The external environmental conditions in tropical cities are hot due to high temperatures and humidity. Strategic planning and design of exterior spaces can reduce energy consumption for building cooling by reducing various negative effects of tropical climate factors. The desired interior conditions of the building should be similar to the exterior microclimatic conditions. If the microclimate deviates significantly from this, large amounts of cooling energy may be required to create a comfortable interior environment. In this study, single-family houses were randomly selected in two well-planned cities in Malaysia, with 30% of the houses located in Putrajaya and 70% in Shah Alam. Most of the houses used a modern tropical building style to adapt to the challenging tropical climate with high temperatures, high humidity, and heavy downpours. Since air conditioning is the only ideal active system, 90% of the houses in the study areas were operated with this system to create and maintain a comfortable interior temperature. On average, the annual energy cost for cooling was about 36.7% per house. Several comparisons of energy use were made with minimal to moderate landscaping to determine the effectiveness of greening around the houses to reduce energy use in a tropical climate. Annual cooling energy savings reached up to 7%, equivalent to 948kWh (MYR233.00) per house. The results showed that landscaping had a significant impact on the cooling energy of the houses.

It is essential to conduct a logical investigation of the socio-economic space and improv planning approaches according to the location potentials to achieving development sustainability. This paper focuses on regional innovation models "RIMs" and spatial development initiatives "SDI". The goal is to establish a spatial structural model by adopting a strategic cluster structures and spatial development networks approach to localize the urban-rural sustainable development in the Syrian coastal region. The research uses a mixed-methods approach. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques are utilized to analyze the available data and information. A survey was conducted on a specific sample of respondents, including experts, academic researchers, and decision-makers, to gather opinions on the keys/problems of regional development and the pattern of urban-rural spatial development. Survey results and the geospatial characteristics of the region led to proposing the missing regional links at the macro-level for clusters to overcome limitations and reap opportunities beyond their spatial reach. At the meso-level, geographic units "river basins" provide a spatial incubator for the conceptual urban-rural structural map based on a spatial cluster development networks scenario. Therefore, an ArcGIS software analysis with a multi-tier classification of the developmental advantages was used to identify high value-adding productive/effective clusters. Then, a scale-up/out process was adopted to transfer lessons learned to adjacent sub-regions by formulating a guiding regional spatial vision. Results indicated that the conceptual spatial structure maps could be helpful to decision-makers in forming a support system for regional planning assets efficiency to steer the urban-rural sustainable development and establish regional growth engines with national dimensions.

Abu Dhabi’s recent coastal development in the Eastern Mangroves area involves the construction of a new bridge that will connect the main archipelago to newly urbanized islands. This bridge crosses over a major mangrove plantation resulting in a change in its geometry, surrounding water canals, and the marine environment. Over-the-sea bridges require construction and dredging activities that change existing environmental habitats and hydraulic flow. This article examines the changes in the waterfront and canal routes in the study area through satellite images and land use maps. Water flow was modeled by a two-dimensional (2D) hydrodynamic model, based on the Finite-Element Surface Water Modeling System (FESWMS), which simulated the changes in water circulation patterns after construction of the bridge. Our two-dimensional, hydrodynamic model indicated that the bridge’s construction would create stagnant conditions in the water downstream the bridge, potentially resulting in sediment aggradation, which would require continuous dredging of the canal in the future.

As testaments of the overseas trade along the Maritime Silk Road, the construction of heritage corridors for ancient kiln sites can help promote the concept of heritage corridors for localized research in China, while the relevant practices and theoretical explorations are relatively limited. The heritage space of ancient kiln sites is facing the status quo of fragmented protection. Understanding their spatial distribution is necessary to provide strategies for organic connection and tandem protection. This study uses a minimum cumulative resistance model and Methods of spatial analysis to construct the heritage corridors of ancient kiln sites in Fujian Province. Results show that the kiln sites are closely related to the distribution of the water system such as the harbors, the river, and the coast, with the kiln sites as the core resources. Combining the cultural and socio-economic factors, this study aims to build the heritage corridors for ancient kiln site in Fujian Province.

Cross-border tourism is an emerging topic in the field of tourism, which is still being debated at the level of its definition and characteristics. The debate is important because it can enrich and make the topic of cross-border tourism more mature. In cross-border tourism, tourist spatiotemporal is an essential aspect. Tourist spatiotemporal is a specific study to support the debate on cross-border tourism along with the growth of border areas. Therefore, this study aims to explore tourist spatiotemporal behavior in three border area between Indonesia-Timor Leste. By examining the characteristics of tourist engaged in cross-border tourism, this study seeks to offer a deeper understanding of their behavior. It also aims to provide valuable insights for stakeholders who are involved in managing cross-border tourism. This study employed qualitative methods, specifically through semi-structured interviews to collect data from 30 East Timorese citizens who had crossed Indonesia-Timor Leste border. It was conducted for three months, with one month spent at border gate for each country. Respondents were selected through purposive sampling, taking into account both representativeness and data requirements. This study highlights the unique characteristics of tourist who visit border region between Indonesia-Timor Leste, specifically in area of Mota'ain, Wini, and Motamasin. The results showed that these areas have distinct spatiotemporal behavior among tourist. These differences are observed in various aspects, such as their preferred mode of transportation, motivation for travel, length of stay, and movement patterns. Spatiotemporal characteristics of the three border area between Indonesia-Timor Leste are influenced by a variety of factors. Therefore, this study highlights the importance of diversifying tourist attractions in Indonesia-Timor Leste border area. Improving connectivity between destinations is essential in facilitating tourist visits to Indonesia. In this study, limitations were encountered in applying semi-structured interviews, which took a long time. Furthermore, aspects of motivational links, history, identity, and relations between the two countries have yet to be explored in this study, so future studies are expected to be able to fill this limitation.

This study explores the potential of traditional outdoor spaces for the sustainable development of urban housing in Iraq, with a focus on socio-environmental values, namely: equality of privacy, safety, and environmental quality. Such values played a major role in forming private outdoor spaces in Iraq's traditional housing. Thus, the this study discusses possible designs of private outdoor spaces in terms of forms, locations, and components for achieving these values by designing private outdoor spaces based on socio-environmental sustainability. To do this, the old city of Koya in Iraq was chosen because it is rich in architectural heritage and still contains traditional houses inhabited at present. Five famous types of private outdoor design are chosen in terms of their relationship with the indoor; four types represent the yard approach in the courtyard houses, and one represents the strip approach in the individual houses. A questionnaire was also designed to determine the extent of the resident'sresidents' satisfaction with the external spaces of these houses. By comparing the types mentioned above, the benefits gained by the community from following the yard approach were identified as a recommended future strategy for housing design. Then, each form of the courtyard houses was analyzedanalysed to understand the possible uses of each one. The paper's main finding is to establish a guideline for achieving socio-environmental values in housing design. This approach can be a high-potential step for achieving sustainable development in Iraq. The main conclusion of the study sustains that different outdoor forms —U-shaped, O-shaped, L-shaped¸, and combined shapes of inner spaces —lead to different benefits that help achieve social and environmental sustainability in different uses, the most important of which are: achieving privacy, and safety, without affecting environmental quality, and in a simple manner.

In fast-paced and high-pressure modern urban environments, the increase in chronic and psychological diseases significantly threatens public physical and mental health. The community environment is a basic unit of residents’ lives and has direct and indirect effects on their health. This study examined the daily activities of residents in 12 communities in Fuzhou City and analysed the influencing mechanism among the community environment, daily activities, and residents’ health by constructing a structural equation model. We identified the direct and indirect effects of the community environment on residents’ health and provided a reference for the construction of community environments to promote residents’ health. The natural environment had the greatest direct impact on residents’ health, and the physical environment had the greatest indirect and comprehensive impact. Daily activities had a mediating effect on the relationship between the community environment, particularly physical, and residents’ health.

Due to budget constraints in the local cities of Japan, there is an urgent need to prioritize the maintenance or removal of aging transportation infrastructure, particularly bridges. Given the declining tax revenues, our study proposes an approach to systematically address this challenge. Using GIS network analysis, we evaluated the impact of bridge removal on the daily travel time of residents, considering the intricate road network and population distribution of the selected study area, Island A. Various public facilities on the island were identified as potential destinations. Our methodology assessed the changes in travel time for residents if a bridge was removed. Four distinct bridge removal scenarios were proposed: two prioritize minimal disruption in resident travel time, and the other two focus on the life-cycle costs (LCC) of the bridges. This analytical process aims to achieve a balance between fiscal responsibility and ensuring resident convenience. By proposing efficient bridge removal plans based on the consequences of each scenario, we hope to guide local governments in making informed decisions. Through this Japanese case study, our methodology offers valuable insights into formulating strategies for other developed areas facing similar infrastructure challenges.

The location of a restaurant contributes greatly to its success or failure. Therefore, the factors affecting such location-related decisions must be carefully studied and prioritized systematically. This study aims to adapt the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) for selecting the optimal location for a casual-dining restaurant and determine the critical factors affecting the selection. After a comprehensive review of the literature, this study first determines the factors affecting casual-dining restaurant location selection and then applies AHP steps by soliciting experts' opinions under several criteria and sub-criteria. The AHP model used in the study consisted of seven criteria, twenty-five sub-criteria, and three locations alternatives. The three most important criteria that affect the location selection of the casual-dining restaurant are Costs, Location, and Traffic patterns and accessibility, respectively. To illustrate the framework of using AHP as a tool to select the right location for a casual-dining restaurant, three locations were nominated and ranked according to the calculated weight scores of the criteria. Moreover, the results of the sensitivity analysis show that the location alternatives are not sensitive to the physical characteristics, location, area's future, costs, or, competition criteria, while they were slightly sensitive to the visibility, and traffic patterns criteria. The results of the study provide a range of managerial implications that may guide casual-dining restaurant investors in choosing the optimal location.

Sustainable urban design for historical city centres should carefully focus on the transformations in urban morphology and land use aspects as a starting point. It is important to understand the process of an urban space’s evolution to assess its future design. This paper aims to assess the patterns of urban transformation in historical city centres that belong to different periods of their history, to highlight the relationship between the occupation of urban space and urban transformation. Aiming to understand the impact of different factors on urban transformation and identity, the research method adopts space syntax analysis using axial and segment maps to compare the variation of syntactic parameters over time for three city centres in Algeria (Algiers, Constantine and Tlemcen) in three periods that mark the different key stages of urban evolution. The selected case studies represent typical examples of the foundation and evolution of cities in Algeria. Results show that patterns of urban evolution in the three city centres present almost similar variations, despite the global differences between them (size, population, initial morphology, and site topography) in addition to the operations of transforming the urban morphology. The main findings of this research can be stated as a model of urban evolution for the historic city centres in Algeria during the mentioned periods.

Land Use Planning is a key component of Urban Planning and is important for planned development. It ensures that the resources are used efficiently, and orderly development is taking place. However, Land use planning in relation to hill regions is not a well-known or researched topic in India. Many scholars and researchers have expressed their views related to inappropriate development in the hills due to the lack of land use planning in these eco-sensitive areas but there are no in-depth studies on the land use planning pertaining to the hill towns of India. Therefore, the paper, focus is on understanding the prevailing land use planning process in Indian hill towns. The methodology opted is the in-depth literature study of the land use planning in the hills followed by a semi-structured interview of various town planning officials in the hill states of India such as Himachal Pradesh, Jammu, Kashmir, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura and Uttarakhand. In addition, mapping of the steps to be followed for land use planning provided by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and followed in hill states of India has been analysed in order to understand the gaps and problems in the land use planning process in India's hill cities. The current study uses land use suitability and seeks to identify various criteria from literature and expert interviews that can serve as the basis for land use planning in the hills. The determination of weights of the criteria is also carried out with the questionnaire expert survey. As a result, the study contributes to the understanding of how and to what degree the land use planning process is effective at present and provides a set of criteria that can be the basis for land use planning for hill cities of India.

This research has focused on the fuzzy logic model for evaluating the necessity of expanding the rail transit network to achieve sustainable transport development. It is essential to distinguish input parameters that can be obtained and updated frequently in a cost-effective way. A framework that can be employed to systemize the planning process by using the ‘Rail Transit Fuzzy Logic Model’. It can be characterized as a spatial suitability oriented fuzzy approach by using five inputs (slope, geology, population, land use and stream), 1 output (Suitability Score) and 108 If-Then rules to assist in combining these data sources in the MATLAB environment. This study consists of three main steps: (i) development of a fuzzy inference system (FIS), (ii) design of the graphical user interface (GUIDE toolbox), and (iii) suitability score database production for the study area. Fuzzy rule-based systems have been applied with parameters represented by fuzzy diagrams that are integrated into an aggregate form to obtain a spatial suitability score. This analysis allows us to assign suitability scores for any specific type of study area. The study area is composed of 208 rows and 216 columns that are uploaded and modelled in MATLAB R2021b as a 216-by-208 matrix. This method commonly has not been employed and processed for a rail network that covers a large geographical area spanning several regions in a city. The proposed methodology offers systematic qualitative data available for decision-makers to be used in the evaluation of rail transportation investments.

The thematic village is one of the Semarang city government programs in alleviating poverty which is manifested in the form of a tourist destination. However, the goal of poverty alleviation is in question because the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 has stopped people's activities. The poverty rate in Semarang City has increased by 4.56% in the last three years (2019-2021). According to that, the author wants to see the condition of the thematic villages in Semarang City after the program has been running since 2016. This study measures the sustainability of thematic villages in Semarang City during the COVID-19 pandemic based on four sustainable aspects. The research method used is a quantitative method with scoring and weighting analysis. Data collection techniques are carried out by distributing questionnaires to 200 respondents in three thematic villages, including Hasta Karya Village, Batik Village, and Ranting Pelangi Village. Based on the questionnaires, it was found that the environmental aspect is the most sustainable in all three villages. Meanwhile, the economic aspect is less sustainable, among other aspects. These results show that the sustainability of thematic villages in Semarang City needs further evaluation by the Semarang City Government, especially in terms of improving the economic aspect.