustainable urbanism. Divided into four parts, the book covers four key areas of (1) Policy Interventions, (2) Planning Innovation, (3) Design Solutions, and (4) Technical Integration. In doing so, we cover an array of best practices related to green infrastructures of various types and their impacts on cities and communities in China.We expect the book to be a valuable resource for researchers in the areas of sustainability, urbanism, urban planning, urban geography, urban design, geographical sciences, environmental sciences, landscape architecture, and urban ecology. The book covers essential factors such as policy, regulations, and programs (in Part 1), planning paradigms and their impacts on urban development (in Part 2), integrated design solutions that suggest sustainable urbanization progression (in Part 3), and technical knowledge that would be utilized for the future development of green infrastructure practices in China and beyond. Lastly, this edited book aims to provide a collaborative opportunity for experts and researchers of the field, who could contribute to the future pathways of sustainable urbanization of China. Lessons extracted from these contributions could be utilized for other contexts, which will benefit a wider group of stakeholders.

Since 2014, and the start of the New-type Urbanization Plan (NUP), we see a turning point in the sustainability agenda of China. One of the main indicators is greening cities and the built environments, which will be covered holistically in this edited book. From the perspective of green infrastructure, in particular, the book approaches key areas of ‘forest city development’, ‘sponge city program’, ‘green roofing’, ‘nature-based solutions’, ‘urban farming’, ‘eco-city development’, etc. This is the first time that such important areas of research come together under the perspective of green Infrastructure. The results would be beneficial to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in China and across the globe. The comprehensive set of findings from this book will benefit other countries, as we aim to highlight some of the best practices of the current age.The main aim of the book is to put together an excellent group of scholars and practitioners from the field, focusing on the topic of ‘Green Infrastructure in Chinese Cities’. In doing so, we aim to cover some of the key ‘best practices’ for sustainable urbanism. Divided into four parts, the book covers four key areas of (1) Policy Interventions, (2) Planning Innovation, (3) Design Solutions, and (4) Technical Integration. In doing so, we cover an array of best practices related to green infrastructures of various types and their impacts on cities and communities in China.We expect the book to be a valuable resource for researchers in the areas of sustainability, urbanism, urban planning, urban geography, urban design, geographical sciences, environmental sciences, landscape architecture, and urban ecology. The book covers essential factors such as policy, regulations, and programs (in Part 1), planning paradigms and their impacts on urban development (in Part 2), integrated design solutions that suggest sustainable urbanization progression (in Part 3), and technical knowledge that would be utilized for the future development of green infrastructure practices in China and beyond. Lastly, this edited book aims to provide a collaborative opportunity for experts and researchers of the field, who could contribute to the future pathways of sustainable urbanization of China. Lessons extracted from these contributions could be utilized for other contexts, which will benefit a wider group of stakeholders.

This book focuses on the relationship between urban land redevelopment and traffic systems and discusses the related research. Consisting of three main parts, the first analyzes the interaction between land redevelopment and traffic congestion as well as the mechanisms and causes of traffic congestion. The second part presents strategies for the prevention and control of traffic congestion under urban land redevelopment, proposing a two-stage evaluation system of traffic congestion pre-inspection and traffic impact analysis in the planning and implementation stages of land redevelopment. Lastly, the third section includes an application case analysis of the proposed traffic congestion management strategy.

This book focuses on the relationship between urban land redevelopment and traffic systems and discusses the related research. Consisting of three main parts, the first analyzes the interaction between land redevelopment and traffic congestion as well as the mechanisms and causes of traffic congestion. The second part presents strategies for the prevention and control of traffic congestion under urban land redevelopment, proposing a two-stage evaluation system of traffic congestion pre-inspection and traffic impact analysis in the planning and implementation stages of land redevelopment. Lastly, the third section includes an application case analysis of the proposed traffic congestion management strategy.

This book provides an institutional interpretation of state-facilitated gentrification in Chengdu, an emerging central city of China. It generalizes the three aspects of institutional changes in the cultural, economic and social spheres that have thus far directed the operation of gentrification in the transitional economy: the creative destruction of consumption spaces, the spatial production of excess, and the unequal redistribution of spatial resources to low-income residents. The interactions of state and society, are examined in navigating the institutional changes and forming the Chinese distinctions of gentrification. The author argues that these three aspects of institutional changes characterize gentrification in Chengdu as a transformative force of development led by the state and capitalists and championed by middle-class consumers. This gentrification mode periodically catalyzes new spaces and collective cultures, which then necessitate the stimulation of new consumption behaviors and the formation of new consumer classes, at the expense of the spatial demands for the even larger number of low-income residents. However, in the context of China's unique state–society relations, some low-income groups may also ride the wave of social transformation. The author suggests that this type of gentrification integrates into not the essence of uneven geographical development in a capitalist society, but China’s unique model of urbanization and development, which is often state-driven, innovative and even involuted so as to sustain continuous growth. Though the research is focused on urban China, this book also contributes to methodological issues on gentrification research on a global scale. It is skeptical both of the structural explanation and of therevelation of unsorted differences; instead, it aims to generate midrange regularities of gentrification in Chinese cities. Institutional change is treated as an intermediary that, on the one hand, responds to the global trends and, on the other hand, adapts to local preconditions. Mixed methods, including statistical and spatial analysis, institutional analysis, and an extensive ethnographic study, are used to investigate gentrification from a structural perspective, a historical perspective, and as a grounded process within the locality.

This book provides an institutional interpretation of state-facilitated gentrification in Chengdu, an emerging central city of China. It generalizes the three aspects of institutional changes in the cultural, economic and social spheres that have thus far directed the operation of gentrification in the transitional economy: the creative destruction of consumption spaces, the spatial production of excess, and the unequal redistribution of spatial resources to low-income residents. The interactions of state and society, are examined in navigating the institutional changes and forming the Chinese distinctions of gentrification. The author argues that these three aspects of institutional changes characterize gentrification in Chengdu as a transformative force of development led by the state and capitalists and championed by middle-class consumers. This gentrification mode periodically catalyzes new spaces and collective cultures, which then necessitate the stimulation of new consumption behaviors and the formation of new consumer classes, at the expense of the spatial demands for the even larger number of low-income residents. However, in the context of China's unique state–society relations, some low-income groups may also ride the wave of social transformation. The author suggests that this type of gentrification integrates into not the essence of uneven geographical development in a capitalist society, but China’s unique model of urbanization and development, which is often state-driven, innovative and even involuted so as to sustain continuous growth. Though the research is focused on urban China, this book also contributes to methodological issues on gentrification research on a global scale. It is skeptical both of the structural explanation and of therevelation of unsorted differences; instead, it aims to generate midrange regularities of gentrification in Chinese cities. Institutional change is treated as an intermediary that, on the one hand, responds to the global trends and, on the other hand, adapts to local preconditions. Mixed methods, including statistical and spatial analysis, institutional analysis, and an extensive ethnographic study, are used to investigate gentrification from a structural perspective, a historical perspective, and as a grounded process within the locality.

This book is the first attempt to explore the use and application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and related smart technologies in cities and for the sole purpose of reaching positive peace. The everyday usage of digital technologies in cities encourages us to study the benefits, co-benefits, disadvantages, and threats of ICT application in cities and urban environments. The continuous growth of digital technologies and their growing demand in everyday urban practices and systems are already known to scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers. However, this book explores whether or not such applications and usage help us reaching positive peace. This approach is novel in the field of urban studies, allowing us to identify and highlight best practices, successes, and failures of ICT application to meet positive peace pillars. The scope of the book highlights our focus on positive peace and its eight pillars, mainly how they are meant to be achieved in cities and urban areas. With an analytical view on the topic, we aim to reflect on the systematic features of urban systems, using positive peace pillars as the primary targets. We believe ICT application and usage in cities could be more directive and beneficial to reach peace and prosperity to achieve such a goal. Therefore, this book provides a holistic guideline and coverage of ICT use for positive peace pathways and peace-building practices. We hope the findings of the book help researchers and policy-makers to come up with novel and integrated strategies, ensuring that our everyday usage of digital technologies, ICT, and smart tools, are more meaningful and people-oriented.

This book is the first attempt to explore the use and application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and related smart technologies in cities and for the sole purpose of reaching positive peace. The everyday usage of digital technologies in cities encourages us to study the benefits, co-benefits, disadvantages, and threats of ICT application in cities and urban environments. The continuous growth of digital technologies and their growing demand in everyday urban practices and systems are already known to scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers. However, this book explores whether or not such applications and usage help us reaching positive peace. This approach is novel in the field of urban studies, allowing us to identify and highlight best practices, successes, and failures of ICT application to meet positive peace pillars. The scope of the book highlights our focus on positive peace and its eight pillars, mainly how they are meant to be achieved in cities and urban areas. With an analytical view on the topic, we aim to reflect on the systematic features of urban systems, using positive peace pillars as the primary targets. We believe ICT application and usage in cities could be more directive and beneficial to reach peace and prosperity to achieve such a goal. Therefore, this book provides a holistic guideline and coverage of ICT use for positive peace pathways and peace-building practices. We hope the findings of the book help researchers and policy-makers to come up with novel and integrated strategies, ensuring that our everyday usage of digital technologies, ICT, and smart tools, are more meaningful and people-oriented.

This book chiefly focuses on urban traffic, an area supported by massive amounts of data. The application of big data to urban traffic provides strategic and technical methods for the multi-directional and in-depth observation of complex adaptive systems, thus transforming conventional urban traffic planning and management methods. Sharing valuable insights into how big data can be applied to urban traffic, it offers a valuable asset for information technicians, traffic engineers and traffic data analysts alike.

This book chiefly focuses on urban traffic, an area supported by massive amounts of data. The application of big data to urban traffic provides strategic and technical methods for the multi-directional and in-depth observation of complex adaptive systems, thus transforming conventional urban traffic planning and management methods. Sharing valuable insights into how big data can be applied to urban traffic, it offers a valuable asset for information technicians, traffic engineers and traffic data analysts alike.

The scope of this book is to map China’s city clusters and their individual directions for the national-level strategies in line with the 2060 carbon neutrality plan. Since China announced the carbon neutrality plan in autumn 2020, no study has looked at the role of city clusters in achieving this long-term plan. Hence, this study is believed to be the first attempt to explore this important topic from the city cluster perspective. It explores the challenges, opportunities, and directions of all 19 city clusters, allowing readers to have a clear picture of China’s historical and ongoing progress, as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. In a short time, China’s city clusters have helped boost regional economic development, infrastructure development, trade and business, and better urban–rural integration. With enhanced coordination of connection and transport networks in and between the city clusters, we see a growing number of initiatives beyond just the initial economic strategies. The dual approach of top-down policies and infrastructure systems and bottom-up governance and investments has helped China consider urban–rural development strategies and regional sustainable development. These factors are essential to be explored from the city cluster perspective and in line with China’s sustainable development and carbon neutrality directions. Hence, the book covers these points holistically, ensuring that regional planning and development are favored in the face of uneven urbanization trends.We anticipate this book to be a valuable resource for local governments and authorities, urban planners and practitioners, developers, and urban researchers. While the focus is on China’s city clusters, we believe there are similar examples elsewhere. Hence, lessons learnt from this book could apply to other countries, regions, and subregions. Lastly, the book aims to put regional sustainable development at the heart of longer-term strategies and plans,such as the case of China’s carbon neutrality plan.

The scope of this book is to map China’s city clusters and their individual directions for the national-level strategies in line with the 2060 carbon neutrality plan. Since China announced the carbon neutrality plan in autumn 2020, no study has looked at the role of city clusters in achieving this long-term plan. Hence, this study is believed to be the first attempt to explore this important topic from the city cluster perspective. It explores the challenges, opportunities, and directions of all 19 city clusters, allowing readers to have a clear picture of China’s historical and ongoing progress, as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. In a short time, China’s city clusters have helped boost regional economic development, infrastructure development, trade and business, and better urban–rural integration. With enhanced coordination of connection and transport networks in and between the city clusters, we see a growing number of initiatives beyond just the initial economic strategies. The dual approach of top-down policies and infrastructure systems and bottom-up governance and investments has helped China consider urban–rural development strategies and regional sustainable development. These factors are essential to be explored from the city cluster perspective and in line with China’s sustainable development and carbon neutrality directions. Hence, the book covers these points holistically, ensuring that regional planning and development are favored in the face of uneven urbanization trends.We anticipate this book to be a valuable resource for local governments and authorities, urban planners and practitioners, developers, and urban researchers. While the focus is on China’s city clusters, we believe there are similar examples elsewhere. Hence, lessons learnt from this book could apply to other countries, regions, and subregions. Lastly, the book aims to put regional sustainable development at the heart of longer-term strategies and plans,such as the case of China’s carbon neutrality plan.

Urbanization in the Middle East is entering a new phase of global importance. As climate change pressures intensify and environmental limits become more visible, cities built under conditions of heat, water scarcity, and rapid transformation have become increasingly critical to debates on urban sustainability and resilience. Urbanization Rethought: On Planning and Resilience in Saudi Arabia offers a critical examination of urban development in one of the world’s fastest-transforming desert regions. Moving beyond planning models derived from temperate and resource-rich contexts, the book explores how aridity, extreme heat, water scarcity, and megaproject-led development reshape the governance and practice of urbanization. Drawing on conceptual analysis and empirical cases from across Saudi Arabian cities, the book examines key dimensions of contemporary urban transformation, including the urbanization–environment nexus, climate change adaptation, green infrastructure, megaproject planning, and the evolving role of urban governance in building resilience futures. Rather than treating planning as a purely technical exercise, the book positions it as a mediating practice between development ambition and ecological limits. The book presents Saudi Arabia as an analytically generative context, and contributes to broader debates on urban resilience, sustainable development, and planning in climate-stressed regions. The insights developed here transcend the Gulf region to cities worldwide confronting urbanization under conditions of environmental constraint and uncertainty. This book is of interest to scholars, planners, policymakers, and students working on urban planning, climate resilience, urbanization, and sustainable development.

The book provides innovative theories, methods, and policy measures for urban public transport operations management. It is based on the authors’ recent studies on the operations management of different public transport modes, including bus, metro, bus rapid transit (BRT), and emerging transit modes. New policy measures, business models, optimization techniques, and simulation tools are offered to improve the service quality, efficiency, reliability and equity of urban public transport systems. It is aimed at both public transport researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. The book can be used as a text for both undergraduate and postgraduate students who study in Transportation Systems Engineering, and Operations Management.

This book aims to explore and promote greening strategies to enhance urban resilience and health. It is based on the results of the “Greenwork” project funded by the Italian Ministry of Universities. This book provides an overview of current measures, tools, and innovative approaches to greening the built environment, addressing challenges such as climate change, urbanization, and environmental health.The content is divided into three main sections: 1. Greening Strategies for Climate Risk Management: This section covers nature-based solutions (NBS) for urban resilience against natural and human-made hazards, multi-hazard investigations, and the impact of green solutions on urban well-being and eco-anxiety. 2. Interventions at the Urban Scale: This section focuses on urban green spaces, recreational areas, pocket gardens, the role of greenery in historic centers, and the effects of urban microclimate on health. 3. Interventions at the Building Scale: This section discusses green roofs, green facades, pocket gardens, and the influence of indoor greenery on microclimate and user well-being.

This book offers a critical rethinking of digital urban transformation through a planning centered lens. It moves beyond technocentric views to examine how intelligent technologies shape governance, decision-making, and sustainability outcomes. The book explores key areas including housing, mobility, water management, environmental resilience, and digital civic engagement, showing that technology is deeply embedded in institutional and social contexts. It highlights how data driven systems introduce new opportunities for coordination while raising challenges related to ethics, bias, and accountability. By linking digital innovation to planning theory and governance, this book provides a clear framework for understanding how cities can achieve more inclusive and resilient futures.

In the face of increasing climate disruption, this book provides a design-centered investigation of how cities might adapt, recover, and prosper. It positions resilience not as a technical add-on, but as a fundamentally social, ecological, and spatial practice that must be embedded across scales, from materials and buildings to neighbourhoods, infrastructures, and urban systems.The chapters show how climatic threats including heat, flooding, water scarcity, and catastrophic shocks are changing our conception of urban space in a variety of worldwide situations. The contributions demonstrate how nature-based solutions, water-sensitive planning, circular construction, and regenerative urbanism are now inextricably linked to resilient design. They also show how new technologies like geographic simulation, XR environments, and digital twins are increasing the designer's ability to foresee unpredictability and test flexible solutions before putting them into practice.The main issue addressed is evident: urban development practice still has difficulty converting resilience concepts into spatial, material, and community-grounded design activity, even in the face of increased awareness of climate risk. In response, this book compiles experimental techniques, conceptual developments, and empirical research that show how resilience may be operationalized in actual projects and locations. It focuses on transferable tactics that can influence professional practice, education, and policy, such as regenerative neighbourhood models, nature-based drainage, climate-responsive public spaces, and circular recovery.Resilient by Design ultimately argues that the future of cities depends on re-aligning ecological systems, technological innovation, and social inclusion through design thinking. It provides an interdisciplinary knowledge base and a forward-looking agenda for shaping climate-ready urban environments. The book is intended for researchers, urban designers, architects, planners, landscape architects, and policymakers engaged in climate-resilient and sustainable urban development.

Cities have entered a phase where climate change is no longer a distant projection but an immediate design constraint. Flooding, heatwaves, coastal erosion, water scarcity, and ecological degradation now shape how cities must be planned, built, and maintained. Responding to these pressures requires a fundamental rethinking of urban systems. Nature-Based and Climate Responsive Design for Urban Systems explores how ecological design innovations can strengthen urban resilience and liveability while reshaping the relationship between cities and their natural environments.This book is the third volume of a trilogy examining climate-oriented design innovation in the built environment. While the earlier volumes focus on conceptual frameworks and strategic directions, this volume emphasises practical design approaches that integrate natural systems into urban infrastructure and spatial planning. Its central premise is clear: future cities must work with natural processes rather than attempt to control or resist them. Nature-based solutions, blue-green infrastructure, and climate-responsive design are therefore positioned as core components of contemporary urban systems.Through a diverse set of global case studies, the book demonstrates how ecological design strategies can address challenges such as flooding, coastal vulnerability, water management, and biodiversity loss. Examples from Nepal, Bangladesh, Vanuatu, Mexico, Madagascar, and other regions across the Pacific and Global South illustrate how nature-based approaches support environmental restoration, strengthen community participation, and enhance urban adaptability.By linking design practice with interdisciplinary research, the book contributes to the growing discourse on climate-responsive urbanism and offers practical insights for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers working toward more resilient and environmentally integrated urban futures.

“Evolution is by choice”. This is not a passive truth, but a conscious commitment, one that lies at the heart of what I call the Advanced City. Coined and thoroughly introduced here in the book, this new concept is based on people-centric and data-informed processes to enhance our cities and communities for their future, and not for imagining future cities. This is not another model in the long line of urban prescriptions, nor a distant techno-utopia to be fantasized. It is a paradigm shift, an invitation to think, feel, and build differently. The ‘Advanced City’ is a lived revolution, a dynamic process grounded in values, purpose, and practice.Too often, we romanticize the future city: glass towers, flying cars, machines and robots everywhere, data-driven dreams. But these visions distract us from the urgency of the present. They bypass the real work of transformation by projecting change onto an abstract tomorrow. The Advanced City asks something deeper: What kind of cities are we actively creating, today, here, and now? It is not about waiting for innovation to arrive. It is about choosing a different path, rooted in responsibility, equity, and long-view thinking.This book is not about cities as machines, markets, or spectacles. It is about cities as ecosystems of meaning, struggle, creativity, and care. The Advanced City is a movement of re-engagement, for academics, for planners, for civic leaders, and for all who call the city home. It calls on us to be co-creators of our urban futures, not passive consumers of predesigned and predetermined solutions.We need radical honesty about the failures of current systems, and the intellectual courage to reimagine what’s possible. The advanced city resists the illusion of “smartness” and returns us to human truths: interdependence, justice, and purpose. It is about making change, not waiting for it. So, this is not a new product for urban branding, it is rather a process for transformation, a paradigm shift, and an “urban revolution”. A call to co-create cities that are not merely advanced in function, but advanced in wisdom. Here, I also call for the development of ‘Brother Cities’ and ‘Advanced Development Goals (ADGs)’.If not now, when? If not us, who? Let the Advanced City be an urban revolution of now and the future to be lived; not later, but now – not for the future cities, but for the future of our cities and communities.

This book is the follow-up research and practical achievement of the national science and technology support project “Research on the planning standards of villages, townships and rural communities” and “Research on the planning technology of rural settlements” in the eleventh five-year plan. The whole book is divided into three parts. The first part puts forward the “three suitability principles” of suitable for environment, technology and human settlement, the “Trinity” ideology of industrial economy, social culture and spatial environment and the cognitive framework, “three levels”, including township, village and village construction, constructing the theory of “Beautiful Countryside” construction. The second part based on rural planning and construction practice of 7 typical villages in Huangyan District, Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, interpreting targeted planning and construction strategies. The third part focuses on the display and analysis of the whole process of the rural construction of Shatan village, Yutou Township, Huangyan District.This book combines theory and practice with typical cases study. Pictures and texts are listed in each chapter for easier understanding. It is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students majoring in urban and rural planning, architecture and landscape architecture in colleges and universities. It can be used as a reference material for personnel engaged in rural planning, design, construction and management and for the training and learning of rural cadres. Meanwhile, it can also be used as a reference for general audience who interested in rural planning and construction.

This book discusses the evaluation of urban lifestyle, urban livability and human settlement environment from the perspective of interdisciplinarity. On this basis, it explores the living spaces and new forms of living spaces of different groups, and expands the scope of traditional urban living space research, especially highlighting the impact of the development of new technologies and the emergence of new living concepts on urban living space. This book concludes with a summary and an outlook for future research. Combining quantitative and qualitative research, and taking into account the enhancement of research methods by new technologies such as ICT, this book aims to provide a systematic framework for the study of Urban living space and to provide readers with a comprehensive demonstration of empirical research in this area. Readers of this book includes those working in the fields of human geography, urban sociology, urban and rural planning, urban economics and urban management, as well as policy makers in relevant government departments, property development and business managers, and university teachers and students. The three main features of this book are “cutting-edge,” “interesting” and “academic.” This book aims to provide readers with the basic framework, important concepts, cutting-edge methods, and important findings and conclusions of urban living space research in China.

This book explores how innovative shading design improves psychological comfort in synaptic spaces – those dynamic and transitional built environments where people connect, engage, and interact. Bridging architecture, environmental psychology, and neuroarchitecture, it proposes efficient cutting-edge strategies to create responsive and flexible environments. It examines shading as a powerful design tool that transcends function to shape psychological experience, sensory balance and spatial identity. Through interdisciplinary research and case-based analysis, the book offers valuable practical guidance for architects, urban designers, and researchers seeking to create human-centered environments that foster well-being and enhance the quality of lived spaces through thoughtful design.

This book presents 101 inequalities categorized across three tiers, each illustrating how disparities manifest and persist. The first tier focuses on contextual factors, exploring inequalities in economic, political, and societal dimensions. The second tier examines baselines, analyzing inequalities related to timing/season (e.g., inequality of opportunity and natural environment), space/location (e.g., geographical location and external environment), and human condition (e.g., age, gender, and ethnicity). The third tier investigates the tangibles—materials and resources, assessed through four key categories: availability, awareness, accessibility, and utility. By examining these through global case studies, authors not only validate the systemic and non-systemic inequalities of our contemporary society but also propose pathways toward truly just, inclusive, and people-centric sustainable development.Authors hope this book sparks transformative thinking and action against the entrenched inequalities shaping our world. While authors may have drifted away from the vision of just and inclusive societies, the authors must find their way back—toward a future where equity is not a privilege, but a fundamental right. More than just an academic discourse, this book is a call to action, particularly for the next generation—those who seek to dismantle systemic inequalities and build sustainable futures for the many, rather than just the privileged few or the bliss of the affluent minority.

Artificial Intelligence is reshaping the architecture and design disciplines, transforming how we design, think, and teach. This volume explores how AI is becoming not just a powerful digital tool but an active partner in the creation of more sustainable, adaptive, and forward-thinking design processes.Focusing on the intersection of design, sustainability, and emerging technologies, this book investigates how AI contributes to the resilience of the architectural profession, supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and drives educational innovation aligned with the UNESCO 2019 Beijing Consensus.Across the book chapters, leading researchers explore new workflows where AI enhances design development, enables complex analysis, and redefines creative roles. The book also examines hybrid analogue–digital practices and the adoption of computational concepts in design, revealing how architects are adapting to a deeply digitised future.Organised around three central themes—AI for sustainable design, the evolving role of the architect, and innovation in education—this volume is essential reading for designers, educators, and researchers navigating the shifting landscape of architecture in the age of intelligent systems.Part of Springer's Urban Sustainability series, AI-Aided Design for Sustainability offers critical insight into the tools, mindsets, and methods shaping contemporary architecture.

This book provides a collection of the latest sustainable architecture and urban practices in arid and semi-arid cities and communities. It discusses the concept of resilience in architecture, discussing resilient socio-ecological systems in the Arab Region and using urban agriculture practices for designing resilient spaces. The book addresses sustainable building materials within the contexts of indoor spaces, climate change, and economic viability. It also addresses waste management and the concept of zero waste. The book highlights sustainable water management systems in buildings and cities, in addition to learned lessons from indigenous water management methods. It focuses on urban greening using haloculture for combating global warming effects and discusses the impact of green roofs as a type of urban greening in improving the thermal performance of buildings. The book delves into heat wave hazards and geospatial analysis in urban settings, using cyber-physical systems in smart cities and carbon-neutral urban developments. The book is useful to researchers, professionals, practitioners, post-graduates, and undergraduates who are interested in the field of environmental architecture engineering.

This book explores the intersection of densification and urban renewal in the context of China’s new urbanization, with a particular focus on social sustainability. It shifts the discussion from a citywide perspective to the community level, emphasizing a people-centred approach to regeneration. The approach is novel in its emphasis on social sustainability within densification and regeneration processes. It critiques traditional regeneration methods dominated by local government and spatial design, and advocates a systematic framework to support people-centred decision-making. The intended readership is likely to include urban planners, policy makers, researchers and academics interested in urban regeneration, sustainable development and Chinese urbanization. The content level is likely to be academic, aimed at readers with a background in urban studies, architecture, or related fields.

This book emphasizes sustainable water use through circular economy innovations, addressing the urgent need for efficient water management in various sectors. This approach integrates principles of reducing, reusing, and recycling water resources, fostering resilience against climate change and resource depletion.  The Conceptual Water Efficiency Framework (CWEF) promotes circular water use in industries by implementing closed-water loops and digital tools, enhancing sustainability in sectors like chemicals and meat production (Karkou et al., 2024). The Water Circular Economy Index (WCEI) quantitatively assesses water management across 132 countries, identifying critical areas for improvement in sustainable practices (Peydayesh & Mezzenga, 2024). The Water in Circular Economy and Resilience (WICER) Framework outlines actions to deliver resilient water services while preserving natural systems, particularly in developing countries (Delgado et al., 2024). This book investigates how water sustainability and circular economy can solve the world’s water problems. It offers a global approach that bridges environmental science, economics, policy, and technological advancement to provide practical recommendations for water consumption sustainability. The book provides practical advice, case studies, and future plans for researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and future plans for researchers, policymakers, practitioners and students. It would be an appropriate book to add to the discussion of water sustainability. With real-world issues, creative solutions, and a vision for the future, the book aims to empower policymakers and stakeholders to achieve a sustainable and water-secure world.

This book aims to elucidate the operational mechanisms of transfer of land development right within a public ownership system, which not only offers a distinctive and dynamic case study on TDR program to advance institutional diversity in transitional economies, but also serves as a valuable reference for addressing urban-rural development disparities worldwide.

This book explores the development process of the agricultural areas in the central plains of China under rapid urbanization, especially the changes in the daily lives of rural residents. Taking the Jianghan Plain as the study case, this book summarizes the rural transformation and reconstruction process of the region, as well as the changes in the daily activities of rural households under the context of urbanization and rural transformation. This book introduces and applies theories such as the mobilities paradigm, behavioral geography, and time geography, expanding the scope of their application and enriching the theoretical framework of rural geography and rural sociology research. This book could be used as a reference for graduate students, as well as researchers in the fields of geography, planning, sociology, etc.