Search Results (65)

Urban sustainability actions implemented by local governments play a crucial role in addressing contemporary environmental challenges and advancing sustainable urban development. Beyond their environmental impacts, these local initiatives may also be associated with citizens’ participation, behaviors, and sense of responsibility toward the environment. However, limited empirical research has systematically examined how municipal sustainability initiatives contribute not only to environmental and sustainability outcomes but also to the development of environmental citizenship. This study evaluates urban sustainability actions implemented by local governments during the timespan of eight years (2017–2025) within the framework of the National Green City Awards in Cyprus. Using a structured coding scheme and a dataset of municipal sustainability initiatives, the study analyses the relationships between action characteristics, governance and participation mechanisms, environmental and sustainability outcomes, and environmental citizenship outcomes. The empirical analysis employs descriptive statistics and association levels to examine the relationship between the studied dimensions and sustainability outcomes and environmental citizenship development. The findings highlight that the environmental domain, SDG alignment, and nature-based solutions are significantly associated with the effectiveness of municipal sustainability initiatives. The study contributes to the literature on sustainable urban development and environmental governance by providing an empirical framework for evaluating municipal sustainability actions and by demonstrating their role in fostering environmental citizenship and sustainability-oriented civic engagement. Full article

Background/Objectives: Franz Tappeiner (1816–1902) is often celebrated as a pioneer of alpine medicine and the founder of Tappeiner Promenade in Meran (South Tyrol, Italy). However, his legacy extends far beyond the scenic infrastructure, encompassing a comprehensive vision of physical activity as a public health intervention. His multidisciplinary practice anticipated the principles of contemporary rehabilitation, preventive medicine, and climate-sensitive public health. Methods: This historical public health analysis, combining biographical, contextual, and material–spatial approaches, reinterprets Tappeiner’s writings, institutional engagements, and civic projects through the lens of modern public health frameworks. Drawing on primary materials (e.g., published articles, autobiographical fragments, and commemorative texts) and recent evidence from rehabilitation and environmental health research, these contributions were contextualized. Results: Tappeiner’s early focus on infectious disease prevention (e.g., cholera and tuberculosis) transitioned into a strategic emphasis on recovery and behavioral therapy through environmental design. The walking therapy model of Max Joseph Oertel, locally realized in the Tappeiner Promenade, prefigured modern concepts such as structured green rehabilitation, walkability, and urban-health citizenship. His systematic integration of graded walking into civic infrastructure represents one of the earliest documented examples of embedding physical activity promotion at the population level. He contributed substantial personal funds to the path’s construction, embedding therapeutic gradients, curating vegetation, and promoting inclusive design to support convalescence. Contemporary research supports the intuition that green, low- to moderate-intensity walking improves cardiometabolic health, psychological well-being, and functional capacity. Moreover, his integrative ethos, merging clinical medicine, civic ethics, and spatial intervention, parallels contemporary eco-social models of public health. Conclusions: Franz Tappeiner’s career exemplifies a still-relevant model of physician leadership that is empirically grounded, socially accountable, and ecologically attuned, with physical activity promotion embedded as a central element of his public health vision. His work invites reflection on how medical professionals can shape not only individual care but also urban environments and collective health futures. Full article

Active citizen participation in both consumption and production is essential for a successful renewable energy transition. The paper explores the early development of prosumerism in Jerusalem, a city characterized by socio-political fragmentation and unequal access to infrastructure. Based on a 320-sample survey conducted in East and West Jerusalem, the paper analyzes awareness, motivation, and barriers to solar energy adoption in the city. The results show that only 12% of respondents currently produce and consume their own energy, while 66% had never heard of the term “prosumerism.” Financial savings were shown to be the primary driver of implementing solar systems, both in East and West Jerusalem. Key barriers included high installation costs, limited regulatory knowledge, and administrative complexity. Despite these obstacles, 70% of respondents expressed interest in community energy initiatives, highlighting significant potential for citizen-led models in fragmented urban contexts. Full article

This study advances the reconceptualization of Open municipal markets (OMMs) as networked ecosystems that connect food producers, vendors and citizenship across rural and urban contexts, sustaining short food supply chains and reinforcing territorial resilience through the interplay of mobility and embeddedness. Aimed at understanding OMMs as components of a broader, networked and adaptable food ecosystem, the research introduces a new methodology that builds on existing scholarship framing markets as relational and mobile spaces. It contributes to the literature by integrating these perspectives into an ecosystemic lens. By applying a mobility-based approach, the research shifts attention from static views of markets to their dynamic and circulatory nature, highlighting their role in fostering more sustainable and socially rooted food systems. Focusing on 105 OMMs in the Province of Girona (Spain), the research combines spatial analysis and data analysis of 300 surveys completed by 300 stallholders to examine how mobility practices shape market dynamics. The paper provides a new methodology of market stallholders and types of markets as well as four key indicators (recurrence, variety, closeness and rootedness) to assess stallholder activity and territorial embeddedness. These findings reveal that stallholders, particularly producers, connect rural production with urban consumption through flexible and multi-scalar circuits. The paper advocates for ecosystem-based urban food planning that harnesses stallholder mobility to strengthen territorial cohesion and food sovereignty, positioning OMMs as strategic public facilities for resilient and socially responsible food systems. Full article

In a context of environmental and socio-economic challenges, metropolitan areas represent a fundamental territorial scale for addressing cohesion, competitiveness, and sustainability, key priorities in European territorial development. Accessibility to services is crucial, as it reflects the right to full citizenship, particularly in territories where attractive urban centres coexist with peripheral areas. Balancing these dynamics is a major challenge for metropolitan governance and planning, especially in Italy, where Metropolitan Cities (MCs) have been institutionalised for over a decade. This paper examines spatial structure, accessibility, and governance through a comparative analysis of three Italian MCs in the Po Valley macro-region, a polycentric system along the Mediterranean Corridor of the Trans-European Transport Network. Despite overall interconnections, the MCs display different settlement and accessibility patterns. The Metropolitan City of Turin is selected as a case study for its territorial diversity, metropolitan-mountainous character, misalignment between administrative and functional boundaries, and accessibility limitations. The research examines current planning instruments and governance-government arrangements of the case study in addressing these challenges. Findings, framed within the decadal review of Italian MCs, emphasise the need for greater coordination between plans, policies and programmes, combined with strengthened inter-municipal collaboration and territorial representation, to support a multi-level governance framework capable of coherent, effective, and balanced metropolitan development. Full article

The present study explores the role of food as a symbolic, material, and relational device in identity construction and community processes. This study draws on a qualitative case study of a community-based social restaurant located in a mid-sized city in central-northern Italy. The initiative’s objective is to promote the social and labor inclusion of migrant women through training and experiential programs. The research, conducted over a period of nine months from October 2024 to June 2025, was based on a participatory qualitative design, which integrated semi-structured interviews, ecological maps, photointervention, world café, and affective cartography, involving 35 participants including operators, trainees, local community members, and politicians. The results demonstrate the multifaceted role of food practices at the restaurant, which serve to strengthen internal relationships, regulate community life, construct intercultural narratives, and establish spaces of recognition and agency for the women involved. Moreover, the restaurant has been shown to have the capacity to influence the broader social representations of migration in the urban context, thereby promoting processes of cohesion and belonging. It is evident that food-related activities manifest as quotidian micro-political practices, which have the capacity to subvert stereotypes, recognize frequently unseen abilities, and generate new forms of inclusive citizenship. The present study underscores the transformative capacity of initiatives that employ food practices as innovative instruments for fostering empowerment; well-being; and social participation; through the third element of food. The limitations and future prospects of the present situation are discussed; with particular reference to the need to ensure continuity and institutional sustainability for similar experiences. Full article

Collaborative mapping has emerged in recent decades as a key practice for producing open geospatial knowledge and fostering critical citizenship. However, several studies have shown that these platforms may reproduce existing gender inequalities, both in terms of participation and representation. This article examines the potential of collaborative feminist cartography as a strategy for making inequalities visible and promoting gender equality in public space. Methodologically, the study focuses on the project Las Calles de las Mujeres, developed by Geochicas OSM, combining quantitative analysis of street naming in urban development with qualitative implementation in educational contexts. A global overview of 32 cities in 11 countries is provided, with a detailed case study of 11 Spanish cities. Results confirm the persistence of a significant gender gap in urban toponymy: streets named after men not only outnumber those dedicated to women but are also on average longer, more central, and symbolically more prominent. Educational experiences in Spain provide learning outcomes and demonstrate that collaborative mapping strengthens spatial thinking, digital competence, and critical awareness, linking geography education to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 5 and SDG 11). The article concludes that feminist mapping initiatives are simultaneously pedagogical, social, and political tools, capable of fostering more inclusive and sustainable cities. Full article

This article is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Bologna between 2022 and 2023, including anonymized interviews and participant observation, and examines the role of Islamic religious spaces in fostering civic participation and identity among second-generation Muslims in Italy. Focusing on the experience of the Islamic Community of Bologna—and particularly on the engagement of young Muslims born or raised in the city—the study addresses how mosques, often perceived as marginal or insular, can become spaces of urban integration. The analysis shows that the religiosity expressed by the youth diverges from that of the first generation and serves as a resource for building social capital and legitimising new forms of public citizenship. Particular attention is devoted to the collective experience of the Iftar street, which constitutes a moment of institutional recognition and symbolic co-construction of belonging: no longer “immigrant Muslims,” but “Muslims of Bologna.” In the absence of a national integration model, the article concludes that local dynamics can generate implicit forms of inclusion, enabling new generations to emerge as civic actors capable of redefining the boundaries of urban belonging and articulating a post-ethnic, citizen-oriented Islam. Full article

Rural-to-urban resettlement is a widely used poverty alleviation strategy in China for fundamentally transforming poor farmers’ livelihoods, with roughly 263,000 rural poor relocated to urban communities in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture between 2016 and 2020. This dramatic development intervention in urbanization has unexpectedly resulted in the separation of hukou locality and residence. Considering that the government equally provides follow-up employment support policies to guarantee the citizenship rights for resettlers whether or not their hukou locality has transferred to urban communities, then, does the local citizenship still matter for employment? If so, how does local citizenship make a difference? What role does employment policy play in terms of the impact of local citizenship on employment? The answers to these questions are not yet clear. Based on a survey of 735 relocated households in the Liangshan Yi Ethnic Area, the Heckman sample selection model was used to empirically estimate the effect of local citizenship (hukou locality) on employment from the perspective of welfare acquisition cost, paying particular attention to the moderating effect of follow-up employment support policies. Our results show that (1) local citizenship can significantly increase the employed persons of a household by 0.279 units, prolong the working months by 2.297 units, and increase per capita wage by 0.885%. (2) Mechanism analysis shows that local citizenship affects relocated households’ employment by reducing welfare acquisition costs. (3) Moderating analysis shows that the follow-up employment support policies weakened the positive impact of local citizenship on employment, developing pro-poor jobs substitutes for the positive effect of local citizenship on the employed size; recommending job information substitutes for the positive effect of local citizenship on working months; and targeted labor exporting substitutes for the positive effect of local citizenship on per capita wage. This study provides new empirical evidence for understanding the relationship between hukou locality and employment consequences at a smaller scale and then provides theoretical reference and practical basis for the improvement of employment from the perspective of local citizenship. Full article

Career and College Readiness (CCR) generates higher levels of persistence, grit, motivation, and competencies in performing work- or school-related tasks among learners during post-secondary life. One primary limitation defining the present scholarship on CCR is the authentic analysis of the on the ground or field practices high schools perform to increase learners’ CCR competencies. The inadequate research on actual CCR practices in high schools motivated this study. To learn more about how high schools prepare students for post-secondary life, 16 principals from high schools provided detailed narratives on CCR practices in their institutions. Principals completed interviews of one to two hours using Microsoft Teams, supplying the researcher with specific information and examples of how their institutions equip students for future careers and higher education. Manual qualitative thematic analysis of the entire transcript guided the organization and interpretation of the findings, allowing the presentation of meaningful themes supported by a plethora of illustrations. Six themes representing 18 distinct CCR practices emerged, and the themes were rigorous curriculum, content knowledge, key academic behaviors, key cognitive strategies, multiculturalism, and citizenship development. Results partially supported the pervasive CCR model based on Conley’s readiness index. Increasingly, diversity and citizenship learning have defined high schools’ CCR work in preparing learners to become effective local and global citizens. The current investigation paves the way for future observational and field research uncovering whether schools truly prepare students or not, and such preparation varies across community, country, and institutional characteristics. Full article

Over the past two decades, the expanding environmental and ecological crises highlight the need to broaden the concept of sustainability to encompass support for cultural sensitivity and social well-being. This study explores the role of architectural education in fostering cultural sensitivity and social well-being in embassy architecture within a framework of environment–behavior studies. It starts from the premise that the architectural values of a culture are deeply rooted in the relationship between the users, architecture, and surrounding environment. State-sponsored architectural works (e.g., embassies, consulates, cultural centers) built outside the country are viewed as symbolic representations of a nation’s diplomatic and cultural influence. These architectural typologies hold a unique potential to act as bridges for cross-cultural dialogue and foster a collective sense of global citizenship. In order to develop and assess the teaching curriculum, a specific assignment was given to master’s students of the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, with the aim to explore how engineering education can be adopted to motivate students toward sustainable attitudes and design solutions. While traditional diplomatic architecture emphasizes inward-facing, fortress-like design strategies, establishing physical and symbolic barriers between the embassy’s territory and the surrounding context, this research advocates for a more holistic approach oriented toward cultural sustainability, openness, and integration within an urban context. Key findings highlight creative solutions for balancing cultural representation with functional requirements while prioritizing community engagement, environmental responsibility, and user well-being. By demonstrating the two distinctive architectural strategies, this study contributes to the culturally responsive embassy design within the broader context of sustainable architectural education. Full article

Understanding the scientific underpinnings of climate change is crucial for informed citizenship and future decision-making. This study investigates the understanding of the scientific underpinnings of climate change among German A-level students, focusing on key content areas such as the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect, the carbon cycle, and the distinction between weather and climate. Using a validated climate change concept inventory (CCCI-422), we assessed 501 students from five urban secondary schools in North Rhine-Westphalia. Results indicate that students correctly answered on average 39% of the questions correctly, revealing significant knowledge gaps, particularly in areas like the greenhouse effect and atmospheric composition. We also identified several overarching ideas that many students demonstrate. This study underscores the importance of integrating comprehensive climate science education into national curricula and classroom instruction to foster scientifically literate future generations capable of addressing the global climate crisis. Full article

Exposure to PM_2.5 pollution poses substantial health risks, with the precise quantification of exposure being fundamental to understanding the environmental inequalities therein. However, the absence of high-resolution spatiotemporal ambient population data, coupled with an insufficiency of attribute data, impedes a comprehension of the environmental inequality of exposure risks at a fine scale. Within the purview of a conceptual framework that interlinks social strata and citizenship identity with environmental inequality, this study examines the environmental inequality of PM_2.5 exposure with a focus on the city of Xi’an. Quantitative metrics of the social strata and citizenship identities of the ambient population are derived from housing price data and mobile phone big data. The fine-scale estimation of PM_2.5 concentrations is predicated on the kriging interpolation method and refined by leveraging an advanced dataset. Employing geographically weighted regression models, we examine the environmental inequality pattern at a fine spatial scale. The key findings are threefold: (1) the manifestation of environmental inequality in PM_2.5 exposure is pronounced among individuals of varying social strata and citizenship identities within our study area, Xi’an; (2) nonlocal residents situated in the northwestern precincts of Xi’an are subject to the most pronounced PM_2.5 exposure; and (3) an elevated socioeconomic status is identified as an attenuating factor, capable of averting the deleterious impacts of PM_2.5 exposure among nonlocal residents. These findings proffer substantial practical implications for the orchestration of air pollution mitigation strategies and urban planning initiatives. They suggest that addressing the wellbeing of the marginalized underprivileged cohorts, who are environmentally and politically segregated under the extant urban planning policies in China, is of critical importance. Full article

The urban settlement intention of the floating population and its influencing factors have received widespread attention, but there is less literature on the relationship between human capital, life satisfaction, and the urban settlement intention of the floating population. Employing 2146 questionnaire data from the Pearl River Delta’s floating population, this study establishes measurement indicators for human capital and life satisfaction, constructs a structural equation model, and examines the influence of human capital on life satisfaction, as well as their collective impact on the floating population’s urban settlement intentions. The findings reveal that human capital influences multiple facets of the floating population’s life satisfaction, which subsequently shapes its desire to settle. Considering individual life satisfaction, the economic well-being and social security contentment of the floating population exert a notable impact on its urban settlement intentions, whereas satisfaction with emotional life and public service facilities appears to have a less pronounced effect. Further investigation into how varying levels of human capital modulate the influence of life satisfaction on urban settlement intentions, alongside the transition from fundamental economic security to psychological needs (about life satisfaction), holds substantial referential value for research on population migration and the development of citizenship policies in China. Full article

This study assessed the impact of counter-mapping on university students’ perception and knowledge of their cities, focusing on cultural diversity, urban dynamics, and social challenges. Using a quasi-experimental design with pretests and posttests in the province of Alicante, Spain, changes in the understanding of urban geography, everyday life, and cultural diversity were analyzed among 54 Geography Didactics students. Likert scale surveys and open-ended questions were employed, complemented by statistical and qualitative analyses, to measure knowledge and perceptions before and after the counter-mapping project. The results indicate that although quantitative correlations did not show statistically significant significance, qualitative analysis revealed significant and profound learning. Participants uncovered the hidden layers of their urban environments and gained a better understanding of the complexities and challenges of their cities. The project promoted the development of critical skills such as analytical thinking, active research, and effective communication, proving to be a valuable pedagogical tool that surpasses the limitations of traditional teaching methods and encourages active and committed citizenship. This inclusive and multidimensional approach enriches the diversity of experiences and knowledge, significantly contributing to the teaching of urban subjects, community engagement, and social responsibility and laying the groundwork for the proper tourist, cultural, social, or urban planning of city spaces. Full article