Revisiting Urban Street Planning and Design Factors to Promote Walking as a Physical Activity for Middle-Class Individuals with Metabolic Syndrome in Cairo, Egypt.

This paper revisits the planning and design factors of "pedestrianized" and "walkable" urban streets to encourage physical activity, focusing on their prioritization according to public health and smart growth. The aim is to create a conceptual framework for urban planners and designers to encourage walking and reduce metabolic syndrome (MetS) risks. Through a scoping review, the study found that while pedestrianized and walkable streets share many planning and design factors, they have different objectives. The study explores how urban planning and design can reduce MetS risk among middle-class individuals using online video storytelling for 30 participants in three districts of Cairo, Egypt: El Zamalek, Old Cairo, and Heliopolis. It identifies three factors to address MetS symptoms for middle-class individuals: strategic, design-oriented, and technical. Practitioners and policymakers can use this framework to evaluate the impact of their work. This study is particularly relevant for cities in the Global South that are facing similar challenges.

Building Sustainable Habitats for Free-Roaming Cats in Public Spaces: A Systematic Literature Review.

This review article examines the possibility of providing a toolkit to prepare habitats for free-roaming cats (FRCs) in public spaces. The toolkit targets local communities, authorities, stakeholders, and advocates in the cities of the Global South, to raise awareness and improve the welfare of FRCs living in urban communities. This article explores a relatively new area in urban studies and veterinary science, and its connection to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A systematic review was conducted using bibliometric analysis, which illustrated how the literature on urban studies ignores the sustainability of public spaces as a living space for FRCs. This study contributes to our understanding of the current situation of FRCs from a theoretical perspective, in relation to the urban transformation of low-income and high-poverty countries. The article concludes with a four-pillar toolkit to help impoverished communities use public spaces as a resource, build sustainable habitats, and provide living spaces for FRCs.

COVID-19 Challenge, Information Technologies, and Smart Cities: Considerations for Well-Being.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) raises an essential debate about implementing the ideas and insights of smart technology in the fields of urban planning and design. This commentary sheds light on considerations and challenges in the area of knowledge in these fields as consequences of the recent pandemic. The concluded remarks cover issues with a specific focus on accelerating the digital transformation in education and a typo-morphological analysis that ends with revisiting the norms and standards of social distancing. Besides, this commentary recommends research directions to follow after the pandemic recedes, tackling the multidisciplinarity between fields of specialisation.