New Dimension to Green Buildings: Turning Green into Occupant Well-Being

A series of international conferences and initiatives, such as the Habitat III New Urban Agenda and UN Sustainable Development Goals, have urged industry, scholars, and policymakers to create an inclusive and sustainable built environment for all in the coming era of cities. Green building schemes, which have been gaining momentum over recent decades, are one of the most influential measures that have been taken to promote urban sustainability. However, due to disciplinary characteristics, most current studies share a techno-engineering focus. Seldom do they answer the question: will green buildings make a difference to the occupants? This paper explains how, and to what extent, green features and design contribute to different dimensions of occupant well-being by conducting a systematic and comprehensive review of current journal articles and industrial reports. It provides an alternative, occupant-oriented perspective to the conventional discourse. A conceptual framework is developed, revealing that green building aspects are linked to six dimensions (three subjective and three objective) of occupant well-being. It further shows how different green features are linked with these dimensions through a detailed examination of the literature. Finally, suggestions are provided based on the research findings for the direction of future green building development and empirical research.

Towards New Urban Agenda: A Radical Reorientation of Urban Planning Education in India

An urbanizing country such as India has its own development challenges given the conditions of dystopias and discontent in the urban areas. In addition, three global agendas, namely the New Urban Agenda, Sustainable Development Goals and the Nationally Determined Contributions towards climate change mitigation also demand actions in the cities. The traditional urban planning approach, based on master/development planning, and stemming from it, urban planning education, is highly technocratic and unable to deal with the reality of development challenges. In addition, urban planning education in India suffers from over-regulation and standardization, which leaves educational institutions devoid of innovation. Thus, for urban planning education to be relevant in India there is a need to revise and broaden the scope of the urban planning profession, non-standardize its contents, pay attention to substantive aspects including issues of equity and sustainability, have a future-facing approach towards dealing with climate change and rethink its pedagogic methods. However, for these changes to occur, urban planning educational institutes must take the lead and initiate radical reforms in country’s higher education regulatory system.

Comparing Impact Evaluation Evidence of EU and Local Development Policies with New Urban Agenda Themes: The Agri Valley Case in Basilicata (Italy)

The European Union’s Cohesion Policy is the most important structural policy in terms of financial commitment, geographical size and time frame, aimed at redistributing wealth between regions and countries, to stimulate growth in areas whose development is lagging behind. The reach of the investments prompted the EU Commission to promote an impact evaluation of the European Structural Funds (SF); however, the impact evaluation of EU programs is almost neglected in the Italian regions. This paper is based on the results developed within the RI.P.R.O.VA.RE project and is aimed at defining an impact evaluation of EU SF and other regional funds, based on evidence derived from the analysis of a specific case study in the Agri Valley area (Basilicata, Italy). To develop the impact evaluation process, the euro amounts of all the individual policies organized according to the themes of the New Urban Agenda (NUA), the impact indicators and the trend for the municipalities are considered together, in order to obtain an overall trend for the entire case study area. An important result is achieved above all in the methodological approach to impact evaluation: the municipal territorial scale is taken into account; the maps illustrate the use of resources; regardless of the type of funding source since there is a comparison between the priority axes of the funds with the NUA issues; and indicators are developed with open data available at a national level. This experiment makes it possible to detect that, even in the face of significant investments, some substantial aspects that are part of the policy objectives remain unchanged or even worsen.

Planners and the new urban agenda: will we lead the agenda, or will the agenda lead us?

The United Nation’s New Urban Agenda has created a playbook for planning advocates. It opens possibilities for building inclusive, integrated urban planning in countries where planning has been top-down and limited in scope. Yet it raises concerns about ignoring the power of industry and imposition of global ideas inappropriate to national contexts. Success will require strengthened capacity building for the urban professions, and sensitivity in adapting global best practices to national contexts.

Health and Happiness in the New Urban Agenda: The Central Role of Public Space

The New Urban Agenda—the global urbanization framework agreement adopted by acclamation by all 193 countries of the United Nations—contains no fewer than eight paragraphs on the importance of public space, three of which outline its role in achieving “human health and well-being”, “attractive and liveable cities”, and “physical and mental health”. However, there is an urgent need to translate these and other quality of life aspirations contained in this landmark document into measurable targets, tools, and strategies to achieve outcomes. This paper examines the core theories that connect health and well-being to public space as reflected in the document, surveying some of the most relevant research in the field. It then analyzes the document text to identify a number of potentially useful indicators. Finally, it proposes a framework for data gathering, assessment, and iterative progress in achieving the stated goals, concluding with an overview of emerging research and practice, and proposed next steps.