With the fall of the Communist Regimen in the Western Balkans Region, governance politics regarding urban and spatial planning processes led to significant changes in several territorial aspects. In this regard, several scientific studies and researches have put forward significant regional differences in urban development between cities of the Balkans that have followed very similar trajectories after the collapse of the “communist empire,” considering their willingness and desire to meet European standards - Tirana, Podgorica, Sarajevo are just some examples. Between the several disparities, these territories represent compared to Central and North European regions, massive and uncontrolled urban growth has been verified – catalyzed by liberal governance politics and private companies, without planning experts, and jeopardizing the need to include public participation in the development processes. This situation has led to significant uncontrolled planning and, consequently, to several negative social-economic impacts driven by it. For this reason, the development of a detailed review study considering spatial planning perspectives in the Western Balkans Region is seen as pivotal to understanding the existing planning disparities that affect the sustainable development of this area. Through an exploratory methodology – using both case study approach methods and territorial impact assessment (TIA) - it will be possible to understand how these events occurred and evolved, enabling the development of specific tools and approaches which might help to minimize the cumulative impacts of these processes. Therefore, the outcomes will define guidelines regarding urban planning processes for the main actors responsible for developing new governance measures toward achieving European standards.

Many developing countries as well as some developed countries suffer from the problem of slums. They constitute a real defect in the economic and social development plan of the concerned countries. The methods used to finance development projects in countries vary according to the different social, economic, and legislative influences. The process of providing the expenses required for these projects is one of the most important problems that governments face. The study aims to establish some rules and principles in a proposed theoretical framework and to document some of the experiences of supporting cities globally as well as in the African and Arab countries, by using a general analysis model that includes Egyptian experiences to understand the most important problems related to sustainable development and how to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in the development of urban planning and management. An analytical study is conducted to the experience of participatory development of Manshiyet Nasser is presented and the proposed development programs to determine their advantages and disadvantages. The study concluded to identifying several recommendations for dealing with slums and setting an integrated urban development model for low-income areas that can be replicated in other similar sites. The study also concluded that in development projects, focus is placed on popular participation and decentralization in decision-making, seeking to solve existing problems in society and taking the initiative to experiment new methods from which the government refrains for fear of failure.

Buraydah, a small Saudi Arabian city, has transformed rapidly in the last few decades. This transformation has occurred due to economic growth, population growth, infrastructural development, and environmental factors. The urban identity is shaped by cultural patterns and the regional diversity within its fabric. Historical sites that retain architectural traits from their respective eras play a significant role in transmitting urban identity to future generations. However, when individuals disregard traditional identities in search of modernism and urbanization, dramatic changes occur in the physical structure, social-spatial pattern, socio-economic structure, and socio-cultural structure of the city. All of these have dramatically altered the city’s identity, which historically took a long time to develop. While the historic sites in the city that have been demolished for expansion and development, also cause the city to lose its identity. This study's objective is to investigate the cause of the changes in identity in Buraydah city. For this purpose, relevant literature was reviewed to identify and address the research objectives and examine the urban and architectural identity concepts, while the comparative study of archival materials with site investigation and survey was conducted in the practical aspect. The result of the study identifies certain factors that contributed to the loss of identity of the city.

Quality of Life is important but often neglected, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health and economic aspects are currently getting more attention. Therefore, this study tries to measure the Quality of Life of the community during a pandemic, especially when physical distancing is implemented. To measure Quality of Life, the data was collected using a survey conducted electronically using the Google form application. The instrument used in data collection was adapted from WHOQOL instruments. Data collection began after one year of the adoption of a physical distancing policy by the Indonesian government and carried out for one month and collected 370 respondents after filtering. This study shows that the Quality of Life of the community in general is not different from the aspect of the characteristics of the respondents. Family income, age and length of time for physical distancing are domains that affect several Quality of Life domains. Strengthening of religious values, subsidy schemes to maintain family income levels and length of physical distancing can be used as policies taken by the government related to the Quality of Life due to global pandemic disasters.

This work aims to reveal the current status of the city information modeling (CIM) from massive patent data, using the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model, and quantify the evolution trends of future topics by the Hidden Markov Model (HMM). The results show that the CIM technologies can be divided into 17 topics. At the present stage, the technologies related to the Internet of things (IOT), big data and data management are the focus of the research and development (R&D) of CIM patents. Compared with the software technology, further development is needed for the hardware technology supporting CIM, particularly in terms of information acquisition (cameras and sensors), storage, and information transmitters. This study deepens the understanding of the CIM-related technical categories, and clarifies the direction of the development and evolution of CIM technology, providing a strong support to decision-makers in urban management.

This study examines how to support regional development with the quadruple helix creative industry model through descriptive qualitative analysis. The primary data were collected through observation, interviews, and FGDs (Focus Group Discussions) with academics, creative economy actors, community leaders, and government officials. The markets in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia were studied between October 2020 and October 2021. Purposive sampling technique was used to select informants, and snowball sampling approach was utilized to conduct the interviews. The findings revealed that the lack of roles in research and knowledge production by academic actors in Medan has increased the need for a network of academic actors to fill the gap; the government has not been able to play a role in providing funding support and incentives for business actors in creative industries, especially in creating innovations. The synergy between actors in the quadruple helix implementation has not been properly utilized, even in the case of the Medan City Government, which ought to be the main source of information in social media for the city's creative sector. Following up on these findings, the quadruple helix creative industry model was implemented as an innovation model to support the regional economy of the city of Medan.

Street trees make up an important part of the eco-environment and landscape of urban roads. The species of street trees significantly affect the green volume of urban roads. The leaf area index (LAI) is often adopted to measure the ratio of green volume for urban roads, laying a scientific basis for optimizing street trees. This paper measures and analyses the LAI and green plot ratio (GPR) of 14 common street tree species in Xinxiang, a city in Central China’s Henan Province. The results show that, except for evergreens, the LAI values of deciduous trees varied significantly from month to month, forming a single-peaked curve. The LAI values of street trees have a significant positive correlation with the day of year (DOY) (P<0.01). As for the roads with a single row of street trees, the highest mean annual GPR values were achieved by Juglans regia Linn., followed in turn by Ligustrum lucidum Ait., Sophora japonica L., Populus tomentosa Carrière, Fraxinus chinensis Roxb. and Platanus orientalis Linn. Among the 12 common types of double-row road tree combinations, the GPR values all increased first and then decreased; the largest annual mean value belonged to the combination “Sophora japonica L.+ Sophora japonica L.” In the same section, the annual mean GPR value of double-row road trees was 3-7 times higher than that of single-row road trees. Our research demonstrates that the GPR can quantify the differences between different street tree species and combination types, and help to optimize the greening arrangement and plant configuration.

This paper assesses the potential of multiplicity in the housing environment for achieving social sustainability compared to singularity. For this purpose, a neighborhood assessment framework was developed to cover three values of social sustainability, namely, stability, continuity, and fairness, as well as several factors related to each value. Two cases were chosen from the neighborhoods in the city of Nablus: Type (1) as an example of multiplicity, and type (2) as an example of singularity. The research data were collected through an architectural survey on the features of both types of neighborhoods, and analyzed in details. On this basis, the two types of neighborhoods were compared based on the said values. The results show that the values of sustainability increase in type (2) at the level of the single building, while growing in type (1) at the level of the residential neighborhood. Multiplicity is a high-potential approach for achieving social sustainability, if the design of the residential buildings caters to people’s needs and wants. In addition, several suggestions were made for improving the neighborhood design in Palestine based on multiplicity.

As urbanization picks up speed, row upon row of high-rise buildings spring up, and their structure is increasingly complex. In the meantime, fire poses a more and more serious problem to these buildings. This paper summarizes the recent development of high-rise buildings, and analyzes the main features of high-rise building fire from the angles of material design, structural design, etc. The technical development of heat preservation material greatly improves the security of exterior fire prevention system. Starting from the structure of the building itself, architects have carried out systematic and reasonable planning for smoke exhaust design, automatic alarm design, stair design, and so on. The fire safety of high-rise buildings could be improved in an all-round way, drawing on advanced technologies like fighting drones, robots and the Internet of things.

The Covid-19 pandemic has put pressure on the prices of food, particularly rice, a strategic commodity for trade across Indonesia. The traditional market and wholesalers face intense price competition for rice, which renders the market ineffective. This study proves the form of rice market integration in wholesalers and traditional markets, as well as the behavior of pricing both before and after the pandemic. The research data are the weekly and monthly prices from the Indonesian National Strategic Food Price Information Center Institute for the years 2018 to 2021. Vector autoregression (VAR) and error correction model (ECM) were adopted for the integration analysis. The results suggest that prices in traditional markets and wholesalers cointegrate, but this does not persist over time. Equilibrium prices in both markets were reached after 4 months. The price trend demonstrates that price changes in both markets before and during the epidemic are not symmetric. Price changes during the Covid-19 epidemic were erratic and dramatic. Government involvement through suitable policies is required in a market environment under intense pressure to stabilize prices. Market participants must accept this policy in order to prevent any party from gaining an undue advantage.

Urban farmers who want to produce food for export must adhere to an environmental certification program due to the scarcity of resources in cities and the unpredictability of the international food trade. This paper employs a descriptive narrative technique along with a qualitative methodology. The relevant data were collected through observation, in-depth interviews, and documentation, and analyzed by condensation, data presentation, and drawing conclusions or verification. Our results suggested that certification was not yet a useful tool for persuading farmers to adopt more environmentally friendly farming practices. The majority of the agricultural business techniques used by export-scale urban farmers are not organic. There was a tendency for farmers to complete certification if it was required for export. In the meantime, social certification, food safety, and content quality were just recommendations made by international organizations rather than being strictly enforced, particularly in Indonesia.