Frontiers in Sustainable Cities

A conceptual co-design framework for structuring bankable climate interventions: design and illustrative instantiation

2026-10-23 · Methods

João Varela da Costa, Catarina Valente, Gabriel Pestana, Miguel Mira da Silva

Urban and regional authorities across Europe must design climate-resilient interventions under constrained budgets, while coordinating more closely with private investors and insurance companies. Participatory governance, multi-criteria decision analysis and climate-investment planning are rarely combined in a single, transparent workflow. This is mainly because cities lack conceptual frameworks linking these elements across policy, technical design and finance. Here we report how the Horizon Europe BLOSSOM project used a design science research methodology in which an ArchiMate-based enterprise-architecture framework, structured around the analytic hierarchy process, developed the Co-design Framework for Bankable Climate Interventions (CFBCI), proposed as a reference architecture for participatory co-design of climate-resilient interventions. CFBCI is illustrated through a single instantiation in the River Cole urban-reforestation intervention in Birmingham, United Kingdom, one of seven BLOSSOM pilot sites across Europe; this instantiation demonstrates the framework’s structure and is not presented as a validated case. Representational completeness was examined through the Bunge–Wand–Weber ontological model and a co-creation session with BLOSSOM stakeholders. This formative evaluation, rather than a test of bankability or decision effectiveness, revealed three incompleteness gaps, one excess element, two redundancies and two overload issues, alongside general stakeholder interest and three refinements arising from the co-creation session: explicit legislative elements, flexible facilitator/expert roles for resource-constrained municipalities, and a simplified implementation guide. Together, these findings offer a conceptual reference architecture for structuring co-created climate solutions, providing a basis for future empirical validation and comparative research on urban sustainability transitions.

Determinants of consumers’ intention to adopt smart electric vehicle charging in India

2026-10-22 · Original Research

V. Shunmathy, V. Selvam

IntroductionThe use of electric vehicles (EVs) in India has created a greater need for convenient and efficient charging systems. However, there is limited understanding of why EV owners would choose to use smart EV charging. This study examines the factors related to EV owners’ intention to use smart EV charging in India. It combines three approaches: Technology Readiness, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2), and the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP).MethodsData were collected from 535 EV owners in India using a structured questionnaire through online and offline data collection methods. The study examined technology readiness, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, price value, and environmental concern in relation to the consumers’ intention to use smart EV charging. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM).ResultsThe findings indicate that all six proposed hypotheses were positively and significantly associated with consumers’ intention to use smart EV charging. Technology readiness showed the strongest standardized association with intention to use smart EV charging, followed by performance expectancy and effort expectancy. Price value, environmental concern, and facilitating conditions also showed a positive and significant associations with consumers’ intention.DiscussionThe results suggest that EV owners may be more willing to use smart EV charging when they feel prepared to use new technologies, expect useful benefits, find the technology easy to use, perceive economic value, have environmental concerns, and have suitable supporting facilities. The study combines Technology Readiness, UTAUT2, and NEP to provide a broader understanding of EV owners intention to use smart EV charging in India context. The findings can provide useful information for policymakers, EV manufacturers, and charging infrastructure providers when developing measures to encourage the use of smart EV charging.

Geographical inequalities in Quito’s food supply: expressing the corporate, public, and associative forms

2026-10-22 · Original Research

Mónica Izurieta-Guevara, Eduardo Báez-Agama, Erika Lozano-Erazo, José Julio Villalba-Vásquez, Luz Vanessa Pérez-Tapia, Diego Paúl Hoyos, Francisco Pérez-Tasigchana

IntroductionIt is based on the premise that food infrastructure reflects socio-spatial inequalities and the asymmetric competence of corporate and associative supply models. This study analyzes the geographic inequalities of the urban food space in the Metropolitan District of Quito, Ecuador, based on the territorial distribution of chain supermarkets, municipal food markets, and agroecological fairs.MethodologyA quantitative geographic analysis was conducted using georeferenced databases from official and institutional sources. Outlets in the selected food supply channels were geocoded and analyzed using a regular hexagonal grid of 1 km, calculating density indicators, availability per population, and the Supermarket Dominance Index to assess the concentration and relative dominance of different supply channels.ResultsAmong the 218 mapped facilities, chain supermarkets represented 78.4%, while municipal markets and agroecological farmers’ markets together accounted for 21.6%, corresponding to a ratio of 3.6 corporate outlets for every associative facility. Supermarkets constituted between 68.0 and 82.3% of the facilities analyzed across the six zonal administrations and were concentrated primarily along Quito’s central-northern axis. Municipal markets were more closely associated with historically consolidated urban sectors, whereas agroecological farmers’ markets formed a smaller and more dispersed network. Supermarket density increased markedly across land-value quintiles, reaching a level approximately 28 times higher in the highest-value quintile than in the lowest (ρ = 0.482; p < 0.001).ConclusionThe selected food supply infrastructure is unevenly distributed across Quito, with chain supermarkets showing a clear numerical and spatial predominance, particularly in central and higher-value areas. Although these findings do not represent the entire food system or measure individual accessibility, they provide a geospatial baseline for integrating food supply into urban planning and assessing the territorial role of municipal markets and agroecological farmers’ markets.

Institutional dynamics of circular and climate-adaptive water governance in Bengaluru

2026-10-21 · Original Research

Shefali Nayak, Martin Döring, Shrimoyee Bhattacharya, Rana Ekmekcioglu, Jörg Knieling, Benjamin Poschlod

IntroductionRapid urbanization and climate change threaten global urban water security, with projections indicating that over 1 billion urban residents will face water short ages. In many Global South cities, water crises are infrastructural as well as institutional challenges rather than merely hydrological ones, yet city-level analyses of these institutional barriers remain scarce. This study addresses this gap by examining the institutional and organizational barriers to effective water management in Bengaluru, India, a city of over 10 million people facing severe water stress despite importing 1,450 million liters of water daily.MethodsUsing an inductive, exploratory qualitative case-study approach, we conducted 12 semi structured interviews with 13 stakeholders, spanning policymakers to engineers, between December 2024 and February 2025, thematically coded using MAXQDA.ResultsOur study identified that Bengaluru’s water crisis stems from four interconnected institutional failures: (1) weak governance, marked by capacity deficits and absent regulatory frameworks; (2) siloed administrative processes fragmenting decision making across departments; (3) inertia embedding inefficient systems; and (4) lock-in contributing to mutually reinforcing feedback loops that are resistant to change. These factors operate simultaneously across strategic, operational, regulatory, and financial dimensions, perpetuating unsustainable water management.DiscussionWe propose water circularity as a framework for institutional reform that addresses these barriers across all four dimensions. By grounding institutional theory in city-level empirical evidence, this study extends the largely comparative literature and offers exploratory, key-informant evidence suggesting that institutional transformation and infrastructural investment are essential for urban water resilience and sustainability. While rich, these findings lack statistical generalizability; future research should pursue comparative analyses across South Asian megacities and track how Bengaluru’s ongoing governance restructuring reshapes these dynamics.

Open innovation for sustainable urban transformation in Kazakhstan's monotowns: integrating digital transformation, ESG governance, and urban-territorial resilience

2026-10-21 · Original Research

Marina Abikayeva, Rajasekhara Mouly Potluri, Assem Omarkozhayeva, Zhibek Omarkhanova, Danagul Tleuzhanova, Gulden Zholdayakova, Olga Yanovskaya

Resource-dependent monotowns face interconnected urban sustainability challenges arising from economic concentration, environmental degradation, technological dependence, infrastructure pressures, demographic change, and institutional vulnerability. Addressing these challenges requires an integrated approach to sustainable urban transformation that combines digital innovation, environmental responsibility, social inclusion, and urban resilience. This conceptual study develops an integrative framework explaining how open innovation can connect digital transformation and ESG-oriented urban governance to strengthen the resilience and sustainability of Kazakhstan's monotowns. Using a qualitative conceptual approach, the study synthesizes academic literature, international policy documents, and Kazakhstan's national strategic documents through thematic analysis to identify seven interrelated themes and inform the proposed framework. The present study is intentionally theory-building and conceptual and does not claim empirical validation of the proposed relationships. Drawing on Regional Resilience Theory, Evolutionary Economic Geography, Open Innovation Theory, the Quadruple Helix Model, and sustainability governance, the framework conceptualizes monotowns as resource-dependent urban-regional systems in which government, industry, universities, and communities jointly shape sustainable transformation. The framework identifies digital infrastructure, smart technologies, data-enabled governance, knowledge exchange, collaborative innovation, institutional adaptability, human-capital development, and ESG-oriented governance as interconnected mechanisms supporting sustainable urban infrastructure, environmental resource management, economic diversification, social inclusion, and resilient urban development. Open innovation is positioned as the bridging mechanism through which digital and sustainability transitions can be coordinated across urban stakeholders. The study contributes to sustainable cities research by integrating innovation ecosystems, digital transformation, ESG-oriented urban governance, and urban-territorial resilience within a place-sensitive framework. The framework also provides policy directions to advance SDG 11 and support inclusive, environmentally responsible, technologically enabled, and resilient transformation of resource-dependent monotowns.

Administrative reclassification and the measurement of urbanization: multi-source evidence from 965 settlements in Uzbekistan

2026-10-20 · Original Research

Lijie Zhang, Kuan Kozik, Yuxing He, Yuhuan Huang

BackgroundAdministrative status, built form, and economic structure measure different dimensions of urbanization.MethodsWe link the legal roster of 965 settlements reclassified as urban-type settlements in Uzbekistan during 2005–2009 to public gazetteers and nighttime-light, population, and built-up grids.ResultsAmong 750 geocoded settlements (77.7% overall; 23.5% in Khorezm), 78.0% had a 1-km grid cell at the coordinate in the Global Human Settlement Layer settlement model (GHS-SMOD) urban domain in 2005 (district-clustered bootstrap 95% interval 73.3–82.3%). Other cells entered that domain by 2020 or remained rural at both dates, with trajectories clustering regionally. Assigning every ungeocoded settlement to the rural domain gives a full-roster lower bound of 60.6%. Agreement with point classifications falls to 70% under a 2-km buffer majority rule, and stricter population-free built-up thresholds weaken the baseline majority finding. Comparisons with rural geographic benchmarks depend on baseline characteristics. WorldPop growth differences have intervals spanning zero in both GHS-SMOD strata, in the higher-built-up World Settlement Footprint (WSF) stratum, and after covariate matching; a positive difference remains in the lower-built-up WSF stratum. Matched settlements show slower nighttime-light growth and no clear difference in either built-up measure under district resampling.DiscussionThese comparisons are descriptive and do not identify an effect of reclassification. One legal category contains sites with distinct morphological starting positions and trajectories. Analyses of urbanization should report the classification rule, spatial scale, and vintage, and distinguish administrative, morphological, and structural measures.

Seeing cities in depth: subsurface urban expansion and the case for volumetric monitoring and accountability

2026-10-20 · Perspective

Allen Glen Cumaya Gil

Cities are increasingly measured through surface land cover and aboveground form, even as urban activity expands below ground. This Perspective develops an integrated approach for making that expansion visible and governable. First, it defines subsurface urban expansion as the durable growth or intensification of urban activity below the local ground surface through the occupation, use, or physical modification of underground space. Second, it identifies an underground monitoring gap produced by limitations in observing underground change, connecting different sources of evidence, and assigning responsibility for its impacts. Third, it proposes a framework for volumetric urban monitoring that brings together different forms of evidence, rules for accessing sensitive information, and responsibility across the lifecycle of underground development. The framework examines underground change through four dimensions: where underground space is occupied, how development interacts with the surrounding environment, how it depends on other infrastructure, and which institutions are responsible for it. Two governance mechanisms support this analysis. Responsible visibility sets rules for how sensitive underground information is accessed and shared, and volumetric accountability connects identified responsibilities to enforceable obligations over time. Earth observation supports screening, deformation detection, and surface-impact monitoring within a broader evidence system that includes institutional, technical, environmental, and in situ information. A five-stage implementation cycle then carries this evidence from initial monitoring through interpretation, decision-making, review, and accountability. The framework therefore provides a common process for detecting subsurface urban change, understanding its consequences, and using that evidence in urban governance.

Switching tracks: from resistance to acceptance in railway infrastructure projects

2026-10-20 · Original Research

Maria Levints, Philipp Rollin

This study examines the determinants of public acceptance of railway infrastructure projects and the role of public participation in shaping such acceptance. The analysis is based on a Germany-wide survey of 2,632 respondents, combining a 2 × 3 factorial vignette experiment with hierarchical regression, structural equation modeling, and analysis of variance. The findings indicate that socio-psychological factors (R2 ≈ 84%) explain public acceptance substantially, with self-efficacy emerging as the central predictor through both direct and indirect effects via perceived risk. However, the cross-sectional relationships do not allow for causal conclusions. The role of public participation must be viewed in a nuanced way: the results show small but significant differences in perceived social justice across the experimental conditions, but no significant differences in public acceptance. Furthermore, compared to participation announced by the municipality, participation announced by the transport operator is associated with slightly higher trust in the operator and perceived risk. The results provide insights for designing participation processes in the German transport sector and shed light on the social aspects of sustainable infrastructure planning.

Women’s voice in the South African entrepreneurial ecosystem: implications for support interventions

2026-10-15 · Original Research

Sinqobile Joseph Mkhwanazi, Reward Utete

IntroductionWhile there are numerous claims that women entrepreneurship is in a precarious state after the recent upheavals, the situation of their businesses has not been sufficiently examined. Despite the subject's pertinence, to the best of the authors' knowledge, the existing literature gives scant attention to the current situation of women entrepreneurs in South Africa in the post-pandemic era. Grounded in Resource-Based Theory and Institutional Theory, this study empirically investigates the current state of women entrepreneurs in Durban.MethodsAdopting the quantitative research approach, data were collected using a closed-ended questionnaire, of which 349 SMEs' responses were subjected to both descriptive and inferential analysis. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using Principal Axis Factoring with Promax rotation identified the underlying constructs, followed by reliability and multiple regression analyses.ResultsEntrepreneurial Constraints (EC), Entrepreneurial Support (ES), Entrepreneurial Participation (EP), and Business Environment and Regulatory Climate (BERC) emerged as the key constructs. The findings reported low satisfaction with entrepreneurial support, particularly financial, infrastructural, training and guidance support. EC was the most prominent challenge, with inadequate capital, skills deficits and low profitability being highly reported. Regression analysis showed that ES and BERC were positively associated with EP, while EC was negatively associated with EP. Collectively, the predictors explained 46.3% of the variance in EP.DiscussionThe findings indicate that women’s entrepreneurial participation is shaped by the interaction of resource availability and institutional conditions. Strengthening financial assistance, skills development, mentorship, infrastructure, guidance and the regulatory environment may address the multidimensional barriers affecting women entrepreneurs.

Reading the midcampus core matters: autoethnographic reflexivity of ‘Green Squares’ as temporally integrated 15-Minute Campus nodes for student belonging, town–gown integration, and climate resilience

2026-10-15 · Original Research

Samuel Ikendi

IntroductionIn rapid urban densification, institutional planners prioritize maximizing built footprints, creating sterile hardscapes that intensify urban heat island impacts and fuel student alienation.Framework and purposeSynthesizing architectural phenomenology, environmental psychology, and chrono-urbanism, this study positions universities as proxies to evaluate central softscape nodes: Green Squares. It uses the 15-Minute Campus framework, student belonging, and climate resilience as interpretive temporal conceptual lenses to examine how these spaces connect place-identity, institutional memory, and pedestrian routines.MethodsThis analytic autoethnography spans an 18-year biographical continuum (2008–2026) across Iowa State University, Makerere University, and University of California, Merced. Utilizing a four-tier operational matrix and two-cycle thematic coding of 184 statement counts, the design incorporates negative case analysis to interpret everyday pedestrian proximity and changing user patterns without establishing predictive constants.ResultsEmpirical analysis reveals how built layouts function across five themes. First, historical anchors bind institutional identity, spotlighting Curtiss–Beardshear axis and Cooperative Extension plaque at ISU alongside MAK’s reconstructed Ivory Tower building. Second, processional rituals translate structural forms into kinetic devotion, encompassing ISU’s Campanile carillon under midnight campaniling lore and UCM’s Beginnings arches during Journey Inward (Orientation) and Journey Outward (Commencement) cycles. Third, environmental markers operate as living policy texts, materializing structural equity through ISU’s commemorative land-grant Elm tree, MAK’s meteorological station and ten-sided Makerere@100 Monument base, and UCM’s ancestral land acknowledgment within Toloma Grove. Fourth, human-scale philanthropic rest stops humanize Green Squares, concentrated within MAK’s alumni-funded brick repairs and UCM’s sun-warmed resting stone bench. Fifth, spatial containment dynamics emotionally heighten each square, dictated by MAK’s multi-day graduation weeks on Freedom Square and UCM’s Library and laboratory arcade perimeters. Visceral place-identity scales outward, intersecting with Downtown Campus and external municipal expansion contexts, exemplified by 2024 UCM annexation.Conclusions and implicationsFindings suggest open softscape midpoints function as adaptive chronotopes for urban microclimates, institutional heritage, and civic integration. De-centering architectural elitism to focus on human-scale markers provides higher education administrators and city planners with an interpretive strategy to resolve town–gown divisions. This qualitative framework outlines how preserving central softscapes supports context-sensitive cooling, public inclusion, and temporal planning under New Urban Agenda.

Modeling mini electric vehicle purchase using SOR and task technology fit: evidence from the third-tier city of Liuzhou, China

2026-10-15 · Original Research

Jialin Li, Fowokemi Ogedengbe, Ammar Bani Doumi

Technology has been revolutionizing the transportation sector through electric vehicles (EVs). Statistics and data have revealed that EV usage is currently growing globally. This is due to its many benefits, such as its contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Hence, this study examines people's intentions to purchase Mini EVs. Based on positivist epistemology, this research is quantitative in nature. A framework, grounded in Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) and Task-Technology Fit (TTF), was proposed with three research objectives and 7 hypotheses. The framework was tested using survey data from 308 respondents in a third-tier region in China. Analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling, and the result revealed that the proposed framework was validated. This research shows that factors such as the perceived price and design aesthetics influence the TTF and purchase intention. The novelty of this paper lies in its focus on Mini EVs (specifically the Wuling Hongguang), the third tier (developing economy) in China, the integration of SOR and TTF into the framework, and the mediating impact of TTF on the postulated hypotheses. All of which are current gaps in EV academics. The major limitation is the examination of only a few variables, which could be expanded upon in future research.

Can AI-enabled smart cities advance the constitutional right to life? A rights-based index, governance-opacity audit, and robustness analysis for sustainable urban India

2026-10-15 · Original Research

Kavali Munisekhar, Bangalore Morarji

Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly forms the operating logic of Indian urban governance, embedded in command-and-control centres, adaptive traffic systems, surveillance networks, and algorithmically mediated services. Yet smart-city scholarship evaluates such systems against managerial efficiency, leaving unexamined whether AI-enabled governance advances or erodes the constitutional guarantees underpinning public authority. This paper develops the Human-Centred Constitutional Urban AI Governance Framework and operationalises it as the Constitutional Smart-City Governance Index (CSGI), scoring urban AI against Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, human-centred AI principles, and Sustainable Development Goals 11 and 16. Six pillars constitutional rights, human-centred AI, sustainable development, service delivery, participation, and accountability comprise thirty-eight indicators with operational definitions, official secondary-data sources, a transparent normalisation-and-weighting model, and a validation strategy. The CSGI is applied to four leading smart cities Bengaluru, Pune, Surat, and Indore through a governance-opacity audit, an index-divergence analysis, and a Monte Carlo robustness test. The cities are 86%–93% opaque; none publishes an algorithm register, data-protection impact assessment, independent algorithmic audit, or municipal AI policy. The CSGI correlates strongly negatively with the Ease of Living Index (Spearman ρ = −0.80) yet positively with municipal-performance and sanitation indices (ρ = +0.80 to + 0.95), revealing a constitutional blind spot in liveability metrics steering national policy. Across 20,000 sampled weight vectors, the lowest-ranked city is weight-invariant. Because comparable cross-city data remain sparse, the application is illustrative rather than validated itself a finding. The paper contributes a transferable, reproducible instrument, repositions constitutional law as urban-governance infrastructure, and offers tiered recommendations for national, state, and local authorities.

Editorial: Role of construction in achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals to urban resilience in the post-pandemic context

2026-10-15 · Editorial

Ka Leung Lok, Charles Chen, Andrew James Smith

Neighborhood transformation in a shrinking city: using multimodal large language models to evaluate housing redevelopment spillover effects in Buffalo, New York

2026-10-14 · Original Research

Li Yin, Robert Mark Silverman

Across the American Rust Belt, post-industrial “shrinking” cities are characterized by sustained population decline and weakened housing markets in the aftermath of deindustrialization. These conditions have produced deteriorating housing stock and constrained private reinvestment, underscoring the need for alternative planning approaches centered on stabilization rather than growth. This study examines the potential of public-private-nonprofit partnerships (PPNPs) in public housing redevelopment to generate neighborhood-level spillover effects in underdeveloped areas of Buffalo, New York. Understanding these dynamics is critical for informing equitable revitalization strategies in legacy cities where traditional market mechanisms have stalled. This study employs a novel methodological framework using street-level imagery and multimodal large language models. Image data collected at two time points, approximately a decade apart, are analyzed to assess parcel- and street-level changes in residential property conditions surrounding the Perry Homes redevelopment site. This approach enables scalable, temporally comparative analysis while mitigating limitations associated with conventional survey-based methods. The findings indicate that nearly 10 times more properties are categorized as “Improved” than as “Declined,” reflecting a strong asymmetry associated with an overall positive shift in neighborhood conditions between 2014 and 2025. This improvement spans a spectrum from minor rehabilitation to substantial upgrades. These patterns suggest that anchor-led PPNP investments can contribute to localized housing stabilization, albeit unevenly. The results demonstrate the utility of generative AI for evaluating urban redevelopment impacts and provide empirical evidence that strategically structured PPNPs can foster incremental neighborhood recovery. This research contributes methodological innovation and policy-relevant insights for stabilizing shrinking cities without reliance on population growth.

The design–stewardship disconnect in urban greening governance: a structured evidence synthesis

2026-10-14 · Review

Xiaoyan Ye, Yian Xu, Jinyuan Tu

While global investments in urban green infrastructure (UGI) are accelerating, the long-term performance of these nature-based solutions is increasingly compromised by a critical disconnect between initial design and post-construction stewardship. To unpack this governance blind spot, this study analyzes 62 peer-reviewed publications. Operating under a specific methodological boundary condition, we applied a threshold-based selection criterion focusing exclusively on high-impact (Q1) journals. Consequently, this study is explicitly positioned as a structured synthesis of the mainstream theoretical discourse shaping current global UGI policy, rather than a globally exhaustive empirical census. Records were coded across five critical dimensions: funding, governance, aesthetics, equity, and technology. Our synthesis reveals frequent co-occurrences of governance and funding deficits, particularly exacerbating technology gaps and spatial inequity. Crucially, we identify a structural paradox: capital-intensive designs frequently intersect with profound institutional and financial barriers, whereas naturalized designs recurrently face strong esthetic friction. We conceptualize this phenomenon as the “CAPEX-OPEX divide” in urban environmental governance. Based on these systemic associations, we advance a comprehensive framework comprising three core stewardship propositions—administrative under-resourcing, esthetic conflict, and unequal stewardship burdens. This synthesis shifts the academic and policy focus from mere UGI creation to sustainable, equitable long-term maintenance.

Correction: Exploring the water-energy-food nexus through the lens of a kitchen: insights from informal housing dwellers in Johannesburg, South Africa

2026-10-14 · Correction

Blessings Masuku

Trust but verify: a Verification-as-a-Service framework for sustainable infrastructure governance—An integrative conceptual review

2026-10-12 · Review

Lacour M. Ayompe, Franklin M. Lartey

Decentralized operations across mission-critical industries and smart city public infrastructure increasingly rely on distributed third-party contractors to execute complex infrastructure projects. However, existing literature indicates that managing this workforce through traditional oversight models, relying on periodic inspections, manual documentation, and subjective verification, creates a persistent “trust deficit,” driven by underlying principal-agent information asymmetries. This condition leads to operational inefficiencies, costly rework, payment delays, excessive Scope 3 transport emissions from physical inspection transit (“truck rolls”), and increased compliance risks, driven by subjective or missing documentation. To resolve these systemic bottlenecks, this conceptual paper introduces the Verification-as-a-Service (VaaS) framework, proposing a fundamental shift from reactive manual inspections to proactive, remote, and digitized quality control. Methodologically grounded in Tarraco's integrative conceptual review framework, this study synthesizes multidisciplinary literature across the built environment, public governance, and information systems. We outline a five-phase VaaS lifecycle that standardizes digital verification from task definition through payment readiness and performance analytics, and urban ESG impact evaluation. Demonstrating cross-industry adaptability and implementation governance, addressing spatial privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR/CCPA) and worker surveillance concerns, the proposed framework addresses common quality-control challenges across public works and smart cities, utilities, telecommunications, and construction. The cumulative impacts of this framework are theoretically modeled via a Value Proposition Pyramid and a formal Theory of Change with testable research hypotheses. Crucially, VaaS is logically distinguished as an overarching governance framework from underlying enabling technologies such as Building Information Modeling (BIM), digital twins, and blockchain. By grounding field oversight in verifiable, integrity-secured data, VaaS establishes the conceptual conditions for evidence-based procurement, regulatory standardization, and decarbonized urban asset governance. The primary limitations of this study stem from its unvalidated conceptual nature, necessitating future empirical field testing while addressing the data-entry, software infrastructure overhead, urban spatial privacy mandates (e.g., GDPR/CCPA), and worker-surveillance concerns.

Human rights to water and sanitation at COP30: a comparative media analysis from a climate-vulnerable host city

2026-10-12 · Original Research

Davi Madureira Victral, Bruna Silveira de Oliveira

Climate change is placing increasing pressure on urban water and sanitation systems, particularly in cities characterized by persistent socioeconomic inequalities. As host of the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), Belém, Brazil, became a focal point for debates on climate adaptation while simultaneously exposing longstanding deficiencies in essential urban infrastructure. This study examines how water and sanitation were represented in media coverage of COP30 through the analytical lens of the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation (HRtWS). A mixed-methods design combining quantitative descriptive analysis and qualitative thematic content analysis was applied to 143 news articles retrieved from the Google News RSS feed. Data were collected on 10 March 2026, approximately 4 months after the conclusion of COP30, allowing the complete news cycle associated with the conference to be analyzed. Articles were manually coded according to a predefined HRtWS framework to identify thematic patterns, media framings, and the visibility of normative rights dimensions. The findings indicate that media coverage predominantly framed water and sanitation through infrastructure development, urban modernization, and climate adaptation narratives. Availability and sustainability were the most frequently represented HRtWS dimensions, whereas participation, accountability, and access to information received comparatively limited attention. The analysis also revealed substantial differences among media categories: institutional and governmental outlets primarily emphasized infrastructure investments and resilience, while investigative and independent media more frequently highlighted environmental injustice and territorial inequalities. These findings suggest that the HRtWS were only partially incorporated into media narratives surrounding COP30. Although water and sanitation were visible within the analyzed corpus, they were predominantly portrayed as technical and infrastructural challenges rather than as fundamental human rights closely linked to equity, governance, and climate justice. By integrating a rights-based analytical framework with systematic media analysis, this study contributes both methodologically and substantively to research on climate communication, urban sustainability, and environmental justice.

Railway infrastructure breakthrough and mode choice: evidence from the Ceneri Base Tunnel in Switzerland

2026-10-09 · Original Research

Leonardo Conte, Jules Grandvillemin, Clément Rames, Orane Solim Koenga

Major investments in railway infrastructure and service provision are often justified by their potential to increase public transport (PT) use and induce modal shift away from private motorized transport (PMT), thereby contributing to more sustainable mobility. Yet, empirical evidence on the extent to which large-scale railway interventions affect individual mode choice remains scattered. This study evaluates the impact of the Ceneri Base Tunnel (CBT), opened in Ticino, Switzerland, in 2020, together with associated PT offer improvements, on work and study commuting mode choice. Drawing on the INDMOB travel survey, that collected data from 24,577 individuals, we analyze changes in commuting practices between 2019 and 2023 and estimate the causal effect of the CBT opening using a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach. We find that the CBT (and associated PT improvements) increased the probability of using PT rather than PMT as the main commuting mode by 4.2 percentage points (p.p.) among commuters along its north–south corridors, relative to the control group, after controlling for socio-demographics, mobility equipment, and PT level of service. This corresponds to a 13% relative increase compared with the baseline PT share in the treatment group. We further show that PT use is associated with individual and spatial characteristics: women and younger commuters, individuals with a PT subscription, and those living in areas with higher PT levels of service are more likely to use PT, conditional on the other covariates. Our findings contribute to the transport literature on the effects of major railway infrastructure improvements on mode choice and support rail investments as an effective component of modal shift strategies, while highlighting the importance of individual mobility resources and the broader PT service context in shaping their potential.

Cultural identity in rapidly urbanizing cities: the role of public art, urban design, and digital engagement

2026-10-09 · Original Research

Khaula Alkaabi, Fatmaelzahraa Hussein, Salieu Senghore, Nour Agiel, Sarah Aljaberi

IntroductionThis study investigates the complementary roles of public art (PA), culturally responsive urban design (UD), and digital public art platforms (PADP) in preserving cultural identity and strengthening national identity in the UAE.MethodsUsing a quantitative approach informed by postpositivist and constructivist perspectives, a survey of 543 residents (72% under 35 years) examined perceptions of national identity and cultural motifs.ResultsStructural Equation Modeling revealed that 81% viewed PA as enhancing pride, while 65% valued PADP for promoting culture. Arabic calligraphy (68%) and natural motifs (74%) were key identity anchors.DiscussionPublic art serves as the primary visual medium, urban design provides the physical setting, and digital platforms extend cultural engagement beyond the built environment. Integrating cultural elements into physical urban landscapes and digital public art platforms can strengthen community belonging.

Impact of smart city policy on environmental, social, and governance performance of enterprises in China

2026-03-31

Tianyu Wang, Ganlin Shen

Based on the data of listed companies in China’s A-share market, this paper takes the smart city policy as a quasi-natural experiment and employs the progressive difference-in-differences (DID) model and the mediation model to investigate the influence effect and mechanism of the smart city policy on the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance of enterprises. The research reveals that the smart city policy can significantly enhance the ESG performance of local enterprises, and this conclusion remains valid after a series of robustness tests. The mechanism test indicates that the smart city policy mainly improves the ESG performance of enterprises by alleviating financing constraints and promoting green innovation, and the facilitating effect of the smart city policy is more pronounced in enterprises with stronger managerial capabilities. Additionally, the smart city policy has a more substantial impact on improving the ESG performance of enterprises in the eastern region, those in non-heavy pollution industries, non-state-owned enterprises, small-scale enterprises, and profitable enterprises. There is no “greenwashing” phenomenon in the ESG performance of Chinese enterprises, which provides enlightenment for the subsequent development direction of the smart city policy. Based on the above findings, this paper proposes policy recommendations such as actively responding to the smart city policy, alleviating financing constraints, accelerating the green innovation of enterprises, enhancing the managerial capabilities of enterprises, and differentially stimulating the ESG development of enterprises. This paper provides theoretical support and empirical evidence from the perspective of the smart city policy for enhancing the ESG performance of enterprises and expanding the development paths of ESG.

The paradox of the dense city: when greenness fuels exclusion

2026-03-30

Mercurio Ceballos, Daniel Jato-Espino

Stairway to health: motivational stair interventions increase stair use in Vienna metro stations

2026-03-23

Juliane Stark, Julia Elisabeth Hecht, Stephanie Weidinger, Michael Meschik

Urban mobility systems are expected to ensure accessibility while also offering opportunities for everyday physical activity. In practice, mechanized ascent aids such as escalators and elevators are widely used, which can reduce incidental physical activity and limit availability for people with mobility impairments. This study examined factors influencing ascent aid choice and assessed the effects of a low-cost stair-promotion intervention in three central metro stations in Vienna. Using a mixed-methods design, we combined observations of 30,862 passengers with short interviews conducted before and after the installation of humorous, positively framed stair-riser stickers. Baseline observations showed that escalators were the dominant mode of ascent, with stair use ranging from 7% to 26%, while elevators were primarily used for functional reasons. Following the intervention, stair use increased by four percentage points at two of the three stations. This corresponds to several thousand additional stair uses per day in a high-volume transit system. The effect was greater in women, who noticed the stickers significantly more often. Survey results indicate that humorous and positively framed messages were perceived as more motivating than purely informational or negatively framed approaches. Overall, findings suggest that simple, low-cost behavioral interventions can encourage incidental physical activity in everyday travel and ease pressure on mechanized ascent aids. The results provide insights for urban planners and public health policymakers seeking to integrate physical activity into daily commuting routines.

PM2.5 inhalation exposure and associated health risk in young adults at University campus, Delhi, India

2026-03-20

Saurabh Sonwani, Ronak Raj Sharma, Anju Srivastava, Pallavi Saxena

The present study determines PM₂.₅ concentrations during winter months (late October 2023–early January 2024) to assess the inhalation exposure-related health risks among young adults in the University campus in Delhi. The winter mean PM₂.₅ concentration (269.35 ± 143.43 μg/m³) was ~7 times higher than the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and ~18 times the World Health Organization (WHO) standard. Health risk analyses were conducted using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) inhalation risk assessment framework together with a Relative Risk (RR) model recommended by WHO. Seasonal Hazard Quotient (HQₛₑₐₛₒₙₐₗ) values during winter exceeded the safety threshold of unity, i.e. ~5–6 times higher than summer and monsoon levels, indicating pronounced short-term non-carcinogenic risk during peak pollution periods. In contrast, three-year Hazard Quotient (HQ₃ᵧᵣ) values, remained above unity despite being lower than winter peaks, suggesting sustained non-carcinogenic risk over campus residence. Gender-specific assessment showed marginally higher HQ₃ᵧᵣ values among males due to differences in inhalation rate and body weight. The RR model indicate a projected 1.65-fold increase in cardiopulmonary mortality and a 2.11-fold increase in lung cancer-related mortality under prevailing annual ambient PM₂.₅ concentrations, reflecting long-term risk rather than immediate disease occurrence within the cohort. Health status surveys were conducted among young adults and revealed with 10.3% of respondents had respiratory conditions (bronchitis or asthma), whereas 60.7% reported worsened symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, shortness of breath, or eye irritation during highly polluted winter months. Such observations also align with empirical data and provide a clearer understanding of the on-ground health impacts. In reference to the annual mean PM₂.₅ concentration (98.72 ± 74.51 μg/m³) at the University of Delhi North Campus [Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) monitoring station] in 2023, the exposure was found to be associated with reductions in life expectancy at the population level. Substantial longevity gains could be achieved by meeting NAAQS or WHO's annual standards for PM2.5 (AQLI, 2025). Overall, the findings demonstrate that wintertime PM₂.₅ exposure poses considerable health risks to young adults, underscoring the urgency of long-term air quality management in urban academic settings and establishing a baseline for future mitigation-oriented research.

A multi-scale feature fusion framework for urban functional zone identification using automatic ensemble learning method

2026-03-19

Yansong Wang, Huarong Jia, Yuhuan Zhang, Tianming Zhang, Lu Wang, Wei Guo

In the process of the continuous expansion of global urbanization, the identification and classification of urban functional zones (UFZs) are essential for accurately mapping the internal organization of cities and scientifically planning urban layout patterns. Multi-source remote sensing data are significant for identifying the distribution patterns of UFZ and achieving sustainable urban development. However, the current research mainly uses remote sensing images and point of interest (POI), although the effect of the area of interest (AOI) has great potential, its role has been overlooked. In addition, multi-scale features are difficult to integrate. To solve these problems, in this study, a multi-scale feature fusion framework is proposed for identifying the UFZ distribution. This study integrates five types of features extracted from GF-2 hyperspectral images, POI, AOI, SDGSAT-1 nighttime light images, and building data. Based on these datasets, a plot ratio-enhanced nightlight index (PRENI) was proposed to identify UFZs more accurately and efficiently. The overall accuracies of the UFZs in Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai were 90.70, 91.23 and 90.75%, respectively, confirming the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method. In addition, a comparative analysis was performed against a deep learning–based UFZ classification approach using only GF-2 imagery, which further demonstrates the superior performance of the proposed method in terms of structural rationality and computational efficiency. This study provides a scientific basis for supporting accurate urban planning and development policies to achieve cities’ sustainable development goals.

A unified framework for forecast-adaptive and regime-aware ICT design in smart waste collection

2026-03-18

Pradeep Bedi, Sanjoy Das, Devesh Pratap Singh, Indrani Das

Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled smart waste collection is typically evaluated based on operational savings, while the electricity use and emissions of the enabling digital infrastructure are rarely quantified. This article presents a unified, resource-aware evaluation framework that computes a net environmental balance by jointly accounting for operational impacts and end-to-end information and communication technology (ICT) energy use and CO2emissions across the device, network, edge, and cloud layers. To ground the assessment in realistic urban conditions, the daily atmospheric context was constructed from Sentinel-5P Level-3 time series over New Delhi from 2020 to 2025 using the UV Aerosol Index (UVAI), CO, and NO2. After QA-masked compositing and preprocessing, pollution regimes were identified via standardized multivariate clustering and evolved using a Markov scenario generator. Multi-horizon forecasting (7-day and 30-day horizons) was then compared across ARIMA, ridge regression, random forest, gradient boosting, and long short-term memory (LSTM) to estimate risk and drive a forecast-adaptive ICT policy that tunes sensing and communication rates. The results showed that ensemble learners provided the highest forecasting accuracy across pollutants, while the adaptive ICT design reduced average ICT emissions, showing measurable, regime-aware energy and CO2savings without sacrificing predictive capability for city-scale evaluation.

Smart cities in Turkey: a systematic synthesis and AHP–DEMATEL-based prioritization of urban innovation themes

2026-03-17

Fatma Kürüm-Varolgüneş, María de la Cruz del Río-Rama, José Álvarez-García

As cities face mounting pressures of urbanization, technological innovation, and sustainability, the smart city paradigm has emerged as a multidimensional strategy to modernize infrastructure and enhance quality of life. This study adopts a hybrid review and decision-support approach, presenting a comprehensive synthesis of Turkey’s smart city literature through a two-stage systematic review of 107 peer-reviewed articles (55 international, 52 national) published between 2010 and 2024. Thematic content analysis reveals 20 distinct clusters, which are mapped onto six globally recognized smart city pillars: governance, mobility, economy, people, living, and environment. Moving beyond a conventional systematic review, the study applies the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to prioritize thematic dimensions and the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) to uncover causal relationships among them. Expert input (n = 12) from urban planning, ICT, and environmental policy domains was used to evaluate criteria. Findings indicate that smart governance and smart environment are the most influential drivers, while the smart economy remains underdeveloped. A notable misalignment is observed between local priorities and global frameworks, with institutional fragmentation and uneven technological capacity acting as persistent barriers. This research contributes a context-sensitive analytical model that integrates global smart city theory with the realities of an emerging economy. Limitations include reliance on expert judgment and the absence of longitudinal validation. Future studies should incorporate empirical project data and expand stakeholder perspectives to strengthen the strategic relevance of identified priorities. By explicitly integrating systematic synthesis with expert-driven decision-support modeling, the paper offers a context-sensitive and conditionally transferable framework, which may inform smart city planning in other emerging economies facing comparable institutional and fiscal constraints.

Travel behavior and mobility patterns of live-out domestic workers in Centurion, South Africa

2026-03-16

Babra Duri

IntroductionDomestic workers are an essential but often marginalized component of the urban labor force in South Africa, and their daily mobility experiences remain overlooked in urban and transport planning. This study applies spatial mismatch and transport disadvantage theories to analyze how structural inequalities shape the commuting patterns and transport challenges of live-out domestic workers in Centurion.MethodsA quantitative research approach was employed, using a structured questionnaire administered to 100 female domestic workers selected through purposive sampling. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) with Principal Axis Factoring and Oblimin rotation.ResultsRegarding travel behavior, the study found a predominant reliance on minibus taxis as the primary mode of transport; on mobility patterns, the results revealed a significant spatial separation between home and work, with most respondents spending more than 40 min on work-related commutes; and the main transport-related challenges included a heavy financial burden, as transport costs are high relative to the typical monthly income earned by domestic workers.DiscussionThe four key dimensions influencing transport experiences are fear of harassment, perceived travel safety, access and cost constraints, and information and waiting-time constraints. This study advocates for the development of mixed-income housing and increasing the provision of low-income housing within or near higher-income areas. The findings also highlight the need for targeted policies to improve public transport safety, affordability, and accessibility, thereby supporting inclusive urban mobility.