A Critique of the Application of Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment Tools in Urban Regeneration

Measuring the sustainability of neighborhoods: A systematic literature review

Neighborhoods have received worldwide interest in sustainability assessment due to their suitable scale for representing the relationship between the individual and the city. Consequently, this has led to a focus on developing neighborhood sustainability assessment (NSA) systems and, thereby, studying the prominent NSA tools. Alternatively, this study aims to uncover formative concepts shaping the assessment of sustainable neighborhoods based on a systematic review of the empirical work by researchers. The study included a Scopus database search for papers measuring neighborhood sustainability and a literature review of 64 journal articles published between 2019 and 2021. Our results suggest that criteria related to sustainable form and morphology are the most widely measured criteria in the reviewed papers, interconnected with multiple aspects of neighborhood sustainability. The paper contributes to expanding the existing knowledge on neighborhood sustainability evaluation, further adding to the literature on designing sustainable cities and communities and achieving Sustainable Development Goal 11.

Built environment stakeholders' experiences of implementing healthy urban development: an exploratory study

Healthy urban development, in the form of buildings and infrastructure, is necessary to reduce disease and injury internationally. The urban development process is complex, characterised by a plurality of actors, decisions, delays, and competing priorities that affect the integration of health and wellbeing. Despite clear shifts in the built environment sector towards considering health, there is a lack of research about how the principles of healthy design are put into practice in development projects. We explored this topic via semi-structured interviews with 31 built environment and public health professionals involved in such projects in Australia, China, England, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States. We used thematic analysis and three themes emerged from our hybrid deductive and inductive approach, encompassing challenges and potential solutions for integrating health in development. Managing risk, responsibility and economic constraints were paramount to persuade developers to adopt healthy design measures. Participants could push business-as-usual practices towards healthy urbanism by showing economic benefits or piloting new approaches. Finally, participants had contrasting views on whether increasing professional knowledge is required, with several arguing that financial barriers are more problematic than knowledge gaps. This exploratory study contributes insights into an under-research topic and outlines priorities for further investigation.

Financial Support for Neighborhood Regeneration: A Case Study of Korea

This study examined the relationship between financial support and neighborhood regeneration in Korea. A questionnaire about neighborhood regeneration projects was administered to 175 Korean respondents in the regeneration field. Results found that the housing revitalization project needed more public funds than private funds for successful outcomes. The private sector participation project required public-private cooperation. The local economy vitalization project needed public funds to build infrastructure. The local living improvement project needed public funds for infrastructure. The local living network project could be led by public funds including the facility fund. The local economy operation project required public and private funds for local programs and facility support. The results offer the optimization of financial support efficiency by providing customized support funds for neighborhood regeneration projects.

Urban Heritage Facility Management: A Scoping Review

This review examines current discussions from the cross-section study between urban heritage conservation and urban facility management fields in the academic literature from 2011–2020. The purpose is to identify the gaps within the examined papers to reveal the challenges and opportunities in the combined fields using the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s recommendation of the historic urban landscape (HUL) approach. The scoping review procedure was followed. The six critical steps and four supporting tools of the HUL approach were used to analyze the examined papers. Most aspects of urban heritage management within the body of literature were directly related to urban-scale facility management. The potential usage of building information modelling became one of the most discussed technological aspects. The expansion of the public–private partnership model into the public–private–people partnership is considered as a new potential business model. At the same time, the adaptive reuse approach is deemed to be the most sustainable method of managing heritage areas. This scoping review identified the financial tools as the most under-researched urban heritage facility management component. Therefore, it needs to be endorsed among the scientific communities to improve the knowledge and provide operable guidelines for the authorities and practitioners in the urban heritage field.

Understanding the Role of Standards in the Negotiation of a Healthy Built Environment

A growing number of international standards promote Healthy Built Environment (HBE) principles which aim to enhance occupant and user health and wellbeing. Few studies examine the implementation of these standards; whether and how they affect health through changes to built-environment design, construction, and operations. This study reviews a set of sustainability and HBE standards, based on a qualitative analysis of standard documents, standard and socio-technical literature on normalization and negotiation, and interviews with 31 practitioners from four geographical regions. The analysis indicates that standards can impact individual, organizational, and market-scale definitions of an HBE. Some changes to practice are identified, such as procurement and internal layout decisions. There is more limited evidence of changes to dominant, short-term decision-making practices related to cost control and user engagement in operational decisions. HBE standards risk establishing narrow definitions of health and wellbeing focused on building occupants rather than promoting broader, contextually situated, principles of equity, inclusion, and ecosystem functioning crucial for health. There is a need to improve sustainability and HBE standards to take better account of local contexts and promote systems thinking. Further examination of dominant collective negotiation processes is required to identify opportunities to better embed standards within organizational practice.

Identifying the key factors in construction projects that affect neighbourhood social sustainability

Purpose

Construction projects have huge impacts on the social sustainability of the neighbouring community. The purpose of this paper is to identify and understand the key factors of a construction project that contribute to the social sustainability of a neighbourhood.

Design/methodology/approach

Questionnaire surveys relating to two case studies of regeneration projects in Saudi Arabia were carried out to ascertain and analyse the perceptions of residents of the neighbourhood communities in which the projects were built.

Findings

The results derived from factor analysis suggested five significant underlying social factors: health and physical comfort, accessibility, integration, economy and participation. These are defined as the core social functions necessary for enhancing social sustainability in the neighbourhood community as a result of new construction.

Originality/value

Ideally, a construction project will create spaces where people can interact socially, develop a sense of community and grow and prosper. This study reveals how the neighbours of the project felt about it and what sort of input they wanted to have in the design, construction and operation of the facility. For developers emphasising sustainability, this is the essential data.

Can Depopulation Create Urban Sustainability in Postindustrial Regions? A Case from Poland

Many towns and cities in the world experience the process of urban shrinkage. This may be observed in localities of different types and of all sizes, including a large group of post-industrial towns and cities of Central and Eastern Europe. One of the districts affected by the urban shrinkage process is the Katowice conurbation in Poland, which may serve as a good example to consider the potential for introducing the idea of sustainable development. In this perspective, sustainability is considered as a specific challenge within the progress of regional transformation, but also a target concept for a large urban region to be followed throughout the evolution and at particular stages of the change. In the discussed region it is all the more important because it is followed by phenomena related to post(industrialism), relatively high pollution levels compared with the European average and a polycentric system of settlement. This paper states that the current urban policy implemented in the Katowice conurbation does not seem to have any palpable effect reversing the trend of depopulation in the region, which seems to stem from the fact that numerous initiatives undertaken in the area are ‘illusory’ and often unnecessary and unjustified. This also applies to activities embracing and fostering the idea of sustainability. With regard to the latter issue, the main concern refers to overinvestment and wasting the measures to reduce low emissions and to make savings in the heat supply system for residential buildings. The Authors proposed a new vision for the transformation of the region. It will respond to the current and expected needs of the residents, while making allowances for multidimensional sustainable development, particularly in terms of housing policy and spatial development. This concept primarily focuses on a new balance between the areas covered by low-rise and high-rise buildings and the reorganisation of the structure of the local economy.

The Failure of Eco-Neighborhood Projects in the City of Madrid (Spain)

The objective of this article is to analyze the implementation of eco-neighborhoods in the city of Madrid. This is a new formulation that joins, within neighborhood scale, purposes of environmental sustainability with social and economic aims. First, we make a general approach reviewing the initiatives proposed in the capital city and then we will make an analysis of the eco-neighborhood of Vallecas, the only one still working. We have looked through the official approach, the present bibliography, the official statements, the interpretations of the technicians, the resident’s opinions exposed in websites, social networks and press. The field research and the collection of information through conversations with the agents involved were the keys to verify the real results of the projects. We consider that the development and the conclusion of these initiatives have been a failure. The reasons are in its origin and the process of realization, but mainly in the confused premises that were the foundation of its design and localization. The absence of dialogue with neighbors and associations turned the official speeches and plans in something strange to the citizen’s necessities of the southern area, with the lowest rents of Madrid.

Prioritizing Suitable Locations for Green Stormwater Infrastructure Based on Social Factors in Philadelphia

Municipalities across the United States are prioritizing green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) projects due to their potential to concurrently optimize the social, economic, and environmental benefits of the “triple bottom line”. While placement of these features is often based on biophysical variables regarding the natural and built environments, highly urbanized areas often exhibit either limited data or minimal variability in these characteristics. Using a case study of Philadelphia and building on previous work to prioritize GSI features in disadvantaged communities, this study addresses the dual concerns of the inequitable benefits of distribution and suitable site placement of GSI using a model to evaluate and integrate social variables to support decision making regarding GSI implementation. Results of this study indicate locations both suitable and optimal for the implementation of four types of GSI features: tree trenches, pervious pavement, rain gardens, and green roofs. Considerations of block-level site placement assets and liabilities are discussed, with recommendations for use of this analysis for future GSI programs.

An Optimization Model Fitting the Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment Tools

The phenomenon of rapid and unplanned urban growth, driven by the migration from rural to urban areas, has hindered healthy urbanization and undermined sustainable development. Sustainability assessment has become one of the popular terms in different fields, especially in architecture and urban planning, and world leading urban sustainability assessment tools have been proposed. Each tool is based on a set of weighted evaluation parameters, related to some main sustainability dimension (environment, economy, society …), and requires to reach a sustainability threshold. In this paper, after a brief review of the state of the art, a linear optimization model is presented, which aimed to find the minimum set of parameters needed to guarantee the sustainability threshold for each tool, taking into account all the sustainability dimensions. The model has been positively experienced with 144 input parameters belonging to five assessment tools. The tests prove that this procedure is able to summarize and overcome the choices made by the certifying bodies. Indeed the proposed optimization model selected 26 parameters of the five tools. The majority of the selected parameters are related to the environmental emergency that in recent decades has characterized—and still affects—urban systems.