The world has been urbanizing for centuries (United Nations 2001; United Nations Centre for Human Settlements [1996] 2000). While some scholars note a decline in the significance of space and distance as the result of telecommunications advancements and globalization (Cairncross 2001), other thinkers point to the continuing, if not increasing, importance of proximity and multiple benefits of ur...

Climate change is one of the greatest environmental, economic, and social challenges of our time. Urban transportation has had a major negative impact on our environment—most of our air pollution comes from transport. This paper explores ways to move toward a more sustainable transport system by focusing on creating a more efficient and livable city and improving the environmental efficiency of...

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how system dynamics modelling can be used in e-government policy and systems as an aid to spport territorial ananlysis, planning and governance, sustainable performance in urban areas and the assessment of policy outcomes. Topics such as renewable energy, efficiency, the design and exploitation of urban energy, water and waste management infrastructure a...

This paper presents a solution on the optimization of traffic lights cycle depending on the timeframe by developing a mathematical model. Based on the analysis and processing of data obtained from a traffic lights intersection with intense traffic in Sibiu, was developed a mathematical model that allows an algorithmic approach to programming sequences for ensuring a smooth traffic. The article ...

Rapid urbanization and rapid urban growth present great challenges to the sustainable utilization of land resources. This paper discusses the on-going process of construction-to-ecological land conversion (CELC) in terms of three aspects: land use, environmental effects, and system responses. CELC is compared to other current land conversion strategies in China. Taking Shenzhen City as an examp...

This paper presents the results of a two-year trans-disciplinary research project investigating opportunities and limitations of the Swiss 2000-Watt/1-ton CO2 society vision for the transformation of industrial sites into liveable neighbourhoods. By involving local stakeholders we elaborated four plausible scenarios for the transformation of an industrial area in the city of Zug, Switzerland. B...

The sustainability strategy in urban spaces arises from reflecting on how to achieve a more habitable city and is materialized in a series of sustainable transformations aimed at humanizing different environments so that they can be used and enjoyed by everyone without exception and regardless of their ability. Modern communication technologies allow new opportunities to analyze efficiency in t...

Health impact assessment is being used to support and deliver healthy and sustainable communities in major urban areas around the world. This article discusses some of the latest international developments in the use of health impact assessment in urban settings: in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia. It outlines the implications of this work and describes some of the challenge...