Associations of neighborhood built, safety, and social environment with walking to and from school among elementary school-aged children in Chiba, Japan

Background Although it is globally known that Japan has high prevalence of active school travel among children, there are few international studies on Japanese children’s school travel. Moreover, only few studies have focused on the differences in their mode of travel between to-school and from-school. This study examined the associations of neighborhood built, safety, and social environments with walking to/from school among elementary school-aged children in Chiba, Japan. Methods We conducted an online survey with 1545 parents of children aged 6–12 years residing in Chiba between 25 and 27 November 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. A neighborhood was defined as the area of a postcode provided by the participants. Each neighborhood environment was assessed based on the built environment (new town designation, walkability, distance to school, population density), social environment (neighborhood cohesion and connection), and safety (CCTVs, a road section for walking alone, safety volunteers). Neighborhood walkability was measured using subscales of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (youth and abbreviated versions) including crime safety and traffic safety. Parents’ perceived influence of COVID-19 on school commuting and after-school activities were also included in the model as covariates. Walking to and from school were separately analyzed using multinomial logistic regressions, where new towns and walkability were computed separately as explanatory variables. Results Four fifths of children walked to and from school daily. Walking to school was positively associated with crime safety, neighborhood connections, and schools sited in new towns. Walking from school had positive associations with traffic safety, neighborhood cohesion, and CCTVs, but negative associations with safety volunteers and after-school activities. The presence of a section for walking alone and perceived influence of COVID-19 had negative associations with walking to and from school. Conclusions Recent social changes such as declining birthrate, decline in public elementary schools, and increasing after-school activities may change parental attitudes toward children’s walking to/from school, and subsequently, their mode of school travel over time. To maintain the high prevalence of walking to/from school in Japan, multidisciplinary approaches involving different stakeholders from education, public health, and urban planning are required to overcome sectionalism and support this behavior in the long term.

Possibility of Urban Heat Island Formation by Lifting Green Belts: Focusing on the Cases of Busan Metropolitan City, Korea

We analyzed the temperature changes in cities and regions due to the lifting of the green belt in Busan Metropolitan City. The difference between the average temperature change in the summer surface due to the lifting of the green belt was analyzed in Local Spatial Autocorrelation Analysis (LISA) for the two points in 2000, when the green belt was fully preserved, and in 2018, when the recent record heatwave was recorded. Consequently, approximately 28.14% of the areas where the green belt was lifted from the cluster map became a hotspot. In Busan Metropolitan City, the changes in the soil quality, resulting from the development of new towns, creation of industrial complexes, reduction of green areas, and an increase in impervious areas due to largescale housing development projects following the lifting of the green belt, lead to the temperature rise in the city, thereby causing urban heat island phenomenon. This study contributes to the field by revealing that the urban heat island phenomenon can be affected in the long term depending on the urban development project involved in the lifting of the green belt. In addition to its original function of preserving the environment and preventing urban sprawl, the green belt can be a major urban planning tool for mitigating the rising urban heat island phenomenon caused by climate change, which demonstrates its policy implications.

China's new Towns in Controversy: A Literature Review

In the past forty years, more than 3,800 new towns emerged and accommodated over 150 million urban inhabitants in China, which drew much attention since they were reported as “ghost cities” by media in the late 2000s. This literature review examines existing research and synthesizes current discussions through a meta-analysis. It concludes that existing literature, led by environmental scientists and designers, exhibits two polarized debates around the new towns’ uniqueness and the future of ghost cities. Gaps exist in national-scale surveys, criticism of planning methodology, and theories that can explain the current disputes.

Analysis success factors of the new cities establishment (case study: Pardisan town)

New towns and cities are proposed as the places for absorbing the population overflow and limiting the population growth in metropolises. In Iran, these towns and cities are built very close to the metropolises, and gradually, they are being used only as dormitories. The new town of Pardisan is built 13 kilometers southwest of Qom as the largest new town of the urban district of Qom in order to organize the residence system and absorb the population overflow of the metropolis of Qom and reduce its problems. This paper studies the function of the Pardisan new town as the absorber of the population overflow of Qom and also the residents’ satisfaction with this town. The research method adopted by this study is based on the library, documentary, and field data, and also interviews and collection of data by questionnaires and TOPSIS model. The results of this research indicate that many of the families living in the Pardisan town constitute the population overflow of the metropolis of Qom; Among the most important reasons for the migration of families to the Pardisan town is the low cost of land and residence, and 4.67 percent of the residents do not like to live in this town. This unsuccess is mostly due to lack of job and activity in this town, and therefore, the residents are less satisfied with the town.