Towards Sustainable Cities and Communities: Comprehensive Evaluation and Optimization Strategies of the Built Environment

Understanding and enhancing the built environment is critical to advancing human well-being and achieving Sustainable Development Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). However, the inherent complexity of built environments - characterized by dynamic interconnections between physical infrastructure, functional configurations, and socio-cultural dimensions, poses significant challenges to evaluate and optimize the built environment comprehensively.

The recent emergence of novel data sources (including points of interest, street view imagery, etc.), combined with new devices (wearables, etc.), new technologies (virtual simulation systems, etc.), and new methods (machine learning, etc.), has improved our capacity to quantify and model the built environment. In parallel, theoretical methods such as space syntax and space gene have been successively proposed, demonstrating significant potential in the renewal of the built environment.

Based on this background, this Special Issue focuses on new data and new approaches for comprehensive evaluation of the built environment, as well as strategies for optimizing the built environment in the context of sustainable cities and communities. Original research and review articles in this research field are welcome. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

- Subjective and objective evaluation of the built environment
- Urban spatial structure and functional layout
- The built environment and urban vitality
- The built environment and residents' behavior
- The built environment and residents' health
- Accessibility and equity of public service facilities
- Urban Renewal strategies based on space syntax
- Identification, analysis, and inheritance of spatial genes

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Sustainable Cities, Built Environment, Urban Renewal, Urban spatial structure

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.