Digitalization challenges spatial assumptions in urban economic theory and conventional urban planning thinking. Information and communications technologies could bridge access to qualities and resources typically associated with certain neighborhoods, transforming the roles of city centers and suburban business parks. This study examined the role of virtual/remote coordination in the neighborhood preferences of software small and medium software enterprises (SMEs). These companies rely heavily on knowledge and digital tools in flexible remote work arrangements. Analyzing a 2025 survey dataset of 94 software SMEs registered in Tallinn, Estonia, this work explored how neighborhood qualities, virtual coordination practices, and substitutability potential in company activities relate to neighborhood location preferences using ordinal logistic regression models. Despite evidence toward the substitutive capability of information and communications technologies, for the majority of software SMEs, virtual work and advanced organizational digital capabilities do not remove the appeal of central neighborhoods, and physical access to at least some localized characteristics remains important.
The study developed a framework that integrates multicriteria land suitability analysis with a decision-support tool to guide funding allocation and the spatialization of nature-based solutions (NbS) at the regional scale. The approach prioritized areas most affected by climate change impacts, environmental pressures, and conditions of exposure and vulnerability. Focusing on urban contexts, the study highlights NbS as a central strategy for sustainable development and climate change adaptation and mitigation. The proposed framework was designed as a replicable tool to support the identification of suitable areas for NbS implementation, ensuring the efficient use of financial resources; maximizing environmental, social, and economic benefits; and enabling transparent and informed decision-making. The framework was applied to a case study in Sardinia, Italy. The findings confirm its relevance for the spatialization of public policies and for enabling the integration of mitigation and adaptation strategies into urban and territorial planning.
This study assesses flood risk in Yozgat District, Yozgat Province, T & uuml;rkiye, by linking urban drivers to planning responses. Its mixed-methods design integrates hydrometeorological series, historical event records, national hazard/risk layers, terrain diagnostics, and a cross-scale review of the planning hierarchy. Its results show how risk concentrates along culverted or hard-lined reaches in B & uuml;y & uuml;kbalta & ouml;z & uuml;, & Scedil;ehiri & ccedil;i, and Ta & scedil;l & imath;burun, where impervious cover is high and stormwater wastewater interactions persist. An action matrix for priority belts is distilled from its findings, comprising selective daylighting and renaturalization, protection of overland flow routes, micro-retention/detention in public space, riparian setbacks, and targeted gray upgrades with routine maintenance. Benchmarking the transferability of Copenhagen's pluvial toolkit, this research emphasizes the suitability of surface-based blue-green measures to inland valley cities. The major contribution of this study is the operational link it makes between risk evidence and implementable planning instruments.
Participatory science in urban planning has gained attention for its potential to enhance inclusive decision-making, improve data availability, and support knowledge dissemination, yet it remains underutilized in developing countries because of limited institutional capacity, fragmented governance, and weak integration of participant-generated data. The authors examined how participatory science can be effectively applied in resource-constrained urban contexts. The study involved two stages: (a) a literature review that focused on its potential and limitations in developing countries and (b) field-based lessons from three participatory applications in Palestine, developed with municipalities, ministries, non-governmental organizations, and universities. These initiatives addressed key challenges, such as inclusive public spaces, smart campus development, and water supply monitoring. The findings inform the Participatory Science Urban Governance Framework, which emphasizes adaptive digital tools, stakeholder coordination, and local trust-building as essential for embedding participatory science in urban governance.
The study developed a framework that integrates multicriteria land suitability analysis with a decision-support tool to guide funding allocation and the spatialization of nature-based solutions (NbS) at the regional scale. The approach prioritized areas most affected by climate change impacts, environmental pressures, and conditions of exposure and vulnerability. Focusing on urban contexts, the study highlights NbS as a central strategy for sustainable development and climate change adaptation and mitigation. The proposed framework was designed as a replicable tool to support the identification of suitable areas for NbS implementation, ensuring the efficient use of financial resources; maximizing environmental, social, and economic benefits; and enabling transparent and informed decision-making. The framework was applied to a case study in Sardinia, Italy. The findings confirm its relevance for the spatialization of public policies and for enabling the integration of mitigation and adaptation strategies into urban and territorial planning.
This study assesses flood risk in Yozgat District, Yozgat Province, Türkiye, by linking urban drivers to planning responses. Its mixed-methods design integrates hydrometeorological series, historical event records, national hazard/risk layers, terrain diagnostics, and a cross-scale review of the planning hierarchy. Its results show how risk concentrates along culverted or hard-lined reaches in Büyükbaltaözü, Şehiriçi, and Taşlıburun, where impervious cover is high and stormwater wastewater interactions persist. An action matrix for priority belts is distilled from its findings, comprising selective daylighting and renaturalization, protection of overland flow routes, micro-retention/detention in public space, riparian setbacks, and targeted gray upgrades with routine maintenance. Benchmarking the transferability of Copenhagen’s pluvial toolkit, this research emphasizes the suitability of surface-based blue-green measures to inland valley cities. The major contribution of this study is the operational link it makes between risk evidence and implementable planning instruments.
Digitalization challenges spatial assumptions in urban economic theory and conventional urban planning thinking. Information and communications technologies could bridge access to qualities and resources typically associated with certain neighborhoods, transforming the roles of city centers and suburban business parks. This study examined the role of virtual/remote coordination in the neighborhood preferences of software small and medium software enterprises (SMEs). These companies rely heavily on knowledge and digital tools in flexible remote work arrangements. Analyzing a 2025 survey dataset of 94 software SMEs registered in Tallinn, Estonia, this work explored how neighborhood qualities, virtual coordination practices, and substitutability potential in company activities relate to neighborhood location preferences using ordinal logistic regression models. Despite evidence toward the substitutive capability of information and communications technologies, for the majority of software SMEs, virtual work and advanced organizational digital capabilities do not remove the appeal of central neighborhoods, and physical access to at least some localized characteristics remains important.
Tourism externalities, such as gentrification, over-tourism, and the Bilbao effect, are key concerns in contemporary urban and regional planning. A wide range of approaches for measuring sustainable tourism have been developed, highlighting the challenges associated with comparing performance and outcomes across different destinations and scales. To address these issues, the paper proposes a spatially explicit taxonomic classification of the tourism ecosystem structure to a relevant set of spatial variables that characterize the supply of a specialized tourism value chain. The study identifies, evaluates, and compares specialized tourism destinations areas, applying the balanced supply index to produce a high-resolution cultural tourism map. The approach strengthens electronic planning by integrating geospatial data into a robust analytical framework, aiding sustainable tourism management and regional planning. It supports place-specific policy design and promotes adaptive, data-driven urban and regional electronic planning.
Building information modeling (BIM) and geographic information systems (GISs) are increasingly integrated to meet modern infrastructure demands. A key challenge is the lack of interoperability between the Industry Foundation Classes road model used in BIM and the CityGML transportation model used in GIS. This study presents the unified road model, a framework for bidirectional interoperability by aligning semantic definitions, geometric representations, and attribute mappings to preserve engineering and geospatial data. The unified road model combines volumetric data from the Industry Foundation Classes with CityGML's multiple levels of detail and was validated through a signalized intersection and a roundabout in the & Ouml;rebro-Karlskoga corridor in Sweden. Results show the unified road model connects data from both domains, maintaining attributes such as material properties, alignment geometry, and spatial relationships. This demonstrates its potential to enhance multidisciplinary workflows, reduce data loss, and improve BIM-GIS collaboration. The study recommends further research into automation, scalability, and smart city applications.
Tourism externalities, such as gentrification, over-tourism, and the Bilbao effect, are key concerns in contemporary urban and regional planning. A wide range of approaches for measuring sustainable tourism have been developed, highlighting the challenges associated with comparing performance and outcomes across different destinations and scales. To address these issues, the paper proposes a spatially explicit taxonomic classification of the tourism ecosystem structure to a relevant set of spatial variables that characterize the supply of a specialized tourism value chain. The study identifies, evaluates, and compares specialized tourism destinations areas, applying the balanced supply index to produce a high-resolution cultural tourism map. The approach strengthens electronic planning by integrating geospatial data into a robust analytical framework, aiding sustainable tourism management and regional planning. It supports place-specific policy design and promotes adaptive, data-driven urban and regional electronic planning.
Urban environments are increasingly governed by digital infrastructures that mirror the vision of supply chain management. With the deployment of digital twins and real-time surveillance systems, cities are becoming spaces where citizens are monitored, sorted, and routed with the same efficiency-driven principles applied to goods in logistical networks. The emergence of what may be called the palletized citizen reflects this shift: individuals are treated as standardized, trackable units, whose trajectories through urban space are shaped by algorithms prioritizing flow optimization over human agency. While proponents emphasize gains in safety and efficiency, these technologies introduce profound ethical dilemmas. The integration of facial recognition and predictive behavior modeling points to a broader global trend that risks normalizing hyper-surveillance. This paper critically examines how the digital management of urban life increasingly aligns with logistical rationality, raising urgent questions about autonomy, privacy, and the future of public spaces.
Planning support systems (PSS)—digital tools designed to aid spatial planning and decision-making—have the potential to support diverse planning tasks in collaborative planning and citizen self-organization. However, the diversity of tasks creates a challenge for developing a PSS that could be used by various stakeholders. This study examines stakeholder needs for a self-developed game engine-based 3D PSS. Furthermore, the effect of user research on the development of the PSS is discussed. The research was conducted by thematic analysis of multiple focus group discussion recordings, and questionnaires were used as supplementary data. The primary stakeholder groups were planning professionals and citizen activists. The results show differences in how stakeholders prefer to use the PSS, leading to partly different needs. Planners emphasized the need for interoperability for collaborative planning purposes, whereas citizen activists valued independent plan creation capabilities for self-organization. Nonetheless, most stakeholders recognized the system’s utility as a quick, simple, and visual 3D plan sketching tool.
Building information modeling (BIM) and geographic information systems (GISs) are increasingly integrated to meet modern infrastructure demands. A key challenge is the lack of interoperability between the Industry Foundation Classes road model used in BIM and the CityGML transportation model used in GIS. This study presents the unified road model, a framework for bidirectional interoperability by aligning semantic definitions, geometric representations, and attribute mappings to preserve engineering and geospatial data. The unified road model combines volumetric data from the Industry Foundation Classes with CityGML’s multiple levels of detail and was validated through a signalized intersection and a roundabout in the Örebro–Karlskoga corridor in Sweden. Results show the unified road model connects data from both domains, maintaining attributes such as material properties, alignment geometry, and spatial relationships. This demonstrates its potential to enhance multidisciplinary workflows, reduce data loss, and improve BIM–GIS collaboration. The study recommends further research into automation, scalability, and smart city applications.
Urban environments are increasingly governed by digital infrastructures that mirror the vision of supply chain management. With the deployment of digital twins and real-time surveillance systems, cities are becoming spaces where citizens are monitored, sorted, and routed with the same efficiency-driven principles applied to goods in logistical networks. The emergence of what may be called the palletized citizen reflects this shift: individuals are treated as standardized, trackable units, whose trajectories through urban space are shaped by algorithms prioritizing flow optimization over human agency. While proponents emphasize gains in safety and efficiency, these technologies introduce profound ethical dilemmas. The integration of facial recognition and predictive behavior modeling points to a broader global trend that risks normalizing hyper-surveillance. This paper critically examines how the digital management of urban life increasingly aligns with logistical rationality, raising urgent questions about autonomy, privacy, and the future of public spaces.
Urban road safety remains a pressing global challenge, with approximately 300,000 annual pedestrian fatalities attributed to vehicle collisions. While speed reduction is a well-established safety intervention, universal speed limit reductions can lead to negative externalities like increased travel time and pollution. To address this conflict, this study introduced an agent-based model integrating multi-agent transport simulation mobility and micro-simulation with pedestrian safety modeling for urban e-planning. Our granular analysis reveals nonlinear relationships between speed limits, safety outcomes, and travel times. Specifically, we identified instances where seemingly minor speed adjustments lead to significant and disproportionate changes in safety and travel time. Our framework provides urban planners with an anticipatory phase diagram of speed limit impacts, enabling evidence-based strategies and informed decision making. This research advances sustainable mobility planning by facilitating speed management and balancing safety and mobility within complex urban systems.
The climate crisis and the post-pandemic scenario underline the interaction of urban structure and land use organization. The study focuses on the "15-minute city" concept as a significant model for urban adaptation to improve equity, sustainability, and economic vitality. The objectives are to evaluate levels of compliance to 15-minute city criteria of the metropolitan city of Cagliari, in Italy, and to understand relations among access to amenities and mesoscale factors of urban form. The findings underline disparities across the metropolitan area, the emergence of a multi-level structure of metropolitan and local centers, and the significant relation among urban form factors and access to amenities. In particular, R2 values for linear regressions of access to amenities on population density, road intersection density, and local integration range respectively from 0.742 to 0.975, 0.634 to 0.952, and 0.545 to 0.952. The study identifies density, permeability, and centrality as central targets of urban regeneration policies.
The fitness platform Strava gathers data from its users that the company repackages and shares through its Strava Metro platform. Municipalities have been using these data to inform their active transportation planning efforts, but less is known about how they use these data and account for their limits. Through interviews with municipal staff who are long-standing Metro users, this paper examines how decision-makers use these data and mitigate for their limitations. It concludes with reflections on the role of third-party data in urban planning efforts and their impact on planning outcomes.
The fitness platform Strava gathers data from its users that the company repackages and shares through its Strava Metro platform. Municipalities have been using these data to inform their active transportation planning efforts, but less is known about how they use these data and account for their limits. Through interviews with municipal staff who are long-standing Metro users, this paper examines how decision-makers use these data and mitigate for their limitations. It concludes with reflections on the role of third-party data in urban planning efforts and their impact on planning outcomes.
