The rapid development in Qatar in all aspects of life has caused a time gap between the infrastructures put in place and the readiness to adopt into them. Through this case study we attempt to give examples of this gap by using art in public spaces as a reflection of Qatar society from urban, social, and economic perspectives. As well as examples on how art in public spaces is bridging the gap. The study shows that the new urbanism strategy of Qatar has changed the way public art is planned from catering to an automotive experience to a pedestrian friendly experience, thus shifting points of interest away from main roads. The study also shows evidence through public art of a societal clash of identities between the traditional local and the international global. Although the urban development in Qatar has allowed industries such as metal working to flourish, these industries were setup for mega projects and rarely do they cater to specialized jobs such as art foundries. In conclusion, art initiatives create real market demand for specialized jobs which in turn helps in creating a diversified economy. The most popular artworks in public spaces no longer exist on roundabouts, that being an indicator of the societal adaptation of a healthier lifestyle by way of urban design. Controversial public art allows for civil dialog between generations where they exchange their ideals of identity. This dialog over art is one of the few platforms where this divide is addressed. In conclusion, the study alludes to anecdotal evidence that art in public is both an indicator and a tool of development.

TSPA, together with Vocação Técnica Lda, developed the Urban Structural Plans for Mozambique, a document and territorial management instrument designed to support Alto Molocue, Boane, Gurue, Nhamatanda, and Milange cities to orient their development and physical and socio-economic growth. Started in 2018 and finished in 2019 as a commission from MITADER, the Mozambican Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development, the project establishes conditions for improving local communities' lives and promotes areas with basic infrastructures and ensures economic benefits in a context of rapid demographic growth and scarce institutional control on regulated land ownership. The project responded to the institutional decentralization Mozambique undertook in 2014, therefore, the guiding document aims for its reproducibility in other Mozambican cities. Our consortium accompanied the delivered plans with a capacity-building effort to support the local authorities in implementing the same strategies in different similar contexts. The plans follow densification principles, adaptation to climate change, and the development of livable neighborhoods. The Urban Structural Plans project pioneers in community involvement and participatory data gathering. Its approach proposes to put citizens and municipal authorities at the center of the design decisions by considering them both sources and decision-makers for the urban plans. This participatory process then transformed into a capacity-building effort, so the project delivered plans and the pathway to implementing them tangibly. Structural plans is a project that started in the framework of UN-Habitat Rapid Planning Studio, fuelled by the UN’s SDG’s and the New Urban Agenda, both initiatives aim to directly target sustainable development. Some of the specific proposed actions were the pattern distribution for agricultural areas, density of urbanization, water supply, wastewater drainage and treatment, environmental and landscape treatment, urban mobility, Urban Environmental Management Plans, and management of areas susceptible to erosion and flooding. The project developed a vision for the city together with municipal authorities and local citizens through questionnaires, public audiences and collaborative planning workshop; it identified geospatial data to then analyse and design planning tools with the local inhabitants. The approach was to make use of citizens' knowledge as a source and we made sure to equip stakeholders with the right tools to effectively respond to future challenges. We supported the legislation that the Mozambican authorities approved for urban settlement planning in 2007, after more than thirty years of national independence, this framework and the uneven growth of human settlements made it urgent to provide public decision-makers, scholars, and those responsible for territorial planning with appropriate instruments and information. Our project produced the first planning exercises derived from the new legislation in a context of rapid demographic growth and scarce institutional control on regulated land ownership. The efforts targeted city design through inclusive planning, working in a back-and-forth process with citizens, gathering knowledge and opinions. The proposal also provided safety, inclusion, and sustainability guidelines to promote a sustainable exploration of potential territorial vocation. The guiding document aimed to create conditions for the emergence and implementation of new economic activities and new population agglomerates, optimize investment, and safeguard the current ecological interests. Some of the specific actions delineated in the Structural Plans are a pattern distribution for agricultural areas, the density of urbanization, water supply, wastewater drainage and treatment, riverfronts, environmental and landscape treatment, urban mobility, Urban Environmental Management Plans, management of areas susceptible to erosion and flooding.

Chemnitz is a city located in the State of Saxony, a former Eastern Germany (GDR) industrial hotspot. The city has witnessed a fascinating history of industrial revolution and technological innovation throughout its past, having been considered the German Manchester back in the 19th and early 20th century. The second world war bombings destroyed 80% of its architectural and cultural heritage, and forced a massive emigration in the mid 1940s. During the GDR, Chemnitz was renamed “Karl Marx City” as a homage to its working class population, soon after the German reunification in 1991, the original name was restored. Chemnitz is today a city of contrasts. Despite being a hub for innovation and technology, its society is divided. Groups of right wing extremists have been misusing circumstantial situations to polarize and feed controversy. In 2020 Chemnitz was successful in their application for European Capital of Culture in 2025. This competition had been identified by the city council and numerous civil organizations as an opportunity to recognize an own identity, promote pride about the shared heritage, but also to motivate the “silent middle” of the society to participate in reshaping the city physically and emotionally, and of being stronger than extremist minorities. This case study will describe the process and visions of Chemnitz from the planning perspective, and will try to translate this vision into potential revitalization opportunities for Chemnitz, which may be backed by the upcoming investments in projects, events and collaborations during the preparations and in the aftermath of 2025.

Different from a single monument or site, heritage management in historical towns and cities pays more attention to the people who live there and keep the site livable in a sustainable way. By taking the UNESCO World Heritage site of Bamberg as a case study, the paper examines how a historical town with community is facing the challenges of vitality and livability driven by the pressure of new developments, such as intensive touristic use and the decrease in number and turnover of traditional shops. Recently, additional challenges have been brought about by the lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected the quality of life in the old town. We argue that a delicate balance between urban regeneration, urban development and heritage preservation is crucial in this respect and both strategic planning and heritage management tools need to be applied. In this context, mixed-use structures, particularly for residential, commercial and tourism purposes, are the key to ensure sustainable development of living heritage such as in the old town of Bamberg. Thus, the main tasks of heritage management involve two aspects: First, mixed use of residence, commerce and tourism and so on should be promoted to develop a resilient and safe city. Second, conflicts among various uses should be balanced and coordinated to develop an inclusive city. The paper explores how funding schemes and legal instruments from the federal and local levels can be employed to successfully cope with the challenges between sustainable conservation and development and to develop a heritage core in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal 11 to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.

The regeneration of old communities is currently among the most concerned actions of urban construction in China. Now, it is generally acknowledged that the management and sustainable development of old communities are hard to maintain by solely relying on the government's investment. How to encourage and guide enterprises, social organizations, and residents to participate in the regeneration has become a key issue. With three cases in Shanghai, this paper examines why "multi-actor governance" is so important for the regeneration of communities and proposes a method to analyze the motivation and incentive paths of actors' "actions" systematically, based on relevant sociological theories. The first part discusses the problems of old communities in Shanghai and the necessity of multi-actor governance. Many houses in old communities in Shanghai are owned by the state, whose rents remain low and unchanged for the past two decades, resulting in the shortage of funds for maintenance of the houses. A promising solution is to operate available community assets(such as the state-owned commercial houses or parking spaces) and generate collective earnings, to supplement the repair funds. This requires the collaboration of the government, residents, social organizations, and enterprises. No one can be absent. For example, due to the special system of property rights, the indoor renovation of the house is impossible without the permission of the permanent tenants (use right holders). Therefore, how to connect the collaborative network among all the actors has become a key point in the regeneration of old communities in Shanghai. The second part discusses the effect, obstacles, and intended improvements in recent practices in Shanghai with three cases. Case 1: The local government engaged a private company for Qishan Community to undertake the renewal and management of the blocks. Although the commercial street is running well, the community committee is not satisfied with the service for the management of residential houses and intends to improve it through residents' "self-governance". Case 2: Xinhua Community has been renting out parking spaces to buy security and cleaning services autonomously for more than ten years. But the funds are still insufficient. The community committee hopes to engage community shops in the governance, expand funding channels and hire a professional company to undertake the job of property management. Case 3: Chunyangli Community commissioned a private enterprise to manage idle houses, and thus realized good utilization and maintenance. But how to distribute the generated collective profits so that it's most beneficial to the community remains to be studied. Given the problems in the cases, the third part proposes a theoretical framework of action analysis, to examine how to improve collaborative networks. 1) Based on the Actor-Network Theory, regard the regeneration of communities as a process in which different actors shape and maintain the collaborative network dynamically. A stable network should make everyone satisfied with the empowerment and the distribution of interest. 2) Based on Max Weber's Social Action Theory, regard the regeneration of community as being composed of actors' unit acts, mainly rational and instrumental acts, but also emotional and traditional acts. 3) Based on Parsons’ Social Action Theory and Giddens’ Structuration Theory, regard actors' unit acts as being taken for the purpose of their interest, guided by laws, policies, community plans, and other rules, using allocative resources (e.g. funds and techniques) and authoritative resources (e.g. property rights and administrative power). Afterwards, actors' motivation is analyzed connected with their position in the cooperation network and their relationship with other actors, and the methods of incentives of action are discussed from two aspects: the adjustment of rules and the supply of resources.

With the rapid urbanization process, the green belts in the fringe of Beijing is gradually becoming the urban-rural junction area. State-owned land used for urban construction is mixed with rural collective land. The long-term urban-rural dual structure makes the urban-rural contradiction in this area prominent. The typical villages in Beijing's green belts have a unique geographical location and spatial organization, and there are not only village and town settlements of aboriginals, but also many villages and communities where immigrants are employed and live. Therefore, researching the characteristics of public space and the social integration of aboriginals and renters in the Beijing's green belts is an important issue for sustainable urban development. In this paper, we take Hegezhuang Village in Beijing as an example, and use the behavioral spot survey method, questionnaire method and field interview method to investigate the behavioral and activity characteristics of the aborigines and renters in the public space. A sample of 100 residents were selected for questionnaire surveys and interviews to summarize the similarities and differences between the psychological and behavioral characteristics of the two groups of people and to analyze their behavioral integration. The research found that: (1) the population of the aborigines participating in public space activities is aging, while the renters are mainly young and middle-aged; (2) the behavioral activities of the two groups can be divided into three types of activities: leisure activities, recreational activities, and other activities, and the communication between the two groups lacks initiative and the degree of interaction is not deep; (3) the aborigines are more familiar with the public space, and the time and place of activities are fixed, while the renters are not familiar with the public space. (4) The activity groups of aborigines and renters tend to be homogeneous, each forming a relatively independent public space; (5) The satisfaction of renters with public space is more differentiated, while the satisfaction of aborigines is generally low. Based on this research, we found that the willingness of both groups to participate in public space activities is influenced by the accessibility, connectivity, sharing, and accessibility of public space; the length of time that both groups spend in public space activities is influenced by the single function of public space and old facilities; the temporary and informal of renters' residence in the village makes it difficult to stimulate a sense of psychological identity and belonging. It is difficult to stimulate a sense of identity and belonging in the village, and the nature and hours of work of renters are often uncertain, making it impossible for them to engage in public space activities at fixed times; the aborigines' residence is fixed and formal, and they tend to have special feelings for the village, and the nature and hours of work of renters are also more stable. Therefore, the psychological differences between the two groups of people, as well as differences in the types of activities and basic types of people, may also affect the initiative of the two groups of people to participate in public activities. The results of this research show that the construction of public spaces effectively promotes the social integration of aboriginals and renters, but does not significantly affect the social integration of aboriginals and renters. Furthermore，both groups are willing to promote their integration through participation in public spaces. Based on this research, the paper attempts to propose strategies for optimizing public spaces that are conducive to the social integration of aboriginals and renters, in order to provide theoretical and practical guidance for the development of public spaces in such areas.

Indian cities have witnessed unprecedented flows of displaced people in modern times. It began with the influx of Hindus and Sikhs from East and West Pakistan in 1947, followed by Tibetan refugees in the 1960s, Afghan Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians in the 1990s. A majority of these refugees settled in New Delhi. They contributed to the development of the city's built form, culture, and economy. These people rebuilt themselves and influenced the city through their agency and community support. They built new places that reeked their culture and identity, amalgamating their culture and identity with the city's culture and identity. They also undertook the accumulation of social capital in the new territory to assimilate into society. Despite wielding such an influence on the urban centers, they continue to be marginalised in the city. They received no state support in creating places of their own and, in turn, making the city their own. Thus, this study aimed to look at the processes involved in place-building and social capital accumulation by refugees, which ultimately aids in reterritorialisation. It is set in an environment where the vulnerable and marginalised groups create spaces without a refugee policy and state support. The study is based on the works of anthropologists such as Kunz, Malkki, and Appadurai. It looks at how places are built by refugees and the factors that influence them, such as memory and a national past. It also includes the theorisation of capital by Bourdieu to understand social capital. It is an ethnographic study that explores one refugee-dominated neighbourhood in New Delhi called Khirkhi extension. It employed qualitative tools to collect data such as interviews, participant, and non-participant observation. Further, data analysis was conducted through qualitative coding data. The study's findings reveal that there are three kinds of places built by refugees in New Delhi. One is rooted in their social relations and interactions, the other one influenced by memory. The third kind involved making sense of the new territory and influencing its norms instead of building a new place. The study also revealed that the lack of rights for the refugees limited the accumulation of social and economic capital in the city. The resources embedded in the ethnic ties of the refugees were the principal ways of accumulating social capital and social position in society. The resources here refer to the connections and ties made by the refugee communities and the perception of the community in the mind of the natives. Interestingly, social position influenced place-building. Assessment of social capital and position revealed power struggle and hierarchy among the different communities of the neighbourhood. The study analyses the connections between refugees, places, and social capital in a South Asian city. It deals with the issues of marginalisation, social exclusion, and agency of the people of the developing world. Furthermore, it acts as a commentary on the cultural landscape of New Delhi. Politics, religion, and narratives influence the city's culture. All of these are visible in the places and people who are accepted and rejected. Thus, the work straddle between multiple domains of enquiry in the field of place-building, exhibiting diversity like seen in the cities of South Asia.

Fast urbanisation has marked the past decades of the global development. Planning research paid a lot of attention to understanding the growth of the cities - various spatial, environmental, social and economic issues have been risen and addressed through incresingly interdisciplinary approaches. In this drive to provide good urban environments, their non-urban counterparts – the small and remote settlements away from the urban hubs - were given much less attention, both in practical and research terms of spatial planning. While the urban centres were in the focus of the attention and have been becoming stronger, many remote places were loosing the attractivity for the people to live there due to the declining economic vitality, decreasing amenities and missing infrastructures to name the few. The lack of the official development strategies for small and remote places often resulted in the stroger self-organisation of local communities - in Europe for example the bottom-up participatory planning practices can be seen in different spatial and social contexts. This paper addresses the issues of contemporary living in small and remote places through the lenses of the improved quality of public spaces in a participatory manner. The spatio-social construction of public spaces and the roles that different actors play in the process of the improved quality of life through the public space regeneration processa are put into focus through the examination of the selected European case studies. The paper is conceptually based in the framework of so called uklads, which are the persistent ways of life or modes of activities which have the spatial expression and are embodied in the micro-economy, micro-culture and/or micro-environment which give the identity to the places. They also represent the living cultural heritage. Because of uklads, the certain space is used and transformed in the specific and distictive way(s). Embedded in the traditions and habbits uklads can be both the potential anchors as well as obstacles for the (re)development of remote places. Based on the systematic comparative review of more than 50 case studies that were analysed in cross-European project Smoties (which is a 2020-2024 edition of the Human Cities activities within the EU Creative Europe programme) the authors discuss the need for the novel approaches to the understanding and conceptualisation of public realm in remote places which must not simply adapt the methodologies developed for the urban environments. They need to understand the complexities of remote communities and places first in order to provide sensible strategies which aim to empower remote areas and make them more robust to face the current and future challanges of remote living. The paper points out that the spatial and even more social construction of public realm in remote places is distinctive and essentially different to urban one and that participatory and inclusive approaches are of even bigger importance in small communities - not only due to the need of joining the forces to combat the general lack of resources but also to empower the community members and strengthen the ties among them to unlock the potential of the remote areas.

This paper conducts an exploration of the dynamic and potential of knowledge value for harnessing local capacity in public space. This occurs with agency of the individual decision-making, as worlds of knowledge collide through the individual. We inhabit the physical and virtual worlds daily, immersed in multiple realities simultaneously. In this context, the paper proposes a way to conceive the several worlds we live in as intertwined. Vast and diverse amounts of knowledge move through public spaces. Intertwinement and its application to real-life situations is approached through the (field*) study of several public spaces across three cities in East Africa: Dar-es-Salaam, Nairobi, and Addis Ababa. The virtual revolution is sharply outpacing physical change in the emerging economies of East Africa. The significant youth populations of these cities have access to global knowledge yet remain geographically static. Kenya’s start-ups are driving crowdsourcing innovations; Tanzania has the highest population growth in Africa while colonial urban planning remains imprinted; and Ethiopia faces significant rural-urban migration as the country moves to an era of privatisation. The case study spaces have highly polarised infrastructure, with a complex interdependent system of relationships and networks, where a great potential for harnessing knowledge is found. We are at a critical juncture to ensure the city remains a nurturing host for society. Just as it is redundant to conceive architectural space without its social or human constructs, and they are designed as one, it is essential to view the virtual world as equally intertwined. We must restructure our approach and notions of disciplinary silo and hierarchy. Townsend (2000) and others have written about the advent of complex new (digital) networks, challenging conventional notions of public space and ‘the very foundations of centralised city planning.’ . Willis (2008) identifies that the physical and virtual structures are layered, with a ‘bolt-on approach… overlapping, but in many instances not working as a unified domain’. Castells (2000) talks of a ‘structural schizophrenia between two spatial logics’ namely ‘space of places’ and ‘space of flows’. The public spaces investigated herein seek to interrogate these perspectives. A detailed ‘scan’ of the three cities was conducted, at city, district, and human scales. The study extends across three very different localities, remaining at the same scale, exploring ‘struggles that are global distributed in that they recur in locality after locality’ (Sassen, 2004). Many are underutilised and neglected, as poor city planning results in difficult access and lack of provision for circulation and shading. Increasing density and pressure on road networks often results in open spaces being taken over or isolated. These spaces are full of potential for increased local capacity through intertwinement. The study operates across all public space typologies and functions. The premise being that the Knowledge Society is not confined to a specific typology or activity, rather there are conditions under which it is intensified. This new way of perceiving the possibility for knowledge society unshackles it from preconceived notions of what is considered ‘knowledge’ and brings it closer to its true definition; an all-encompassing multi-level network of exchange crossing social, disciplinary, and physical boundaries. *The field study was led by the author, with support from the British Council, and in collaboration with the University of Nairobi, Ardhi University Dar-es-Salaam, and Addis Ababa University (Ethiopian institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development).

Justice is one of the world's cardinal virtues. In the field of urban and regional development, it is usually used as a guiding principle for the distribution of state funds and infrastructures or to avoid burdens, e.g. from traffic. Arguments of distributive justice and institutional justice play an important role here (cf. Soja 2010). Additional elements like transactional justice or intergenerational justice (climate justice) are neglected or only step by step discussed. However, they offer starting points for more just cooperation, especially at the municipal and regional level. But how can transactional justice and intergenerational justice be implemented in everyday life at the municipal and regional level? What concrete starting points are there for this? These questions will be answered with a view to a current case study in the German region of Schwerin. As part of the project ReGerecht, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, current challenges, conflicts and approaches to solutions regarding an integrative urban-rural development are to be tested. Practical approaches (e.g. in land management) for the realisation of compensation measures will be shown. Ideas for future implementations are also discussed. The results are embedded in international lines of discussion on the implementation of spatial justice goals (e.g. Tonkiss 2020).