As cities grapple with climate risks and biodiversity decline, international policy frameworks increasingly position urban nature as a critical ally in building resilient and sustainable urban areas. The European Union's Biodiversity Strategy 2030, for example, calls on European cities to develop and implement ambitious 'Urban Nature Plans' (formerly 'Urban Greening Plans'). In this paper, we introduce Urban Nature Plans as a strategic planning tool and discuss potential pathways to their implementation, using Germany as an example. With more than 650 cities of diff erent sizes and with diff erent administrative capacities – many of which already have planning instruments sharing features with Urban Nature Plans – Germany provides a useful case to discuss the implications of introducing this new strategic approach. To contribute to the international discourse on Urban Nature Plans and wider discussions around integrated biodiversity and climate planning, we summarize findings from a German research and development project. The project included, among other aspects, a dialogue process with government organizations, professional associations, non-governmental environmental organizations, municipal representatives and other actors. During this process, it became evident that Urban Nature Plans should be understood as ambitious, integrated, and flexible strategies which are adaptable to local needs and capacities. A clear commitment from local politicians is seen to play a critical role in increasing the amount and quality of urban nature, promoting the participation of diff erent stakeholder groups and accelerating the implementation of related measures. While existing planning instruments such as open space plans and landscape plans can ful fil many of the Urban Nature Plan requirements, a new and targeted strategy could address gaps and shortcomings of existing approaches, such as a lack of integrated working methods, co-design approaches or monitoring mechanisms. However, the findings also highlight that cities have diff erent capacities for strategic planning and the implementation of measures, and that Urban Nature Plans need to correspond to these diff erences if they are to be more than a tool for larger cities and existing champions in sustainability across Europe.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is facing major threats from climate change and rapid urbanization, particularly increasing hydro-meteorological risks, environmental degradation, and the proliferation of informal settlements. Medium and small cities, which are urbanizing the fastest and make up over two-thirds of SSA cities, remain under researched despite facing mounting vulnerabilities. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) hold a promise as a sustainable solution to these socio-ecological challenges and can deliver co-benefits for climate adaptation, risk mitigation, and urban liveability. This paper synthesizes findings on NbS planning and implementation in SSA, drawing on literature and empirical insights from a doctoral study in Ghana's Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area. It identifies barriers at multiple scales includimg macro/meso (e.g.policy and governance, institutional coordination) and micro (e.g.community participation and financing) that hinder implementation. Using TELEMAC-2D hydrological modelling, the study assesses the flood mitigation potential of different NbS scenarios, which demonstrate that integrated interventions combining river restoration and wetland creation significantly reduce peak flows in both short and long duration storms. Additionally, stakeholder surveys and workshops highlight governance fragmentation, financial constraints, and limited public awareness as key impediments to scaling NbS. Building on these findings, the paper proposes strategic, multi-scalar pathways to overcome these barriers, including policy mainstreaming, participatory governance, innovative financing mechanisms, and integrated monitoring frameworks. By combining localized insights with global best practices, the paper provides insights for scaling NbS across diff erent urban contexts in SSA, closing the gap between concept and implementation. The paper concludes with a call for policymakers and stakeholders to prioritize NbS as a transformative approach to urban resilience, climate adaptation, and inclusive sustainable development in the region.

This article introduces the thematic issue, which examines recent advances and persistent challenges in urban greening, with a focus on green infrastructure (GI) and nature-based solutions (NbS) amid accelerating global urbanisation. Bringing together perspectives from Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, alongside a global review, it compares shared obstacles—such as governance fragmentation, inequitable greenspace access and limited institutional capacities—with locally specific responses and innovations. The contributions illustrate the adaptability of GI and NbS across diverse contexts, while highlighting enduring barriers linked to social and environmental justice, long-term stewardship and competing land-use demands. Looking forward, the issue calls for systemic governance change, stronger political commitment and more inclusive co-production processes to realise the transformative potential of urban greenspaces for sustainability and resilience.

Lowering speed limits is increasingly acknowledged as a key measure to foster resilient streets, improve urban liveability, and reduce the environmental impacts of motorized traffic. However, little research has sought to assess street speed limits through the lens of urban equity. Based on OpenStreetMap data, the present paper explores the spatial distribution of street speed limits across different neighbourhoods in Barcelona through various aggregate indicators. My results show that average speed limits vary significantly between neighbourhoods, reflecting the existence of spatial inequities regarding the negative externalities of automobility. Although my analysis shows that neighbourhoods with higher speed limits tend to have higher incomes and motorization rates, it also draws a ention to outlier neighbourhoods which combine high traffic speeds and low motorization rates. From a distributive justice perspective, I argue that these outlier neighbourhoods should constitute a priority for traffic calming and speed reduction strategies. Finally, I suggest that the proposed speed limit indicators could easily be replicated in other cities, thereby enabling cross-city comparisons and providing a useful tool for research, policy and advocacy.

The urban ground floor of the typical American city is comparatively privatized, exclusive, and unconducive to diverse local purposes. Proponents of more versatile and inviting urban environments are likely to hear that their proposals face insuperable cultural obstacles. In fact, these obstacles themselves began as contested, heterodox, and farfetched innovations. In the twentieth century, the typical American city street was radically transformed. Novel standards, initially controversial, legitimized and ostensibly necessitated the changes. The new measures were prescriptive, mandating vehicular storage, speed, and throughput over other important urban functions. Valuable street uses that were inconsistent with these criteria were either redefined as nuisances or, more often, omitted from calculations entirely, thereby mismeasuring their value at zero. The effects included privatization of public space and public services, the erosion of proximity and its practical benefits, the neglect of local needs in favour of regional demands, burdensome expenses for those seeking to retain practical mobility, and mobility impairment for the rest. More inclusive measures remain marginalized as heterodox ‘alternatives’, and are therefore often thwarted. Their ultimate success will require demystifying the predominant standards by revealing their contested origins as the original heterodox and farfetched alternatives. Inclusive histories of the authoritative measures of the American street reveal them to be unscientific mismeasures, historically anomalous and therefore unworthy of the authority they still hold.

Urban shrinkage and degrowth are parallel processes or projects that, despite clear differences, bear striking resemblance in refocusing attention on the limits to (economic) growth; yet they are rarely related or critically compared for policy learning. This paper attempts to do just that by exploring what insights drawn from existing empirical evidence on shrinking cities might reveal for the political project of degrowth in an increasingly uneven and exhausted capitalist world. Many cities now facing a future of low or no growth, or even chronic shrinkage, are innovating collaborative partnerships and alternative policies for more sustainable, equitable and less damaging forms of economic development in ways which contest arguments against degrowth as unviable, ineffective or iniquitous and point in directions towards a post-growth future.

This paper presents a collaboration between Anetha Perry, who conducted dissertation research in Camden, NJ, and Stephen Danley, her faculty advisor, who is also deeply engaged in that city, which has suffered from severe disinvestment. Perry's contribution is drawn from her year-long effort to return to her childhood home, Perry House, which had served as a Black settlement house during her parents' lifetimes. Danley adds perspectives as a community-engaged scholar, overseeing and supporting this home-going effort. Their observations underscore the obstacles that confront those trying to invest in a deeply disinvested neighbourhood. They also point out the bene fits of settlement houses, like the Perry House, which have a true 'insider's view' of the struggles to achieve rootedness in the face of many displacing processes. They underscore the potential of such efforts to aid in the creation of policies that stop disinvestment and pivot towards urban restoration.

Internet-based social networking services (ISNS) like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others have revolutionized the way people connect, enabling interactions across great distances. This has sparked a debate about the impact of ISNS use on face-to-face contact, particularly within neighbourhoods. Some argue that ISNS diminish the significance of local physical place and hinder meaningful interactions, especially among neighbours. Conversely, others view ISNS as tools that foster new forms of connectedness and enhance relationships within neighbourhoods by creating opportunities to engage with existing peers. However, there is a significant knowledge gap regarding the varying effects of ISNS on offline social interaction within neighbourhoods. Do different ISNS, including messenger services, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and neighbourhood-specific social networks (e.g.nebenan.de), 1 have distinct effects on offline social interaction within neighbourhoods? Are there differences in usage between native residents and migrants? We analyse data from a 2022 postal survey conducted in two German cities (Essen and Cologne), involving 2, 676 residents in 166 neighbourhoods. The results from our multiple linear regression model show that the impact of different ISNS on social interactions varies. Messenger services and neighbourhood-specific social networks have a positive impact on social interactions within the neighbourhood. However, popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter do not significantly affect social interactions within the neighbourhood. Additionally, individuals from the native population do have more social interaction with their neighbours compared to those with a migration background.

Capitalist processes of urbanization and privatization have produced a growing number of enclosed neighbourhoods across the world. Critical scholarship often frames these neighbourhoods as products of an overextended neoliberalism and symbols of the fragmentation, segregation, and hierarchization of both space and society. This paper expands on these theoretical explanations with a focus on China. As neither neoliberal globalization nor tradition can adequately explain various types of China's enclosed neighbourhoods, a differentiated account suggests that they have evolved in different temporal, sociocultural, and political-economic contexts. Nevertheless, they have commonly played vital roles in (re)shaping everyday environments, driving economic restructuring, transforming governance systems, and facilitating normative transformations in China. China's experiences show that enclosed neighbourhoods have been, and will remain, the everyday environments that shape citizens' behaviours, values, and social relations. They have also served, and will continue to serve, as the vital infrastructure that enables both civic engagement and biopolitical control – an irony that remains to be resolved. Lessons from China suggest that future research and practice on enclosed neighbourhoods in different parts of the world can embrace the heterogeneity, adaptability, and practicability of neighbourhood transformations to inspire design and development innovation, enhance social cohesion, and empower citizens.

UN Women and UN DESA published their latest report on the 'Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2023'. It unfortunately revealed that gender equality is still far from being achieved across the globe. The report estimates that 8 per cent of the world's female population will be living in extreme poverty by 2030 and that one in four women will experience moderate or severe food insecurity. While the gender gap in power and leadership positions remain significant and unchanged, women will have to face additional burdens, being predicted to spend on average 2.3 more hours per day on unpaid care and domestic work compared to men (Azcona et al., 2023) . As the UN press release stated: "The world is failing girls and women" (United Nations, 2023). The claim sadly resonates with gendered inequalities in the built environment which remains too often unfit for purpose for women and leads to issues of safety and violence, accessibility struggles and dire living conditions. Indeed, "by 2050, urban areas are expected to house 70 per cent of the world's female population, totalling 3.3 billion. Alarming trends suggest a third of these women and girls could find themselves living in inadequate housing or slums" (Azcona, 2023, p.21).