Greater energy efficiency can be achieved in existing dwellings thanks to longer lifecycles, slow replacement rates, and technical innovations. Many such dwellings are located in dense urban neighbourhoods, where urban renewal projects are undertaken. Local government can encourage the setting of ambitious goals as a stepping stone to realizing energy efficiency goals that achieve high levels o...

Irish planning legislation has traditionally emphasised control at the expense of development. In response to widespread dereliction spreading across the city in the early 1980s, a shift in policy direction became imperative. The Urban Renewal Act, introduced in 1986, marked a new departure in Irish planning practice signalling a more pro-active approach to development. This paper charts the ev...

Our objective in this paper is to argue for a new use of geographic information systemsö GIS in local planning as an auxiliary tool for decisionmaking. We review the use of the GIS technique in earlier research studies and represent the empirical findings from using GIS in a quality-of-life study in conjunction with an urban renewal project of a residential area in Stockholm County, Sweden. Spe...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Estimation of maternal mortality has been difficult because of large sample size requirement. A study using snowball technique for identification of households where maternal death has taken place and its related causes was conducted. We present here the feasibility of carrying out the snowball technique for capturing maternal deaths as against house-to-house survey and t...

Sustainable development is one of the themes of the world today. Considering growing urban traffic problems and urban environmental problems, developing sustainable transport is particularly important. Based on the urban traffic sustainable development theory, an evaluation index system of traffic sustainable development is built using analysis method and testing methods of index system. Then a...

Today, cities worldwide are engaged in urban projects and activities in a concerted drive towards sustainable development. However, the concept of “sustainable urban projects” is inherently normative, subjective and ambiguous. Furthermore, the popularity of sustainable urban initiatives does not guarantee that increased pressure on dominant unsustainable urban systems will occur. In this articl...

The growth of European cities in recent decades, mainly characterized by a decreasing density and a functional segregation, has tendentially increased mobility, soil consumption, urban sprawl, social disparities and infrastructural costs. Hence, most European countries have decided to aim for an urban sprawl limitation, in particular by increasing the density of built urban areas. To achieve th...

Regime theory, the dominant paradigm in the study of urban politics, maintains that cities are governed by informal arrangements consisting of public and private sector elites. Because economic growth is the main policy objective of regimes, research has tended to focus on mayoral coalition building and development policy. Thus much less attention has been paid to policies that more directly im...

This article examines how narratives surrounding qilou (arcaded buildings) have changed through three very different moments over a period of almost a century in Guangzhou, China. As a result, what public discourse once perceived as a new, modern form now serves as a symbol of traditional local culture. The metamorphosis of the qilou narrative in response to different visions, social circumstan...

To an economist, the justification for publicly provided urban shelter or urban renewal projects is much stronger if they are socially ‘profitable’ than if they are merely politically acceptable forms of redistribution towards deserving groups. Indeed, if such programs pass the cost-benefit criterion of social profitability, then efficiency can be improved with no sacrifice of distributional go...