Habitat plays a pivotal role in shaping inhabitants’ quality of life, as housing location often symbolizes social status. Locational attributes, including social and public infrastructure, amenities, and accessibility, are crucial to residents’ overall well-being. Research indicates that satisfaction with one’s residential location relates to factors such as the physical and social environment, neighborhood characteristics, urban hierarchy status, and access to essential services. As a multi-dimensional concept, location satisfaction contributes to both residential satisfaction and broader quality of life studies. Numerous studies have explored residential satisfaction, focusing on various determinants and their overall influence on well-being. However, a deeper exploration of location-specific factors is necessary to refine this research. This paper presents an extensive review of existing studies on location and neighborhood satisfaction, elucidating the conceptual underpinnings of location satisfaction and its determinants. The review employed a systematic search across multiple databases, combined with bibliographic analysis and rigorous screening, yielding 66 relevant studies. Its findings highlight key location-related variables and their impact on quality of life and overall satisfaction. By underscoring the significance of location in residential satisfaction, this review aims to enrich current theoretical frameworks and inform future empirical work. Furthermore, it contributes valuable insights for urban planners and policymakers working toward equitable, accessible neighborhoods, particularly in developing economies. Ultimately, strengthening the role of location satisfaction in residential satisfaction theory has the potential to drive more nuanced, effective policies that enhance urban environments and the lives of their residents. Future research can refine and expand the understanding of location satisfaction.

Urban regeneration, especially in dense cities of emerging economies, requires mass public transportation supported by improved walkability, which reduces traffic and promotes health. A pedestrian-friendly environment and public transit ridership change urban life, including housing markets. In markets, convenient public transit can affect housing prices and demand. Due to their convenience and affordability, neighbourhoods near public transportation nodes are more expensive and in demand. Transit-designed communities usually have better walkability, which raises housing prices. However, these parameters can overvalue housing assets, risking local housing markets. The study examines how walkability and public transportation ridership affect Delhi's housing markets. The housing market changes in the Delhi metro catchment areas from 2010 to 2019 were reviewed. A total of 1039 sample apartments were studied, and the catchments of metro stations were assessed based on average walking speed, fetched using Google's time-distance matrix API. It was observed that, in general, in station catchments, the housing was overvalued until 2013. The findings suggest that Delhi's housing market was regenerating, and housing investment returns were lower than expected, but demand was consistent. After this, the housing market appears to have readjusted to actual valuation. The synergic effects of walkability and metro ridership growth on housing prices were assessed using Binary Logistic Regression. The study found that walkability and annual ridership growth moderately synergistically affected housing prices. However, the synthesis of walkability with other complementary variables can accelerate the escalation of housing market dynamics more tangibly and rapidly.

In recent years, the government has regenerated heritage areas of the city centre of Semarang where it has rebuilt the area’s damaged infrastructure. This activity is intended to save cultural heritage areas. The development has included some heritage building owners; there are still several heritage buildings owned by State Owned Enterprises that remain stalled. The article aims to examine the concept application of public-private partnership (PPP) in the regeneration of the old city of Semarang. Qualitative interviews were conducted with informants with experience handling heritage buildings, and secondary data analysis was conducted on the PPP concept. The research results show that investors who typically engage in this activity have a set of fairly consistent characteristics, and the interviews showed three primary findings. First, the investors tend to care more about historical buildings, not only financial gain, but also social impact and environmental sustainability. Second, Heritage buildings belonging SOEs haven’t yet collaborated with the private. Third, there is potential for structured PPP such as the feasibility of heritage buildings, and the heritage guarantee agency supervises government-owned cultural heritage buildings. This article suggests that involving sponsorship can enhance the effectiveness of the PPP concept for state-owned heritage buildings.

Against the backdrop of China's rapid urbanization and modernization, rural public spaces are undergoing significant changes. This study investigates the cultural vitality of rural public spaces in Fujian Province, focusing on four representative types: activity squares, village parks, village entrances, and ancestral halls. Using a combination of questionnaire surveys and image semantic segmentation, the research develops a comprehensive evaluation framework to assess these spaces across four dimensions: field attribute elements, functional attribute elements,social attribute elements and cultural attribute elements.The findings reveal that activity squares and village parks have high potential for enhancing cultural vitality, while village entrances and ancestral halls require significant improvements. The study proposes specific strategies for optimizing spatial layouts, integrating cultural elements, and promoting community participation to revitalize rural public spaces. Future research should expand the scope of data collection and explore more diverse space types to further enrich the understanding of rural public space creation and cultural vitality enhancement.

Geographic Information System (GIS) technology integrates geographic research with information for better understanding and perception. It assists people in achieving a common objective of gaining useful insight from all kinds of data. The concept of smart mapping, also called story mapping, which enables users to get visually impressive and useful maps quickly and easily, has emerged with Web-GIS. A framework for mapping and analysis is built using GIS and is used in research and almost every industry. Among the applications are digital documentation of heritage sites, tourism promotion, and usage in archaeological surveys. The work combines GIS and Web technology to develop a portal with the purpose of preserving cultural assets and information on Shri Guru Gobind Singh Ji Marg. Users can have a visual tour of Shri Guru Gobind Singh Ji Marg, which extends from Anandpur Sahib to Talwandi Sabo, and gain information about any site on the marg. In addition to the geospatial data mapping, an interactive narrative map has been developed using open-source technologies for geo-visualization. The location's historical significance is highlighted on the narrative map. The map can also be used to discover more information about it, including the nearest amenities, construction-related information, images, videos, and panoramic views. Through data-driven reporting and study, the work also gives authorities the capacity to optimize site maintenance plans.

In India, 40% of the population is under 25. Therefore, the demand for higher education is growing. This results in the migration of the young population, creating a high demand for housing. Higher Education Institutes (HEI) often cannot cater to this demand. Rental housing options in neighbourhoods around the HEI cater to a large portion of this demand. Such an influx of students in neighbourhoods often creates chaos and leads to gentrification. It affects the neighbourhood’s liveability, resulting in the growth of poor and low-quality housing conditions. Students’ preferences are very significant to assess to provide planning interventions in systematic allocation and creation of standard housing in a typical city. The paper analyses students’ preferences for a rental housing unit in a neighbourhood in Dehradun, one of India’s educational hubs. It focuses on ten locational and twenty-seven housing attributes identified. Importance-performance analysis (IPA) was conducted using primary data collected from 425 respondents. The research findings show that the neighbourhood’s safety, environment, and location are essential, while affordable locality is crucial and needs focus. Regarding housing, cost, amenities, and privacy are crucial for choice-making by the students, while focus needs to be given to security. Finally, we focus on housing options that can be considered, i.e. Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA). The study shall help the developers and HEIs develop the housing options and preferences for students migrating to cities for education and jobs. Moreover, the findings will also enrich the literature related to housing satisfaction in a contextual manner.

Climate-sensitive urban planning research is crucial for improving city life quality, especially in winter-cities, providing to incorporate climatic elements to planning to promote outdoor activities and improving air quality. This study aims to examine the impact of ecological corridors on outdoor human thermal comfort and air pollution in winter cities. The study assessed how the urban environment in Erzurum, one of Turkey's coldest cities with low thermal comfort and high PM10 levels, responds to changing climatic conditions in regard to the implementation of proposed ecological corridors that involved opening closed stream lines. The winter 2023 analysis assessed the effectiveness of ecological corridors in mitigating winter disturbances caused by air pollution and thermal comfort conditions in the Erzurum, using maps generated from morphological, meteorological, and spatial data employing ENVI-met. It was found that newly established ecological corridors can mitigate the negative effects of high urban density, improper land use, lack of natural and green areas, and ventilation issues, leading to enhanced air quality and temperature. Same corridors, however, may decrease thermal comfort levels by inducing cold stress, especially in shaded areas. Thus, ecological corridors should be implemented with caution considering their potential negative and positive impacts on quality of city life.

Abstract: Ecovillages are communities designed through locally owned, participatory processes to integrate social, cultural, ecological, and economic dimensions of sustainability, aiming for development that meets current needs without compromising future generations. Critics argue that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) face challenges due to vague action plans. In contrast, as experimental grounds for sustainable living, ecovillages provide concrete explorations of the SDGs. However, comprehensive analyses of their contributions to the SDGs remain limited. This study addresses this gap through a thematic review of literature published between 2020 and 2024 in Scopus and Web of Science. Using inductive coding and axial grouping with ATLAS.ti, the analysis reveals five key themes, encompassing the domains of Rural Development, Educational Approaches and Learning, Social and Innovative Economic Practices, Sustainability Models and Practices, and Landscape and Rural Design. The findings demonstrate that social and economic practices are the most frequently addressed themes, while spatial and design-oriented strategies have gained increasing attention in recent years. Ecovillages promote SDG advancement through grassroots innovation, place-based learning, renewable energy experimentation, and culturally grounded practices, despite notable regional disparities in research. This study also highlights the policy relevance of ecovillages as bottom-up alternatives to top-down SDG implementation, underscoring the need for adaptive governance frameworks that support community autonomy and context-sensitive sustainability transitions.

The increasingly dynamic development of rural-urban regions (RUR) necessitates the advancement of classification methods for RUR areas. Traditional boundaries, primarily based on land use patterns and population distribution, are no longer sufficient to capture the complex socio-economic dynamics and spatial integration that characterise contemporary RUR landscapes. Penajam Paser Utara (PPU), which directly borders Indonesia’s Nusantara Capital City (IKN), exhibits a high degree of regional dynamism, making it an exemplary case for the application of typological assessment approaches. This research aims not only to redefine RUR by integrating the most recent theories and advancements in data acquisition technologies but also to identify the typology of RUR in PPU Regency. The spatial method of Kernel Density was applied to evaluate critical variables, including activity accumulation, land-use characteristics, connectivity, government services, and population size and density using integrated field data and geospatial big data (e.g., satellite imagery, mobile data). Despite evolving RUR assessment methods, unresolved debates persist regarding the selection of optimal indicators, particularly the role of connectivity in delineating urban boundaries. The findings not only successfully provide new evidence for the application of advanced kernel density models that incorporate multiple data sources to represent key land use and connectivity features, but they also reveal that the study area was mostly rural, with limited urban areas. Penajam and Babulu had larger peri-urban areas, suggesting future urbanization potential. Waru and Sepaku lacked urban areas, confirming their rural nature. These results underline the critical importance of RUR delineation for spatial analysis in PPU and highlight the need for further research on sustainable urban-rural linkages to promote balanced development. This research contributes novel insights into the assessment and classification of RURs, particularly in high-dynamic regions.

The green economy is an economic approach that emphasizes sustainable growth through environmentally friendly program strategies. Bukit Peramun tourist village in Belitung is a prime example of a green economy initiative in the tourism sector, positively impacting local community's economy through its management practices. This research aims to explore how the implementation of green economy strategies has the potential to enhance the welfare and empowerment of the community in developing their area as a tourist attraction. Employing a qualitative method, this study gathers data through secondary sources, observations, and interviews with local tourism offices, marketing departments, and creative economy stakeholders. The findings indicate that Bukit Peramun has emerged as a source of new economic opportunities, with its management effectively utilizing the green economy concept to promote community empowerment as active participant in development. The emphasis on local wisdom serves as a compelling draw for tourists interested in cultural experiences, fostering a sense of pride among residents and creating economic opportunities tied to the village's unique offerings. Furthermore, supports from collaborative networks with policymakers facilitates access to essential services, enhancing the development of Bukit Peramun as it operates within the green economy framework.

The formulation of policy and the planning of strategies for island-based provinces presents a distinctive set of challenges, necessitating the consideration of specific factors. The extant literature on the subject of development in island-based regions is scant. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the current state of regional development on Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, and to propose scenarios for future planning. The formulation of strategies is predicated on an analysis of extant conditions. The data were collected through a combination of in-depth interviews, media reports, government statistical publications, direct observation, and focus group discussions. The following conclusions can be deduced from the findings: The analysis reveals several key findings. Firstly, there is considerable inequality in development achievements across provinces. Secondly, the leading economic sectors are agriculture, forestry, and fisheries. Thirdly, no province in Sulawesi has fully met its development targets. Finally, there are significant investment disparities between provinces. The paper proposes a series of recommendations for the enhancement of regional development in Sulawesi. These recommendations include the prioritisation of spatial planning and conservation measures, the reinforcement of agriculture's contribution to food security, the regulation of industrial growth with a focus on downstream industries, the development of sustainable tourism destinations, the construction of integrated and connected infrastructure, the support of energy systems, and the promotion of good governance practices.

Abstract: The Malang Government has made several improvements to strengthen Kayutangan as the Heritage Capital of Malang City. The presence of new cafes reviving historic buildings in K.S.C. (Kayutangan Street Corridor) has become a place for food and beverage businesses. The rise of new companies in K.S.C. and the massive improvement of K.S.C. has led to the revitalization of diverse shop frontages along the street corridor due to the revival of social, economic, and cultural activities in the Kayutangan area. This study aims to investigate the level of suitability for the emergence of shop frontage design diversity on historic buildings. We are focusing on visitor’s preferences as laypeople. The results show three building frontage typologies in the study object: Associated-Suspended, Overlapped, and Confronted. The assessment of visitor preferences shows a good level of suitability preference for the variety of historic building frontages in Kayutangan. Visitor preferences reveal that building frontages with associated-suspended and overlapped typologies have the highest significance of suitability of shop frontage design concepts compared to the Confrontational type. Therefore, this study suggests considering Associated-Suspended and Overlapped typologies to be implemented on a transformed historic building. When analyzed together as visual and spatial aspects of the area as a whole, the Building Style and Function are the factors that influence the suitability of shop frontage design in the K.S.C. area. The unique characteristics of Dutch East Indies architecture and the building's function can elevate the building’s image and the street corridor’s image as a historic district.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted significant changes in daily life, including how people use public open spaces. While many studies have explored behavioral changes in these spaces during the pandemic, it remains unclear whether such shifts have persisted in the post-pandemic era. This study examines whether behavioral changes in public open space usage during the pandemic were temporary or lasting, using two public open spaces—Sanxia Square and Shapingba Park—in Chongqing, China. Data were collected through two questionnaire surveys and field observations conducted during and after the pandemic. Findings reveal that during the pandemic, 62.7% of users in Sanxia Square and 53.6% in Shapingba Park reported decreased usage, while only 9.5% and 14.1%, respectively, reported increased usage. Following the lifting of restrictions, visit frequency, duration, and activity levels increased significantly, indicating that most behavioral changes were temporary. However, 64.2% of respondents in Sanxia Square and 57.8% in Shapingba Park indicated they would reduce their usage again in the event of future pandemics, citing a lack of improvements in design and management. This study highlights the need for pandemic-resilient planning and design of public open spaces to ensure continued functionality under both normal and emergency conditions.