This edited book surveys the major sustainability challenges facing Asian cities, in particular those related to urban energy and city cooling. The book discusses the key concepts and issues involved, addressing the three levels of micro (individual buildings), meso (neighbourhoods/districts) and macro (whole or large parts of cities). It illustrates different paradigms of urban development and explores how to create cooler cities by applying integrated sustainable design and planning on all three levels, bridging the gap between specialist approaches by highlighting both built projects, processes, and research. It also raises questions about prevalent paradigms of urban development as well as topics relating to urban district cooling solutions, sustainable construction materials, and processes towards effective delivery of sustainable cities. Providing cutting edge insights into hot climate cities in Asia, this text is also pertinent for the study of cities in other world regions, notably in developing countries, and of broad relevance to sustainable urban planning in all contexts.

This edited book provides a solid foundation for future research on cooling cities, climate change impacts on cities and urban environments, and innovative mitigation and adaptation strategies. With ever-increasing climate change impacts on our living environments and continuous calamities and natural disasters around the world, we urge for new approaches, apt action, and adequate support to boost cooling strategies for the built environments. To achieve this goal, research, practice, and policy could do much more to provide us with new pathways to achieve sustainable development. This book is a comprehensive collection of theoretical perspectives and global case study examples focused on three core areas of (1) concepts, theories, and trends, (2) mitigation and adaptation strategies, and (3) policies. The book is of use to various stakeholders and more importantly to urban specialists, planners and designers, policymakers, academics, practitioners, and developers. We urge them to mitigate climate change before it gets too late. We are confident the book could provide readers with new ideas, strategies, and directions that could lighten up the path toward new actions, policies, and innovation.

Sustainable Urbanism in China explores the notion of "Sustainable Urbanism" by considering the role sustainable neighborhood planning plays in the larger picture of sustainable urbanism and suggests innovations and best practices that are either developed or adopted by China. These are narrated as lessons learnt for other countries where we see similar trends of development patterns or emerging practices. Through various explorations of challenges, paradigms, and innovations of urban sustainability, this book highlights how planning, policy, and design are forming and reforming in the context of China. These are offered through a set of guidelines and pathways for urban sustainability at the scale of neighborhoods/communities or districts in a wider context of urban environments, as well as strategies for planners, developers, policy makers, and educators in the field of the built environment. Through a comprehensive overview of urban sustainability practices in China, this book investigates 12 case study projects. These comprehensive explorations should in turn help construct the future directions of China’s sustainable urban development and provide innovative pathways of sustainable urbanism in China and around the globe.

This book aims to provide bases for reasoning on what challenges urban-architectural design for vulnerable communities will face in the coming years. Several issues, such as technological development, climate change, political crisis and economic uncertainties show as traditional strategies and methodologies are not sufficient to deeply solve the problems of these complex realities. These new changes, which are studied in different fields of knowledge, highlight the fact that the development of effective solutions must be characterized by multidisciplinary approaches and must be based on strategies promoted by different disciplines. For this reason, this contributed volume collects contributions and considerations from experts in various fields of knowledge working in different parts of the world, such as the Americas, Europe and Asia. The goal is precisely to provide the reader with multidisciplinary knowledge and methodologies in order to better reflect and analyze the challenges that designing for vulnerable communities will face in the next few years. These multidisciplinary studies are organized into five sections: Sustainability and Vulnerabilities in Time of the Anthropocene Approaches, Principles and Paradigms to Contemporary Research and Practice for Vulnerable Communities Designing for Vulnerabilities: Applications and Actions Social Engagement in Vulnerable Communities Between Digital and Humanist Visions Vulnerabilities in Context: Analysis and Projects in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region Design for Vulnerable Communities will be of interest primarily to researchers and professionals in the field of urban-architectural design, but it will also be a useful tool to policy makers and members of civil society at large interested in making cities more inclusive.

This book is the first attempt to explore the use and application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and related smart technologies in cities and for the sole purpose of reaching positive peace. The everyday usage of digital technologies in cities encourages us to study the benefits, co-benefits, disadvantages, and threats of ICT application in cities and urban environments. The continuous growth of digital technologies and their growing demand in everyday urban practices and systems are already known to scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers. However, this book explores whether or not such applications and usage help us reaching positive peace. This approach is novel in the field of urban studies, allowing us to identify and highlight best practices, successes, and failures of ICT application to meet positive peace pillars. The scope of the book highlights our focus on positive peace and its eight pillars, mainly how they are meant to be achieved in cities and urban areas. With an analytical view on the topic, we aim to reflect on the systematic features of urban systems, using positive peace pillars as the primary targets. We believe ICT application and usage in cities could be more directive and beneficial to reach peace and prosperity to achieve such a goal. Therefore, this book provides a holistic guideline and coverage of ICT use for positive peace pathways and peace-building practices. We hope the findings of the book help researchers and policy-makers to come up with novel and integrated strategies, ensuring that our everyday usage of digital technologies, ICT, and smart tools, are more meaningful and people-oriented.

Since 2014, and the start of the New-type Urbanization Plan (NUP), we see a turning point in the sustainability agenda of China. One of the main indicators is greening cities and the built environments, which will be covered holistically in this edited book. From the perspective of green infrastructure, in particular, the book approaches key areas of ‘forest city development’, ‘sponge city program’, ‘green roofing’, ‘nature-based solutions’, ‘urban farming’, ‘eco-city development’, etc. This is the first time that such important areas of research come together under the perspective of green Infrastructure. The results would be beneficial to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in China and across the globe. The comprehensive set of findings from this book will benefit other countries, as we aim to highlight some of the best practices of the current age. The main aim of the book is to put together an excellent group of scholars and practitioners from the field, focusing on the topic of ‘Green Infrastructure in Chinese Cities’. In doing so, we aim to cover some of the key ‘best practices’ for sustainable urbanism. Divided into four parts, the book covers four key areas of (1) Policy Interventions, (2) Planning Innovation, (3) Design Solutions, and (4) Technical Integration. In doing so, we cover an array of best practices related to green infrastructures of various types and their impacts on cities and communities in China. We expect the book to be a valuable resource for researchers in the areas of sustainability, urbanism, urban planning, urban geography, urban design, geographical sciences, environmental sciences, landscape architecture, and urban ecology. The book covers essential factors such as policy, regulations, and programs (in Part 1), planning paradigms and their impacts on urban development (in Part 2), integrated design solutions that suggest sustainable urbanization progression (in Part 3), and technical knowledge that would be utilized for the future development of green infrastructure practices in China and beyond. Lastly, this edited book aims to provide a collaborative opportunity for experts and researchers of the field, who could contribute to the future pathways of sustainable urbanization of China. Lessons extracted from these contributions could be utilized for other contexts, which will benefit a wider group of stakeholders.

The scope of this book is to map China’s city clusters and their individual directions for the national-level strategies in line with the 2060 carbon neutrality plan. Since China announced the carbon neutrality plan in autumn 2020, no study has looked at the role of city clusters in achieving this long-term plan. Hence, this study is believed to be the first attempt to explore this important topic from the city cluster perspective. It explores the challenges, opportunities, and directions of all 19 city clusters, allowing readers to have a clear picture of China’s historical and ongoing progress, as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. In a short time, China’s city clusters have helped boost regional economic development, infrastructure development, trade and business, and better urban–rural integration. With enhanced coordination of connection and transport networks in and between the city clusters, we see a growing number of initiatives beyond just the initial economic strategies. The dual approach of top-down policies and infrastructure systems and bottom-up governance and investments has helped China consider urban–rural development strategies and regional sustainable development. These factors are essential to be explored from the city cluster perspective and in line with China’s sustainable development and carbon neutrality directions. Hence, the book covers these points holistically, ensuring that regional planning and development are favored in the face of uneven urbanization trends. We anticipate this book to be a valuable resource for local governments and authorities, urban planners and practitioners, developers, and urban researchers. While the focus is on China’s city clusters, we believe there are similar examples elsewhere. Hence, lessons learnt from this book could apply to other countries, regions, and subregions. Lastly, the book aims to put regional sustainable development at the heart of longer-term strategies and plans, such as the case of China’s carbon neutrality plan.