Walkability is considered a critical factor that has shaped pre-industrial cities, and today it is promoted as the central element to achieve sustainable urban design and resilient communities. This paper aims to identify walkability profiles specific to Brisbane, Australia, one of the Australasian region’s fastest growing cities. The study seeks to understand if the specific urban conditions of Brisbane impact people’s attitude towards walking. Data on Brisbane walkability have been collected through a quantitative methodology; findings reveal that Brisbane pedestrians walk an average of 28-35 minutes daily, covering a maximum of 3.3 kilometers. The research also indicates that age is not a critical factor influencing walking times or distances and that the movement speed for distances below 10 kilometers is comparable to the average of other transport modes (car and public transport). This research is a pilot study to understand Brisbane’s walkability and to inform future research on sustainable urban design in the region.

Since the implementation of feed in tariffs (FIT: a subsidy policy to promote the spread of renewable energy), the external diseconomies of solar panels installed in excess, to earn income from the sale of electricity from photovoltaic power generation, have become apparent. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to identify the impact of the installation of photovoltaic power generation facilities on the living space of citizens. Using data collected through a web survey of residents living in five prefectures in the north-eastern Kanto region of Japan, a spatial autocorrelation analysis was conducted to identify the spatial distribution of discomfort caused by photovoltaic power generation facilities. The results clearly indicated that the spatial discomfort of these residents living in clusters, increased with the installation of the solar panels in their living space. Some of the residents intend making radical demands for corporate action to alleviate their discomfort; such actions can lead to environmental conflict. The results demonstrate that radical solutions are necessary to reduce the spread of this discomfort. By further utilizing the data obtained in this study, it will be possible to estimate the regions at risk of solar panel-related conflict more objectively.

Due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic and various restrictions, peoples’ leisure activity patterns significantly change. Thus, it is necessary to understand how people’s travel and leisure behaviors have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is still a lack of empirical evidence on how individuals’ COVID-19 risk perception influences their leisure destination choice behavior. This empirical study aims to confirm the relationship between risk perception of COVID-19 and choice of leisure destination and to explore any differences between them related to demographic characteristics. A total of 537 valid samples were used for SUR model analysis by conducting an online survey targeting citizens of the Seoul metropolitan area, Korea. Our findings show that the risk perception of COVID-19 has a significant effect on the choice of leisure places. In particular, the risk perception of COVID-19 has a positive effect on the choice of natural places, disinfected areas, and socially distanced spaces while negatively influencing the choice of crowded leisure places. In addition, age and gender are more effective factors than other control variables in COVID-19 risk perception and leisure destination choices. Furthermore, this study also provides several implications for urban leisure place planners and service providers to respond to the changing leisure activity patterns caused by COVID-19.

Several studies have investigated the elements determining the thermal comfort of open spaces through the use of physical and physiological approaches. The findings showed that psychological adaptation plays an equally important role as physical and physiological adaptation in outdoor thermal comfort. Therefore, this study was conducted to explore the elements of open spaces which perceptually influence thermal comfort in the Indonesian context through the use of a mixed qualitative-quantitative approach. The qualitative was used in the first phase through the development of a web-based questionnaire with open-ended questions and content analysis which was used to produce 24 variables. These were further applied in the second phase to develop the second questionnaire which contains closed-ended questions after which the data obtained were analyzed using factor analysis to determine the perceived dimensions of open spaces’ elements. The results showed 10 perceived dimensions of open spaces’ elements influencing outdoor thermal comfort. Moreover, the multiple regression analysis indicated only “shading”, “visual and auditory aspects”, and “natural elements and friends’ company” had a significant effect but the last two dimensions cannot be tested using physical and physiological approaches. These findings are expected to enrich place-making guidelines required to assist urban designers and administrators in developing more comfortable and livable open spaces for residents.

Numerous studies conclude that urban industrial evolution depends on the technological relatedness-associated supply side. However, such industrial evolution may also be affected by market force-related demand side. To fill this gap, this research aims to examine whether market force, reflected by market potential and market segmentation, also has significant impacts on the diversification of regional industries, and whether such impacts differ among different regions of China. The data used export customs declaration data recorded by customs offices. We introduce the PROBIT binary variable model to explore the effects of technological relatedness, market motential, market segmentation on diversification of regional industry. The results show that the diversification of export industries was not only positively affected by technological relatedness, but also impacted by market potential and market segmentation positive and negative, respectively. Notably, the impact of technological relatedness on the innovation of export industry was weakened in areas with low market potential but strengthened in those with high market segmentation. Moreover, we found that the effect of technological relatedness was weakened in more developed cities, while the effects of market potential and market segmentation were relatively universal. Theoretically, this paper expands the framework of evolutionary economic geography. We understood the influential factors of industrial innovation from both the supply and demand side, instead of the solely supply side in most previous studies. Practically, this study points out a new development path for the industrial evolution of marginal areas.

In today's empirical studies on sustainability, researchers still rely on the concept of "triple bottom lines" (economic, social, and environmental), which are influential in covering development issues. However, this concept has limitations for specific cases, such as regional, local, and sectoral levels. One sector that should adopt sustainability principles is the residential area in the suburban area. The academic discourse on sustainable residential area (SRA) is still requiring extensive research, especially on generating reliable and valid indicators. In the policy arena, particularly in Indonesia, an accurate indicator of measuring SRA is not available. Thus, this study intends to develop and validate the SRA indicators. The "citizen-led" approach was used in this study to observe 332 households spread in the cities of South Tangerang, Tangerang, Depok, and Bekasi. These cities are spatially located in the hinterland of Greater Jakarta. Households are divided into residential and non-residential area households. By extending into a literature review, this study develops 51 SRA indicators grouped into economic, social, environmental, infrastructure, technology, and governance parameters. Moreover, using structural equation modelling with a confirmatory factor analysis approach, this study generates 36 valid and reliable SRA indicators. This study provides that the model could be considered a structure and system that enhances the SRA.

The aim of this study is to identify and evaluate the indicators of the happy city in affordable housing projects. The Aftab town in Tehran, Iran, has been chosen as a case study. The research method of this study is descriptive analytic. To collect the research data, the field survey method (including the completion of household questionnaires) has been used. T-tests, factor analysis and multivariable regression, were applied in SPSS-22 software for data analysis. The results showed that the status of indicators of a happy city in the Mehr Housing project of Aftab town of Parand is not favourable. Furthermore, the identified indicators of the happy city, respectively, have a priority effect on the happiness of the inhabitants, including the sense of happiness regarding physical and spatial interactions, the local government's support of local residents, the quality of the business environment, the quality of local services, the quality of the artificial and natural environment, the sense of happiness as a result of social and work relationships. According to the results, the most important indicator on the level of happiness for residents in the Mehr housing projects in Parand city is the physical and spatial interactions.