Metaverse | Transitioning (To) Future Cities: Transdisciplinary platforms as instruments to democratise technology for participatory use in building back neglected urban voids of Riga

We are at the beginning of the most significant societal change since the internet. We are transitioning from a 2-dimensional browser-based interaction to immersive 3-dimensional experiences. The metaverse is not a place or a destination but a state where technology and ecosystem are symbiotic. <br/>Digital Twins, interactive toolkits,...

Community Participation and Empowerment in Informal Settlement Upgrading: A Case Study in Monterrey, Mexico

As part of the larger urban context, informal settlements belong to the realm of formal urban governance while simultaneously possessing governance systems of their own. In the Mexican context, a shift in urban governance has facilitated elements of a networks approach, which places community participation as central to upgrading interventions,...

A Policy Coherence Framework for Circular Built Environment Implementation: the Case of a Campus Development

Dozens of cities around the world have already envisioned a circular built environment by establishing a variety of sectorial policies, strategies, and roadmaps, among other policy documents. As circularity is introduced in the making and operation of the built environment, caveats have been raised upon the governance of circular transitions....

The circular built environment toolbox: A systematic literature review of policy instruments

The built environment plays a central role in the transition towards the circular economy as they concentrate major consumer and polluter human activities. However, the way BEs are – and need to be – driven by policy to reach cities’ circular goals is still an under-researched aspect. Particularly, there is limited knowledge of policy...

Development Plan Strategies of Old Aleppo City and Sustainable Development Goals: Between Theory and Practice

The Old City of Aleppo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, has been inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1986. In the early 1990s the Aleppo municipality initiated the project for the Rehabilitation of the Old City with the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) as a partner. As part of the process, a...

Bypassing institutional barriers: New types of transit-oriented development in China

China is often viewed as an emerging experimental base for transit-oriented development (TOD) practices because of its rapid urban growth and development of mass transit networks. The implementation of TOD can be heavily influenced by institutional barriers to urban growth. However, some newly emerging types of TOD practice allow planners and...

From city promotion via city marketing to city branding: Examining urban strategies in 23 Chinese cities

City promotion, city marketing and city branding are all frequently mentioned and examined in the literature on urban governance. Based on the goals and characteristics of different city branding strategies, this study identifies a growing level of sophistication from city promotion via city marketing to city branding and proposes that the...

The many shades of grey in urban governance: How illegality shapes urban planning, policy and development

Most research on urban planning, policy and development only considers legal practices and actors, and treats illegal ones as insignificant anomalies, unable to structurally affect the governance of urban space. However, this approach is inadequate for explaining urban governance in contexts (e.g. several countries in the Global South, the...

Implementing social sustainability in area development projects in the Netherlands

During recent decades, urbanization processes and changing population compositions in European cities have underlined the relevance of social sustainability for urban development. Despite a growing amount of research on the social sphere of sustainability, the actual implementation of social sustainability in area development projects remains...

First AID for Area Development: What the Area Improvement District is, how it creates collective value and why it changes the paradigm on urban governance

The conditions that determine when and why individuals can be forced to contribute to collective services are part of an ongoing debate in the spatial planning and urban governance domain. In this thesis the problem of and a solution to free-ridership in area developments with existing property owners alongside incoming real estate developers,...

Sturing op toeristische gentrificatie in stadscentra: Lessen uit Amsterdamse stadsstraten

The extensive growth of urban tourism is influencing the living environment of urban citizens worldwide, which is among others due to changes in the range of commercial amenities. For example, the existing supply of retail and hospitality services is gradually changing from a focus on inhabitants to the tourist. As a result, the call for...

The City as a License. Implications of Blockchain and Distributed Ledgers for Urban Governance

Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) such as blockchain have in recent years been presented as a new general-purpose technology that could underlie many aspects of social and economic life, including civics and urban governance. In an urban context, over the past few years, a number of actors have started to explore the application of...

Planning initiative: Promoting development by the use of options in Amsterdam

The development of existing urban areas is needed to prevent urban sprawl. Several factors, including land assembly holdouts and the option value of land, contribute to landowners’ lack of initiative to develop designated sites. Urban governance measures, however, may provide the necessary solutions. By implementing policies that promote inner...

Waterfront Development Management in Greece: Exploring the case of “Lipasmata” in Piraeus, towards alternative approaches

The declining port/industrial activities near the urban structure of cities generate new challenges for contemporary societies. Among others, these challenges interest the desolation of urban districts and the creation of large urban voids, one of the major problems affecting, nowadays, the Greek cities. This phenomenon is witnessed in a larger...

Operating in the Dutch housing system: A guidance for Dutch municipalities to get more understanding on strategies to develop dwellings on their land during the aftermath of the housing crisis of 2008

The changed conditions in the Dutch housing market have made it difficult for municipalities to decide what type of strategy is suitable to apply. This thesis focuses on the decision for a top-down (TD) or bottom-up and network oriented (BN) strategy. There seems to be a trend in Dutch housing away from TD strategies and towards more BN...