Background Urban renewal has become an important issue in Hong Kong, which is experiencing considerable population growth pressures and urban decay in various districts. Ho et al. [1] noted that urban renewal often creates not only environmental problems such as demolition waste, but also social problems such as destruction of existing social networks and the fabric of long-established communit...

Cities in developing countries are facing serious problems as a result of rapid urban population growth. Not the least of these problems is the creation of environmental stresses at the rural-urban fringe of these cities as they increase in area and envelop fertile surrounding agricultural lands. Because of this rapid rate of growth, sustainable urban environmental management (SUEM) policies an...

This paper presents a research that integrates remote sensing, GIS, and dynamic spatial modeling for predicting urban spatial growth with different development conditions considered. The study area has been a fast growing American metropolis. The prediction is based on a cellular automate urban growth model governed by a set of complex transition rules combining both socio-economic and biophysi...

fast and unplanned city growth, has effects such as isolation of village societies, threatening urbancores and centers and small and weak societies, destruction of open spaces and open and natural regions. smart growthoffers a sustainable way for urban developing with appropriate use of available sources, increase of urban services,developing neighborhoods with different uses, making public tra...

Increasing satellite data availability with improved resolution and modern image processing techniques allow a better understanding of the urbanization process. Remote sensing enables an effective definition of planning strategies for sustainable urban growth. This skill is assuming strategical importance knowing that in 2015, more than half of the world’s population will be urban (National Int...

In China, as in many other countries undergoing rapid economic growth, increasing socio-economic inequalities and environmental damage are the main threats to sustainable urbanization. Drawing on international experiences, this paper describes the key issues in urban change in China and identifies the types of policy approaches that could support more sustainable urbanization. Urbanization and ...

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...