Natural disasters are usually regarded as damage factors causing high private and social costs. Notwithstanding the incontestable validity of this premise, natural disasters do not necessarily lead to a structural deprivation of the area affected. Recent studies have clearly shown that in the long run one may even observe positive socio-economic effects (‘blessings in disguise’). This paper investigates this challenging proposition by developing a risk-disaster-opportunity framework for a territorial system, and by analysing the socio-economic impacts of natural shocks from a resilience perspective. This is inter alia done by designing a typology of natural disasters, and by presenting a systematic classification of long-range impacts. An empirical test of the above proposition of positive recovery effects of natural disasters is carried out by using, in particular, long-term data from the worldwide EM-DAT database. The attention is then focussed on positive feedback loops in spatial systems that are affected by a natural perturbation. Various case studies (USA, China, Haiti, Chile, Japan) are undertaken in order to test the existence of long-term ‘blessings in disguise’ effects, using in particular the HDI-index. In various cases, such positive effects appear to exist, depending on the effectiveness of public management of natural disaster phenomena.

We use a theoretical political-economy model with three cities and analyze three questions. First, should police in these cities have access to contentious crime fighting technologies such as facial recognition software? We describe a condition involving benefit, cost, and spatial spillover terms which tells us when the police ought to be provided with this technology. Second, if police are to be offered this technology then what are the properties of a policy regime that provides this technology in a decentralized way? We identify a condition that depends only on benefit and cost terms which tells us when this technology is to be made available in the cities in a decentralized way. Finally, what are the properties of a policy regime that provides the technology in a centralized way with equal cost sharing by the cities? We obtain two conditions involving benefit and spatial spillover terms that describe scenarios in which (i) the technology is provided with majority voting in a city even though it is inefficient to do so and (ii) it is efficient to provide the technology in a city but majority voting will lead to this technology not being provided.

This article outlines a framework for connecting design-oriented research on accommodating and encouraging social interaction in public space with investigation of broader questions regarding civic engagement, social justice and democratic governance. How can we define the "kind of problem a city is" (Jacobs, 1961), simultaneously attending to the social processes at stake in urban places, the spatial ordering of urban form and the construction of the forms of agency that enable us to make better places on purpose? How can empirical research be connected more systematically to theories of democratic governance, with clear implications for urban design, urban and regional planning as professional practice? This framework connects three distinct theoretical moves: (1) understanding the sociological implications of public space as an urban commons, (2) connecting the making of public space to research on social capital and collective efficacy, and (3) understanding recent tendencies in the discipline of urban design in terms of the social construction of a "program of action" (Latour, 1992) at the heart of the professional practices relevant to the built environment.

Care and the City is a cross-disciplinary collection of chapters examining urban social spaces, in which caring and uncaring practices intersect and shape people’s everyday lives. While asking how care and uncare are embedded in the urban condition, the book focuses on inequalities in caring relations and the ways they are acknowledged, reproduced, and overcome in various spaces, discourses, and practices. This book provides a pathway for urban scholars to start engaging with approaches to conceptualize care in the city through a critical-reflexive analysis of processes of urbanization. It pursues a systematic integration of empirical, methodological, theoretical, and ethical approaches to care in urban studies, while overcoming a crisis-centered reading of care and the related ambivalences in care debates, practices, and spaces. These strands are elaborated via a conceptual framework of care and situated within broader theoretical debates on cities, urbanization, and urban development with detailed case studies from Europe, the Americas, and Asia. By establishing links to various fields of knowledge, this book seeks to systematically introduce debates on care to the interconnecting fields of urban studies, planning theory, and related disciplines for the first time.

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This study tests the viability of multiple sorting tasks (MST) as a method to explore perceptions of public space and its potential for people that are vulnerable to loneliness. The procedure integrates qualitative and quantitative aspects and obviates the challenge of people articulating how they interact with their surroundings, especially being aware of what features of their environment are influencing them. Two samples, each with six participants of varying ages and backgrounds, viewed 20 photographs of public spaces in Stockholm. They sorted these into categories based upon the activities they anticipated would occur there. Within each sample, a multidimensional scaling procedure was used to reveal the underlying structure across the combination of the six responses. The results showed coherent structures with interesting variations between people. A set of general multi-purpose places are identified, with others being differentiated in terms of whether they were ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ and ‘open’ or ‘enclosed’. The study also found that people conceptualized public space differently when loneliness was the focus during the sorting process. An assemblage of public spaces relevant for loneliness is also illustrated. This demonstrates the utility of the MST and provides theoretical and practical implications for urban planning and design that addresses loneliness.

A vibrant visitor industry can be a useful indicator of good urban environments. People choose to visit a destination because there is something to see there; there is something worth experiencing. It is well-known that heritage spaces score high on lists of what people enjoy and look for when travelling. Stockholm is no different from other cities in this regard. Some of the most visited destinations in the capital include Gamla Stan (the Old Town) and Djurg√•rden (the Royal National City Park). Both places are the result of hundreds of years of history, careful development and many generations of residents placing their “footprints” on the social milieu of the place; such places cannot easily be replaced or “fast-tracked” into being. In other words, there is an imperative to manage new urban developments in such places carefully, especially since they are often the site of conflicting interests. To better understand the challenges this imperative might place on planning practices, this case study follows the planning process of a plot located on Djurg√•rden in Stockholm. The case study will observe that conflicting interests and values between residents, urban heritage professionals and private corporate actors - with regards to how such a plot should be allowed to develop - highlight the complicated nature of planning in heritage areas. 

The contemporary 'digital age' prompts the need for a re-assessment of urban planning principles and practices. Against the background of current data-rich urban planning, this study seeks to address the question whether an appropriate methodological underpinning can be provided for smart city governance based on a data-driven planning perspective. It posits that the current digital technology age has a drastic impact on city strategies and calls for a multi-faceted perspective on future urban development, termed here the 'XXQ-principle' (which seeks to attain the highest possible level of quality for urban life). Heterogeneity in urban objectives and data embodied in the XXQ-principle can be systematically addressed by a process of data decomposition (based on a 'cascade principle'), so that first, higher-level urban policy domains are equipped with the necessary ('big') data provisions, followed by lower-ranking urban governance levels. The conceptual decomposition principle can then be translated into a comprehensive hierarchical model architecture for urban intelligence based on the 'flying disc' model, including key performance indicators (KPIs). This new model maps out the socio-economic arena of a complex urban system according to the above cascade system. The design of this urban system architecture and the complex mutual connections between its subsystems is based on the 'blowing-up' principle that originates from a methodological deconstruction-reconstruction paradigm in the social sciences. The paper advocates the systematic application of this principle to enhance the performance of smart cities, called the XXQ performance value. This study is not empirical, although it is inspired by a wealth of previous empirical research. It aims to advance conceptual and methodological thinking on principles of smart urban planning.

Recent years have shown an increasing interest in local factors shaping the happiness or attachment of citizens in regard to their daily living environment, sometimes also coined city love or neighborhood love. This new strand of literature—often framed in the context of the “geography of happiness” or the “economics of happiness”—means an extension of quantitative socio-psychological or socio-economic research on determinants of people’s affection for their living environment, including local quality-of-life, sense of community, place-based social capital, attachment to “urban ambiance,” and so on. The present paper conceptualizes the nature and composition of urban characteristics of place attachment and appreciation (city love) in terms of two constituent factors, viz. city soul (indicators on the perceived intangible attractiveness of the city and its neighborhoods) and city body (indicators reflecting the tangible attractiveness features of the city). This analytical approach will empirically be tested for four Swedish cities. Resident surveys were conducted among a total of 2,573 respondents; the multidimensional relationships between outcome variables and background factors were tested through a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM), which revealed significant effects of Aesthetics, Amenities, Accessibility, Safety and Health, and City Image on place attachment and appreciation (“city love”). A more detailed city level analysis revealed salient place-specific differences. In general, Aesthetics seemed to be the most universal driver for city love, while City Image was the most important factor to contribute to city soul.

Sustainable urban development calls for a balanced package of conditions that induce a high quality of life (including safety and security) in cities. We argue that modern cities have to develop knowledge- based strategies for smart, safe and sound (3-S) city development, supported by urban performance assessment (UPA) as a framework for sustainable urban planning. The present study builds on these strategic notions and articulates the message that smart urban policy should look into input resources in relation to output performance. Particular attention will be paid to the constituents and the role of multiple safety indicators in urban performance analysis. Next, an appropriate method from the industrial management literature, namely, super-efficient data envelopment analysis (SE-DEA) will be utilized in order to undertake a comparative performance assessment of safety conditions in 57 world cities, followed by a similar analysis for 14 large European cities. Both world-wide and Europe-wide, there appear to be significant differences in safety performance of cities, which means that there is much scope for strategic and effective safety policy in many cities.

This study addresses the strategic governance challenges of modern smart cities from the new viewpoint of big data management. It seeks to develop and highlight a systematic methodological framework for handling multivariate big data in a smart urban decision support context in the 'New Urban World', so as to enhance the cities' competitive performance through the design and development of operational urban management principles and strategies. The specific aim of this paper is to provide the critical and basic cornerstones for an applicable interactive dashboard architecture as a supporting tool in a structured process of innovative city strategies and consequent enhanced socio-economic performance. A core element in the present paper is formed by a smart urban dashboard system that acts as an interactive navigation tool supporting operational choices of all stakeholders involved. This dashboard is able to integrate complex and ever-changing big data bases serving as 'signposts' of city intelligence (or i-city smartness) for daily or strategic decisions of all urban stakeholders. This study thus outlines successively the concept of smart i-cities in our 'urban century', the great potential of digital technology for managing big data in governing i-cities, and the foundations of an urban dashboard on the basis of the so-called Pentagon model as a policy strategy vehicle. Starting from extensive data on a broad set of global cities, the potential of this approach is exemplified by means of an illustrative application of a smart urban dashboard for the city of Stockholm.

Urban agglomerations - irrespective of their size or location - may act not only as engines of economic growth, but also as vehicles of environmental and climate sustainability that may stimulate both socioeconomic achievements and environmentally-benign outcomes. Clearly, the efficiency of these outcomes may differ for different types of urban agglomeration in the world. This paper aims to present and test an advanced methodology for assessing economic and sustainability-oriented performance strategies for global cities, by developing and applying a super-efficient Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model. We compare 40 global cities - included in the Global Power City Index (GPCI) database - in a benchmark study in order to trace the highest-performing urban regions from both an economic and environmental-climatological efficiency perspective, by applying relevant quantitative GPCI indicators to these 40 cities. Our ultimate goal is to test what is termed the 'delinking' hypothesis, from the viewpoint of both economic prosperity and urban size externalities. This approach will be applied empirically by examining the GPCI data set comprised of various multidimensional and empirically verified indicators on economic performance and climatological-environmental conditions for the 40 global cities concerned. We regard both the size of these agglomerations and their economic welfare position as critical parameters for assessing their economic and environmental efficiency performance. In the framework of our original DEA approach, these urban areas are categorised according to 2x2 dimensions, viz. in terms of both agglomeration size (big or medium-sized) and the economic development level of the area (highly developed or developing/emerging). Our contribution serves to assess - by means of regression techniques - the highest performing agglomerations among the urban sustainability champions on the basis of the two above-mentioned assessment criteria. This approach provides the opportunity to test the so-called Kuznets sustainability curve under two different conditions, viz. agglomeration size and economic development. The study presents and interprets the empirical findings for these four classes of global cities. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Urban systems involve a multitude of closely intertwined components, which are more measurable than before due to new sensors, data collection, and spatio-temporal analysis methods. Turning these data into knowledge to facilitate planning efforts in addressing current challenges of urban complex systems requires advanced interdisciplinary analysis methods, such as urban informatics or urban data science. Yet, by applying a purely data-driven approach, it is too easy to get lost in the 'forest' of data, and to miss the 'trees' of successful, livable cities that are the ultimate aim of urban planning. This paper assesses how geospatial data, and urban analysis, using a mixed methods approach, can help to better understand urban dynamics and human behavior, and how it can assist planning efforts to improve livability. Based on reviewing state-of-the-art research the paper goes one step further and also addresses the potential as well as limitations of new data sources in urban analytics to get a better overview of the whole 'forest' of these new data sources and analysis methods. The main discussion revolves around the reliability of using big data from social media platforms or sensors, and how information can be extracted from massive amounts of data through novel analysis methods, such as machine learning, for better-informed decision making aiming at urban livability improvement.

Livability reflects the quality of the person-environment relationship, namely how well the built environment or the available services in a city fulfill the residents' needs and expectations. We argue that livability assessment can aid the implementation of certain New Urban Agenda (NUA) goals by providing a flexible way to assess urban environments and their quality. However, a reliable and transferable assessment framework requires the key elements of livability to be defined in such a way that measurable factors adequately represent the person-environment relationship. As an innovative approach, we determined key livability elements accordingly and asked over 400 residents worldwide to evaluate their urban environments using these parameters. Thereby, we could calibrate the livability assessment workflow by including personal aspects and identifying the most relevant livability factors through an ordinal regression analysis. Next, we performed relational-statistical learning in order to define the individual and combined contribution of these statistically significant factors to the overall livability of a place. We found that urban form and mobility-related factors tend to have the highest influence on residential satisfaction. Finally, we tested the robustness of the assessment by using geospatial analysis to model the livability for the city of Vienna, Austria. We concluded that the workflow allows for a reliable livability assessment and for further utilization in urban planning, improving urban quality by going beyond simple city rankings.

Knowledge management technology is now ubiquitous in many businesses, yet it is much less common among local authorities. Following a "brainstorm meeting" in Lyon on knowledge management for regional planning and policymaking, a proposal was developed to set up a research agendum for future development of this topic. The main difficulty we identified is that regional knowledge encompasses many topics beyond business issues, especially those related to long-term sustainability. The goal of this paper is twofold, first to clarify the proper definitions and boundaries of regional knowledge and technology, and second, to identify the ways of using this technology effectively for governance and decision-making.

The claims made for Landscape Urbanism have been difficult to evaluate, since they rely heavily on theoretical and aspirational arguments, and new projects to date have offered little post-occupancy evidence. However, more specific claims have also been made about historic projects as proposed precedents for Landscape Urbanism, and these offer a more substantial evidence base for the evaluation of claims. Here we take the claimed precedent of Detroit’s Lafayette Park, and evaluate the stated claims for its performance on social, economic and ecological criteria, in light of the available evidence. We conclude with an assessment of broader claims for Landscape Urbanism in light of the evidence we find in Lafayette Park.

There is no term for livable or livability in Swedish. However, in a study of the American/Anglo-Saxon livability concept in a Swedish (transportation) planning perspective, Moa Thunström finds it quite similar to the Swedish discourse and concept of social sustainability, although livability seems to have a more short-term and local perspective. Other commonalities with the Swedish urban planning and development discourse and practice concerns attractive cities, the need for cross-disciplinary planning processes and multilevel governance, holistic perspectives, etc. The main goals of the City of Stockholm’s Vision 2030-the citizens’ Stockholm, innovative and growing, and versatile and full of unique experiences-clearly connects to the concept of livability. The goal of Citizens’ Stockholm concerns an accessible, safe urban region with no physical or social barriers. The goal focusing on being innovative and growing stresses the need of being competitive on the global market. The last goal of Stockholm being versatile and full of unique experiences enhances Stockholm’s unique combination of top-class education and business opportunities and unspoiled nature at the doorstep that will continue to attract international visitors. The Walkable City is the popular name of the Stockholm Strategic City Plan of 2010. Stockholm’s natural and historical assets, the need for a denser city and better integration, and connection between districts are all important starting points for the city plan. The five urban development strategies of the city plan are intended to cater to a sustainable urban growth in Stockholm: continue to strengthen central Stockholm; focus on strategic nodes; connect city areas; and create a vibrant urban environment. Dialogue and collaboration are key process strategies to implement the goals of Vision 2030. In this chapter livability is discussed through an examination of urban development areas in Stockholm. A common problem in these developments is the lack of socioeconomic integration and affordable housing.

The New Urban Agenda, the outcome document of the United Nations Habitat III conference in 2016, was adopted by consensus by all 193 member states of the United Nations. The Habitat III leadership has proclaimed that the document represents a “new paradigm” in urban planning, reversing the “over-determined” model of 20th century Western-dominated planning, and embracing more locally-determined forms of informality. This paper examines the intellectual history of the document, and compares it to its antecedents, thereby evaluating the claim that it represents a new paradigm. The conclusion assesses implications for future planning practice, particularly as we confront an age of rapid urbanization in many parts of the globe.

Christopher Alexander published his longest and arguably most philosophical work, The Nature of Order, beginning in 2003. Early criticism assessed that text to be a speculative failure; at best, unrelated to Alexander’s earlier, mathematically grounded work. On the contrary, this review presents evidence that the newer work was a logically consistent culmination of a lifelong and remarkably useful inquiry into part-whole relations—an ancient but still-relevant and even urgent topic of design, architecture, urbanism, and science. Further evidence demonstrates that Alexander’s practical contributions are remarkably prodigious beyond architecture, in fields as diverse as computer science, biology and organization theory, and that these contributions continue today. This review assesses the potential for more particular contributions to the urban professions from the later work, and specifically, to an emerging “science of cities.” It examines the practical, as well as philosophical contributions of Alexander’s proposed tools and methodologies for the design process, considering both their quantitative and qualitative aspects, and their potential compatibility with other tools and strategies now emerging from the science of cities. Finally, it highlights Alexander’s challenge to an architecture profession that seems increasingly isolated, mired in abstraction, and incapable of effectively responding to larger technological and philosophical challenges.

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.

There is an urgent need to consolidate and disseminate existing research on good urbanism. We need more precise and rigorous definitions about what works, and under what conditions. Better understanding of the crucial economic dimensions of successful implementation is especially lacking. More investigation of the role of urban networks in supporting quality urbanism is needed. Special focus should be given to urban spatial networks and their relation to urban form. There should be more focus on public space as an essential core framework for healthy urbanism and urbanization. What are the geometric parameters and limits of public space and public space networks? 

Architecture has an ancient relationship to mathematics, and symmetry-in the broad sense of the term-is a core topic of both. Yet the contemporary application of theories of symmetry to architecture and built environments is a surprisingly immature area of research. At the same time, research is showing a divergence between the benefits of and preferences for natural environments on the one hand, and built environments on the other, demonstrating relatively deleterious effects of many contemporary built environments. Yet the research cannot yet pinpoint the actual geometric factors of architecture and urbanism that could produce such an important divergence. This paper explores this research gap, surveying the literature across a range of fields, and assessing current evidence for the impacts of symmetry in the built environment upon human perception and well-being. As an emerging case study, it considers the recent work by Christopher Alexander and Nikos Salingaros, two trained mathematicians who have made notable contributions to architecture and urbanism. The conclusion proposes a new research agenda toward further development of this immature subject area.

We are beginning to better understand the complex differentiations of public spaces, and in particular, the ways that more private territories form within public spaces, both formally (e.g. legally permitted sidewalk cafe seating) and informally (e.g. a family picnic on a blanket in a public park). These structures are remarkably complex, intricate and dynamic, and they form as the result of a complex interaction of rules, laws, customs, tacit agreements, and structural adaptations over time. Designers can make use of this knowledge to better support the development of a more dynamic “ecology” of more private zones within public spaces, allowing a more balanced mediation between individual, group and public needs, with fewer conflicts. At the same time, designers and stakeholders can better resist the damage that can occur to the public realm from an over-dominance of private interests. This chapter describes some of the work that has uncovered this structure, and the wider lessons for design and policy.

In the second paragraph in the second column on page 2 beginning “1. How important are public spaces as engines of human well-being, economic development and social justice, and what are the threats to them, especially from private interests?” the following sentence has been removed: “Setha Low also points to a worrisome diminution of the capacity of public spaces to promote social justice and diversity, replaced by a “politics of exclusion”.” On page 3 of the final sentence of the first paragraph “Ali Madanipour and Setha Low again warn of the danger of unequal access when private sector actors have increasing control over public spaces” has been replaced by “Ali Madanipour again warns of the danger of unequal access when private sector actors have increasing control over public spaces”. 

The New Urban Agenda, developed at the UN-Habitat III conference on sustainable urban development and later adopted by consensus by 193 countries, includes nine paragraphs affirming the importance of robust public space networks for sustainable and functional cities. But what are the essential requirements for functional public space in cities? What are the current challenges and shortcomings – especially at a time of rapid urbanization, and the decline of public spaces in many cities? We report on a literature survey done by the Centre for the Future of Places at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, as part of a collaboration with UN-Habitat towards implementation of the New Urban Agenda. The literature provides ample evidence that public spaces are arenas for numerous potential conflicts, but also, if properly allocated and structured, places of peaceful co-presence, creative interaction, participation, and co-production. Furthermore, a critical aspect of successful public space is the ability to self-organise into a structure of territorial regions, combining private interiors with connective public edges. We discuss larger lessons for city structure, design and development strategy, and sustainable urbanisation for the future.

We present evidence that New Urbanism, defined as a set of normative urban characteristics codified in the 1996 Charter of the New Urbanism, reached a seminal moment-in mission if not in name-with the 2016 New Urban Agenda, a landmark document adopted by acclamation by all 193 member states of the United Nations. We compare the two documents and find key parallels between them (including mix of uses, walkable multi-modal streets, buildings defining public space, mix of building ages and heritage patterns, co-production of the city by the citizens, and understanding of the city as an evolutionary self-organizing structure). Both documents also reveal striking contrasts with the highly influential 20th century Athens Charter, from 1933, developed by the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne. Yet, both newer documents also still face formidable barriers to implementation, and, as we argue, each faces similar challenges in formulating effective alternatives to business as usual. We trace this history up to the present day, and the necessary requirements for what we conclude is an `unfinished reformation' ahead.

The New Urban Agenda is a landmark international framework for urbanisation for the next two decades, adopted by acclamation by all 193 countries of the United Nations. Nonetheless, implementation remains an enormous challenge, as does the related need for research evidence to inform practice. This thematic issue brings together research from a number of participants of the Future of Places conference series, contributing new research to inform the development and implementation of the New Urban Agenda, and with a focus on the fundamental topic of public space creation and improvement.

The mathematical concept of symmetry, in its fullest sense, figured large in architectural history up to the early twentieth century. However, for the better part of a century, architecture and related disciplines have marginalized the consideration of symmetry in favour of a 'functionalist" conception of design. More recently, dramatic developments in mathematics, physics, biology, neuroscience, environmental psychology, and other fields have given new dynamism to the ancient topic of symmetry. These findings carry implications for architecture and other environmental design professions that have, until now, been poorly understood, where they have been considered at all. This paper examines the new findings and what they reveal about current design orthodoxy as well as shedding new light on historic precedents. It concludes that there is an urgent need for a reassessment, toward a new agenda of research and practice.

Recent advances in the field of behavioral economics offer intriguing insights into the ways that consumer decisions are influenced and may be influenced more deliberately to better meet community-wide and democratic goals. We demonstrate that these insights open a door to urban planners who may thereby develop strategies to alter urban-scale consumption behaviors that may significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per capita. We first hypothesize that it is possible, through feasible changes in neighborhood structure, to alter the “choice architecture” of neighborhoods in order to achieve meaningful GHG reductions. We then formulate a number of elements of “choice architecture” that may be applied as tools at the neighborhood scale. We examine several neighborhoods that demonstrate variations in these elements, and from known inventories, we generate a preliminary assessment of the possible magnitude of GHG reductions that may be available. Although we acknowledge many remaining challenges, we conclude that “neighborhood choice architecture” offers a promising new strategy meriting further research and development.

This paper maps out the structure and relative dynamics of cities of various size classes in India. It aims to address their hierarchical distribution, by employing the rank-size rule, Gibrat's law, and a primacy index. The implications of urban concentrations for GDP, banking system, FDI, civic amenities, and various urban externalities (such as pollution and spatial exclusion) are also examined. It shows that India's urban system, though it follows the rank-size rule, is huge and top-heavy. It follows also Gibrat's law of proportionate growth. Although India's cities collectively account for less than one third of the total population, they command more than three fourths of the country's GDP. Megacities have become congested, clogged, polluted, and also show significant social polarization. There is a gridlock situation for the cities, inhibiting their potential for becoming effective economic and social change sites. The top-heavy character of India's urban system also adversely impacts the balanced regional development of the country.

Over the past decades, the Asia-Pacific Rim has exhibited an unprecedented high degree of economic and geographic dynamics. Clearly, cities in this region display heterogeneity in terms of economic performance, technological innovativeness, environmental conditions, and cultural recognition and interaction. It is, therefore, interesting to develop an efficiency ranking of the multi-dimensional performance of these large cities so as to identify 'super cities'. The first aim of this paper is now to undertake a multi-faceted performance ranking of large cities in the Asia-Pacific region using a data envelopment analysis (DEA). However, there appears to be a wide variety of DEAs in the recent literature. And therefore, a second aim of the present paper is to perform a sensitivity analysis on the type of DEA employed, so as to test the robustness of the base ranking obtained from a standard DEA. A third aim of the paper is related to the question how much the ranking obtained by a DEA is influenced by the internal characteristics of the underlying data system. This calls for a sensitivity analysis of the precision or nature of the data used in the DEA. A fourth aim of the paper is to present a performance improvement projection based on the original DEA model and our new projection model for inefficient cities. These four aims of the research will be empirically addressed by a comprehensive data set on 7 quantitative main indicators regarding economic performance, technological innovativeness, environmental conditions, and cultural recognition and interaction for 13 Asia-Pacific super cities.

Destination attractiveness research has become an important research domain in leisure and tourism economics. But the mobility behaviour of visitors in relation to local public transport access in tourist places is not yet well understood. The present paper seeks to fill this research gap by studying the attractiveness profile of 25 major tourist destination places in the world by means of a 'big data' analysis of the drivers of visitors' mobility behaviour and the use of public transport in these tourist places. We introduce the principle of 'the path of least resistance' to explain and model the spatial behaviour of visitors in these 25 global destination cities. We combine a spatial hedonic price model with geoscience techniques to better understand the place-based drivers of mobility patterns of tourists. In our empirical analysis, we use an extensive and rich database combining millions of Airbnb listings originating from the Airbnb platform, and complemented with TripAdvisor platform data and OpenStreetMap data. We first estimate the effect of the quality of the Airbnb listings, the surrounding tourist amenities, and the distance to specific urban amenities on the listed Airbnb prices. In a second step of the multilevel modelling procedure, we estimate the differential impact of accessibility to public transport on the quoted Airbnb prices of the tourist accommodations. The findings confirm the validity of our conceptual framework on 'the path of least resistance' for the spatial behaviour of tourists in destination places.