1window.SJ_BLOG_DEFAULT_AUTHOR = { 2 name: "Sina Jangjoo", 3 image: "Jangjoo.png" 4}; 5 6window.SJ_BLOG_POSTS = [ 7 { 8 id: "note-crf", 9 title: "What Is Contested Rule Formation?", 10 date: "2026-09-05", 11 type: "research-note", 12 typeLabel: "Research Note", 13 primaryArea: "crf", 14 areas: ["crf"], 15 published: false, 16 summary: "A short explanation of CRF as the politics of making an innovation governable before mature policy conflict fully exists.", 17 excerpt: "This entry introduces Contested Rule Formation as an upstream governance concept focused on classification, jurisdiction, venue settlement, and procedural rules under institutional mismatch.", 18 content: ` 19 <p>This entry introduces Contested Rule Formation as an upstream governance concept focused on classification, jurisdiction, venue settlement, and procedural rules under institutional mismatch.</p> 20 21 <h2>Core idea</h2> 22 <p>Contested Rule Formation focuses on the early phase of governance, when actors are still deciding what a new problem is, who has authority over it, where decisions should be made, and what procedural rules should structure public action.</p> 23 24 <h2>Why it matters</h2> 25 <p>The concept is especially useful for emerging technologies, AI governance, clean energy transitions, and other policy domains where existing institutions do not fully fit new public problems.</p> 26 ` 27 }, 28 29{ 30 id: "commentary-cities-can-act-govern-rulemaking", 31 title: "Cities Can Act, But Can They Govern? The Missing Rulemaking Question in Local Clean Energy Transitions", 32 date: "2026-04-10", 33 type: "commentary", 34 typeLabel: "Commentary", 35 primaryArea: "energy", 36 areas: ["energy", "crf", "nonprofits", "urban"], 37 summary: "A commentary on local clean energy transitions, rule location, nonprofit rulemaking capacity, and the limits of local action under constrained federalism.", 38 excerpt: "This entry revisits my Cities article with Tian Tang and argues that the next theoretical question is not only how cities act, but where clean-energy governance actually lands when binding authority remains elsewhere.", 39 doiUrl: "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.105737", 40 content: ` 41 <p><strong>Commentary | Clean Energy Governance, Public Policy Theory, Federalism, and Energy Justice</strong></p> 42 43 <p>The article <em>Renewable Energy Transitions from the Ground Up: Building a Framework for Local Action Despite Limited State Support</em>, written with Tian Tang and published in <em>Cities</em>, asked a practical but theoretically important question: how can cities pursue ambitious renewable energy goals when state-level support is weak, absent, or politically opposed? The study examined 13 Florida cities committed to 100% renewable energy goals and adapted transition management to the U.S. federalist context, where local, state, and federal regimes often interact in fragmented and conflicting ways.</p> 44 45 <p>The paperâs central contribution was to show that local governments are not passive victims of unsupportive state regimes. Even in Florida, where the state lacked a renewable portfolio standard and had moved away from stronger renewable energy commitments, cities still used local authority, sustainability offices, municipal planning, nonprofit partnerships, regional collaboration, financing strategies, and community engagement to keep clean energy transition work alive.</p> 46 47 <p>But the paper also revealed a deeper problem that it could not fully solve. It showed that cities can act, but it could not fully explain <strong>where governing authority actually lands</strong> when state-level institutions retain control over the most consequential electricity-system rules. That unresolved question now motivates the next stage of my research.</p> 48 49 <h2>What the paper accomplished</h2> 50 51 <p>The <em>Cities</em> article did three important things.</p> 52 53 <p>First, it established Florida as a theoretically valuable case. Florida is highly exposed to climate risks, but the state has not provided the kind of strong renewable energy policy architecture found in many other clean-energy-leading states. This made Florida useful for studying how local governments act under adverse state conditions rather than under supportive multilevel policy alignment.</p> 54 55 <p>Second, the paper showed that cities can build local transition capacity through practical institutional work. Sustainability offices, mayoral and council leadership, local plans, municipal utilities, clean energy ordinances, regional collaborations, nonprofit support, and financing mechanisms all mattered. The paper therefore shifted attention away from a simple questionââDoes the state support renewable energy?ââtoward a more dynamic question: âWhat do local actors build when higher-level support is limited?â</p> 56 57 <p>Third, the paper identified nonprofits as more than advocates. It found that nonprofits provided technical assistance, helped connect cities to national and international networks, supported regional collaboration, assisted with federal funding opportunities, and helped local governments incorporate energy justice into planning and implementation.</p> 58 59 <p>These findings were important because they challenged the assumption that clean energy transition depends only on top-down mandates, state policy, or national incentives. The article showed that local governments and civil society actors can create meaningful progress even when the broader state regime is not aligned with their goals.</p> 60 61 <h2>Where the paper reached its limit</h2> 62 63 <p>The article pushed transition management as far as it reasonably could in this setting. It adapted a framework developed largely in European contexts to the more fragmented and conflictual terrain of U.S. federalism. It brought in polycentric governance to explain how multiple actors and venues can compensate for weak state support. It brought in just transition theory to show that energy justice can be embedded early in planning, rather than added later as an afterthought.</p> 64 65 <p>
65But transition management and polycentric governance were not designed to answer the most precise public administration question that emerged from the findings: <strong>when cities act under constrained authority, what kind of governance are they actually producing?</strong></p> 66 67 <p>The paper could show that Orlando, St. Petersburg, Tallahassee, Gainesville, Sarasota, Pinellas County, and other local actors were developing plans, building partnerships, using policy tools, and pursuing energy justice. But it could not fully distinguish between different kinds of governing capacity. A city resolution is not the same as a tariff. A sustainability plan is not the same as a commission order. A nonprofit program manual is not the same as a statutory mandate. A local equity commitment is not the same as a durable statewide rule.</p> 68 69 <p>That distinction is now central to my broader research agenda. The earlier article provided a comparative map of enabling factors and strategies across cities, but it left partially unresolved the public administration question of where relevant rulemaking occurs, what kinds of rules become durable, and what mechanisms explain the relocation, containment, or substitution of governing capacity across venues.</p> 70 71 <h2>The policy process gap</h2> 72 73 <p>The deeper theoretical gap is in policy process and public policy theory. Many theories are strong once the policy arena is already visible: once actors know what the problem is, which venue matters, what rules apply, and what kind of authority is at stake. But local clean energy governance under constrained federalism often begins before those conditions are settled.</p> 74 75 <p>
75In Florida, the issue is not simply that cities lack money or technical capacity. The deeper issue is that binding authority over electricity-system instruments is located elsewhere. Investor-owned utility rates, service terms, interconnection conditions, and key participation rules are largely controlled through state-centered venues. Meanwhile, state preemption narrows some local building-energy and fuel-choice tools. This means a city may adopt an ambitious clean energy goal while lacking direct authority over the instruments that most strongly shape feasibility, cost, access, and distributive outcomes.</p> 76 77 <p>That condition creates a theory problem. Existing transition frameworks can describe local experimentation and regime resistance. Polycentric governance can describe multiple centers of activity. Energy justice can evaluate distributional, procedural, and recognition concerns. But none of these frameworks, by themselves, fully explain how rulemaking moves across venues when the most binding rule locations are defended.</p> 78 79 <p>The next theoretical question is therefore no longer only how cities pursue renewable energy transitions. It becomes: <strong>where are the rules written, who writes them, what kinds of rules stabilize, and how durable are they?</strong></p> 80 81 <h2>Why âlocal actionâ is not enough as an analytic category</h2> 82 83 <p>One of the most important lessons from revisiting the <em>Cities</em> article is that âlocal actionâ is too broad. It can mean many different things: a plan, a resolution, a procurement rule, a municipal utility decision, a nonprofit program, a financing template, a partnership agreement, a public engagement process, or an ordinance. These are not equivalent forms of governance.</p> 84 85 <p>My ongoing work therefore treats rule location as a central empirical outcome. It follows statutes, regulatory orders, municipal instruments, procurement rules, program manuals, partnership documents, and other artifacts that structure eligibility, compliance, participation, and access. This makes it possible to distinguish aspirational commitments from rule-based governance.</p> 86 87 <p>This is the theoretical move that the <em>Cities</em> article pointed toward but did not yet make. The article showed that local actors were active. The next question is whether that activity becomes durable rulemaking, where it becomes durable, and what kinds of rule objects carry energy justice.</p> 88 89 <h2>Nonprofits as the clue</h2> 90 91 <p>The nonprofit finding in the <em>Cities</em> article was especially important. At the time, nonprofits appeared as advocates, information providers, consultants, coalition builders, and funding intermediaries. That was already a significant contribution. But the finding also points toward a more institutional question.</p> 92 93 <p>
93If nonprofits help design solar co-ops, loan programs, eligibility criteria, outreach protocols, documentation requirements, and participation procedures, they are not merely supporting implementation. They are helping write practical rules. These rules may not be formal state regulation, but they can still shape who participates, who is excluded, what documentation is required, how benefits are distributed, and how accountability is structured.</p> 94 95 <p>This insight shifts the analysis from nonprofit participation to nonprofit rule-making capacity. Under the mismatch between ambitious local targets and constrained formal authority, municipal-nonprofit venues may become central sites where commitments are operationalized through programs, procedures, and administrative routines, even when those venues cannot directly revise regime-core instruments.</p> 96 97 <h2>Energy justice as rule content</h2> 98 99 <p>The <em>Cities</em> article argued that Florida cities embedded energy justice principles into renewable energy planning and local programs. It identified recognition, procedural, and distributional justice in community engagement, local planning, targeted programs, and federal funding requirements.</p> 100 101 <p>The next question is sharper: <strong>where does energy justice become institutionally real?</strong></p> 102 103 <p>That question matters because justice language can appear in plans without becoming enforceable. It can appear in outreach without becoming durable. It can be embedded in a grant-funded program without being anchored in tariffs, statutes, or commission standards. The analytical challenge is therefore to examine whether equity commitments appear in upstream regime-core rules or downstream program rules.</p> 104 105 <p>The emerging answer is more cautious than the original article could provide: in constrained settings, energy justice often becomes real through downstream program templatesâeligibility rules, targeting criteria, documentation requirements, consumer protections, reporting routines, and participation procedures. This can produce concrete benefits, but it is structurally vulnerable because program-level rules are easier to narrow, defund, or revise than statewide tariff or statutory obligations.</p> 106 107 <h2>From local action to rule location</h2> 108 109 <p>The <em>Cities</em> article should therefore be read as the foundation for a broader theoretical agenda, but also as the point where a new question became necessary.</p> 110 111 <p>
111It answered an enabling question: <strong>How do cities act despite limited state support?</strong></p> 112 113 <p>The next question is: <strong>What kind of governance does that action become when binding authority remains elsewhere?</strong></p> 114 115 <p>That shift matters. It moves the analysis from strategies to rule location; from collaboration to authority; from local capacity to institutional constraint; from energy justice commitments to energy justice rule content; and from transition pathways to the upstream formation of governable arenas.</p> 116 117 <p>The article tried its best within the tools it used. It adapted transition management, incorporated polycentric governance, and foregrounded justice in a difficult federalist setting. But its own findings exposed the limits of those tools. They showed that local clean energy governance cannot be fully understood by counting commitments, plans, partnerships, or enabling factors. It must be understood by tracing the rules that actually structure action.</p> 118 119 <p>That is where the next stage of the research begins.</p> 120 121 <p>The core question is not whether cities are active. The question is <strong>where governance actually lands</strong>: in state statutes and commission decisions, in municipal administrative routines, in procurement and program templates, in nonprofit-designed participation rules, or in fragile project-based arrangements that carry justice commitments without fully transforming the regime core.</p> 122 123 <h2>Suggested citation</h2> 124 125 <p>Jangjoo, S., & Tang, T. (2025). <em>Renewable energy transitions from the ground up: Building a framework for local action despite limited state support</em>. <strong>Cities, 158</strong>, 105737. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.105737" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.105737</a></p> 126 ` 127}, 128 129 130 { 131 id: "note-ai-readiness", 132 title: "Why AI Readiness Is Not the Same as AI Adoption", 133 date: "2026-05-31", 134 type: "research-note", 135 typeLabel: "Research Note", 136 primaryArea: "ai", 137 areas: ["ai", "crf"], 138 summary: "A public-administration explanation of institutional readiness, venue settlement, and procedural governance for public-sector AI.", 139 excerpt: "This entry distinguishes AI adoption from AI readiness by focusing on the institutional conditions needed for accountable public-sector AI.", 140 content: ` 141 <p>AI adoption means that a public organization has acquired, tested, or deployed an AI system. AI readiness means something deeper: the organization has built the institutional conditions needed to classify, review, document, govern, and correct that system as public action.</p> 142 143 <h2>The core distinction</h2> 144 <p>A government can adopt AI without being institutionally ready for AI. Adoption is about use. Readiness is about whether the AI system has become governable through clear authority, stable venues, procedural templates, procurement rules, documentation duties, and review mechanisms.</p> 145 146 <h2>Why readiness comes first</h2> 147 <p>Before governments can govern AI well, they must answer three prior questions: what kind of object the system is, who has authority over it, and where decisions about review, procurement, monitoring, and correction should be made. Without those settlements, AI governance remains fragmented, reactive, or symbolic.</p> 148 149 <h2>Readiness is not the same as accountability</h2> 150 <p>
150Institutional readiness is only a threshold. It makes AI design administratively possible, but it does not guarantee defensible governance. Stronger public-sector AI governance also requires transparency, contestability, human review, audit capacity, public justification, and correction when harms or errors appear.</p> 151 152 <h2>Why public administration matters</h2> 153 <p>Public-sector AI is not only a technical problem. It is an institutional problem involving authority, discretion, accountability, administrative burden, public values, and procedural fairness. The central question is not simply whether governments can use AI, but whether they can govern it in ways that are reviewable, correctable, and publicly defensible.</p> 154 ` 155}, 156 157{ 158 id: "note-energy-justice", 159 title: "Where Does Energy Justice Become a Rule?", 160 date: "2026-03-03", 161 type: "commentary", 162 typeLabel: "Commentary", 163 primaryArea: "energy", 164 areas: ["energy", "nonprofits", "crf"], 165 summary: "A reflection on eligibility rules, documentation burdens, and downstream program templates as surfaces of energy-justice institutionalization.", 166 excerpt: "This entry explains why energy justice should be studied not only as a normative principle, but also as a question of rule location and implementation.", 167 content: ` 168 <p>Energy justice becomes administratively meaningful when it is translated into rules that shape who can participate, what evidence they must provide, which benefits they can access, and how agencies or partners are held accountable.</p> 169 170 <h2>Justice as rule design</h2> 171 <p>Energy justice is often discussed as a value: fairness, recognition, participation, and distribution. But in practice, justice becomes real through design choices embedded in eligibility criteria, documentation requirements, outreach procedures, procurement templates, reporting rules, and appeal or correction mechanisms.</p> 172 173 <h2>Why rule location matters</h2> 174 <p>A justice commitment located only in a climate plan is weaker than one embedded in a program manual, grant agreement, procurement document, or utility-facing procedure. Rule location determines whether equity is aspirational, administratively actionable, or enforceable.</p> 175 176 <h2>The downstream problem</h2> 177 <p>
177In constrained energy-governance settings, justice often appears downstream in local programs, nonprofit templates, and project-level participation rules rather than upstream in statutes, tariffs, or binding regulatory standards. This can still matter: downstream rules can target benefits, reduce burdens, and protect participants.</p> 178 179 <h2>The vulnerability</h2> 180 <p>The problem is durability. Program rules can be revised, narrowed, defunded, or inconsistently applied more easily than regime-level obligations. Energy justice may therefore become operational without becoming structurally secure.</p> 181 182 <h2>The public-administration question</h2> 183 <p>The key question is not only whether policymakers mention energy justice, but where justice is encoded in the governance system. To study energy justice seriously, we need to trace the rules-in-use that determine access, burden, accountability, and correction.</p> 184 ` 185}, 186 187 { 188 id: "summary-built-environment-wellbeing", 189 title: "Women, Apartment Complexes, and Community Wellbeing: Why Satisfaction and Sense of Community Matter", 190 date: "2026-02-25", 191 type: "paper-report",
192 typeLabel: "Paper Report", 193 primaryArea: "urban", 194 areas: ["urban"], 195 summary: "A paper report based on my Cities article with Sajad Askari and Amirhossein Doaee on how womenâs perceptions of apartment-complex environments shape satisfaction, sense of community, and community wellbeing.", 196 excerpt: "This research note explains how security, comfort, cleanliness, and accessibility influence womenâs residential satisfaction, which then strengthens sense of community and perceptions of collective wellbeing.", 197 doiUrl: "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2026.106871", 198 content: ` 199 <p><strong>Research Note | Built Environment, Womenâs Wellbeing, Sense of Community, and Residential Design</strong></p> 200 201 <p>How do womenâs perceptions of apartment-complex environments shape their satisfaction, sense of community, and broader perceptions of community wellbeing? In our article, <em>The Role of Satisfaction and Sense of Community in Womenâs Perceptions of the Built Environment and Community Wellbeing in Residential Apartment Complexes</em>, Sajad Askari, Amirhossein Doaee, and I examine this question through three residential apartment complexes in Shiraz, Iran. The central argument is that <strong>the built environment does not influence community wellbeing only through physical design; it works through womenâs satisfaction and sense of community</strong>.</p> 202 203 <p>The study focuses on women because apartment complexes are not gender-neutral environments. In contexts shaped by patriarchal norms, caregiving responsibilities, and gendered mobility patterns, women often spend substantial time in or near residential environments. This makes the quality of shared spaces, safety, comfort, cleanliness, accessibility, and management especially important for their everyday experiences.</p> 204 205 <h2>Why this study matters</h2> 206 207 <p>High-density apartment living is expanding in many cities. These residential forms can help manage urban growth, reduce sprawl, and support more efficient infrastru
207cture use. Yet dense apartment complexes can also create social isolation, discomfort, insecurity, or weak community ties when shared spaces are poorly designed or managed.</p> 208 209 <p>This paper asks a more specific question: <strong>when women perceive their apartment complex as safer, cleaner, more comfortable, and more accessible, does that translate into stronger community wellbeing?</strong> The answer is yesâbut mostly through a sequence: better built-environment perceptions increase satisfaction; satisfaction strengthens sense of community; and sense of community improves perceptions of community wellbeing.</p> 210 211 <h2>What we studied</h2> 212 213 <p>The study examines four dimensions of perceived built-environment quality in apartment complexes: <strong>security</strong>, <strong>environmental and visual comfort</strong>, <strong>accessibility and permeability</strong>, and <strong>cleanliness and sanitation</strong>. These were modeled as predictors of womenâs residential satisfaction. Satisfaction was then modeled as a predictor of sense of community, and sense of community was modeled as a predictor of two dimensions of community wellbeing: <strong>healthy practices</strong> and <strong>proficient leadership</strong>.</p> 214 215 <p>This structure is important because it treats community wellbeing as more than an individual feeling. It is a collective condition shaped by shared practices, social ties, and perceptions of leadership and management. In apartment complexes, community wellbeing depends not only on buildings and facilities, but also on whether residents feel satisfied, connected, and able to trust their shared environment.</p> 216 217 <h2>Case and method</h2> 218 219 <p>The study was conducted in <strong>three residential apartment complexes in Shiraz, Iran</strong>, selected to reflect variation in socio-economic status, design characteristics, and location. Data were collected between August and November 2022. The final valid sample included <strong>287 women residents</strong>. The study distributed 974 questionnaires, received 356 completed responses, and retained 287 valid cases after removing incomplete responses required for analysis.</p> 220 221 <p>The analysis used <strong>Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling</strong> with bootstrapping. This method was appropriate because the study examined multiple latent constructs and tested direct and indirect pathways among built environment, satisfaction, sense of community, and community wellbeing. The measurement model showed acceptable reliability and validity, and all seven main hypotheses were supported.</p> 222 223 <h2>Main findings</h2> 224 225 <p>The first major finding is that <strong>all four built-environment factors significantly improved womenâs satisfaction</strong>. Security had the strongest effect on satisfaction, followed by environmental and visual comfort, cleanliness and sanitation, and accessibility/permeability. The path coefficients were: security <strong>β = 0.257</strong>, environmental/visual comfort <strong>β = 0.241</strong>, cleanliness/sanitation <strong>β = 0.239</strong>, and accessibility/permeability <strong>β = 0.220</strong>.</p> 226 227 <p>The second major finding is that <strong>satisfaction strongly predicted sense of community</strong>. Women who were more satisfied with their apartment complex were more likely to report stronger belonging, emotional connection, membership, and social ties. The path coefficient from satisfaction to sense of community was <strong>β = 0.555</strong>.</p> 228 229 <p>The third major finding is that <strong>sense of community had the strongest effects on community wellbeing</strong>. It significantly predicted both healthy practices and proficient leadership, with path coefficients of <strong>β = 0.574</strong> and <strong>β = 0.613</strong>, respectively. This means that social connection was the strongest bridge between environmental satisfaction and broader community wellbeing.</p> 230 231 <h2>The key insight: the built environment works through social life</h2> 232 233 <p>The most important contribution of the paper is not simply that security, comfort, cleanliness, and accessibility matter. Many studies already show that physical environments influence satisfaction. The stronger contribution is that this study shows <strong>how</strong> those environmental qualities matter.</p> 234 235 <p>The built environment influenced community wellbeing primarily through <strong>satisfaction</strong> and <strong>sense of community</strong>, rather than only through direct physical effects. Satisfaction and sense of community functioned as key conduits linking womenâs perceptions of apartment-complex environments to healthier communal practices and more favorable assessments of leadership.</p> 236 237 <p>
237This finding is theoretically important because it connects urban design, environmental psychology, feminist urban theory, and community wellbeing research. It suggests that improving the built environment is not only a technical design issue. It is also a social and governance issue.</p> 238 239 <h2>Why security matters most</h2> 240 241 <p>Across the model, <strong>security emerged as the most influential built-environment attribute</strong>. It had the strongest direct effect on satisfaction and the strongest indirect effects on sense of community and both community wellbeing outcomes.</p> 242 243 <p>This is consistent with the broader feminist urban planning argument that womenâs use of shared spaces is shaped by perceived safety, visibility, cultural norms, and everyday mobility constraints. In apartment complexes, security is not limited to crime prevention. It includes whether women feel safe in shared spaces, whether entrances are monitored, whether strangers can be recognized, whether lighting is adequate, and whether communal areas feel socially comfortable.</p> 244 245 <p>The finding does not mean that accessibility, cleanliness, or aesthetics are unimportant. All were statistically significant. But in this specific context, security appears to operate as a threshold condition: without safety and comfort, other improvements may have weaker effects on satisfaction and community connection.</p> 246 247 <h2>Contribution to feminist urban theory</h2> 248 249 <p>This paper refines feminist urban theory by showing that womenâs satisfaction can act as a <strong>gatekeeper</strong> between environmental conditions and community wellbeing. Where cultural norms constrain womenâs mobility and public participation, the quality of semi-public residential spaces becomes especially consequential. Apartment courtyards, corridors, entrances, gathering areas, lighting, parking, cleanliness, and management practices are not minor design details. They shape whether women feel comfortable enough to use shared spaces and form social ties.</p> 250 251 <p>This matters because gender-neutral planning can miss the specific ways women experience residential environments. A design feature that seems ordinary from a general planning perspectiveâlighting, visibility, seating, maintenance, or access to gathering spacesâmay be central to womenâs everyday wellbeing and sense of belonging.</p> 252 253 <h2>Practical implications</h2> 254 255 <p>For planners, architects, housing managers, and resident boards, the findings point to a clear practical message: <strong>improving community wellbeing in apartment complexes requires both physical design improvements and social-management strategies</strong>.</p> 256 257 <p>Physical improvements should prioritize safety, lighting, entrance control, clean shared spaces, noise reduction, visual comfort, accessible walking paths, convenient parking, and usable gathering areas. But these changes should be paired with inclusive management, responsive leadership, and opportunities for residentsâespecially womenâto participate in decisions affecting shared spaces.</p> 258 259 <p>For apartment-complex governance, the study suggests that leadership quality matters because residents evaluate community wellbeing partly through whether leadership feels responsive, capable, and supportive. Sense of community strengthens perceptions of proficient leadership, which means that better social ties may also improve how residents perceive management and collective decision-making.</p> 260 261 <h2>Limitations</h2> 262 263 <p>This study should be interpreted carefully. It is based on a cross-sectional survey of women in three apartment complexes in Shiraz, so it identifies statistically significant relationships but does not prove long-term causal effects. The study focuses only on women, which is theoretically appropriate for the research question, but future studies could compare women, men, children, older adults, and whole households. The findings are also context-specific and should be tested in other cities, housing types, and cultural settings.</p> 264 265 <p>Even with these limitations, the contribution is clear: <strong>gender-sensitive improvements to apartment-complex environments can support satisfaction, strengthen sense of community, and improve perceptions of collective wellbeing</strong>âbut these benefits are most likely when physical design and inclusive management reinfor
265ce one another.</p> 266 267 <h2>Suggested citation</h2> 268 269 <p>Jangjoo, S., Askari, S., & Doaee, A. (2026). <em>The role of satisfaction and sense of community in womenâs perceptions of the built environment and community wellbeing in residential apartment complexes</em>. <strong>Cities, 173</strong>, 106871. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2026.106871" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2026.106871</a></p> 270 ` 271}, 272 273 { 274 id: "summary-renewable-energy-ground-up", 275 title: "Renewable Energy Transitions from the Ground Up: How Cities Act When State Support Is Limited", 276 date: "2025-01-08", 277 type: "paper-report", 278 typeLabel: "Paper Report", 279 primaryArea: "energy", 280 areas: ["energy", "urban", "methods"], 281 summary: "A paper report based on my Cities article with Tian Tang on how Florida local governments pursue renewable energy goals despite limited state support.", 282 excerpt: "This research note explains how cities build clean-energy governance capacity through leadership, sustainability offices, regional collaboration, nonprofit partnerships, financing tools, and justice-oriented planning.", 283 doiUrl: "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.105737", 284 content: ` 285 <p><strong>Research Note | Clean Energy Governance, Local Government, and Energy Justice</strong></p> 286 287 <p>
287In a recent article published in <em>Cities</em>, Tian Tang and I examine a difficult but increasingly important question: <strong>How can cities pursue ambitious renewable energy goals when state-level support is limited, absent, or even politically oppositional?</strong> The article, <em>Renewable Energy Transitions from the Ground Up: Building a Framework for Local Action Despite Limited State Support</em>, studies 13 Florida cities that have officially committed to 100% renewable energy goals. Florida provides a theoretically important case because it combines high exposure to climate risks with a state policy environment that has not provided strong institutional support for renewable energy transitions.</p> 288 289 <p>The article challenges a common assumption in climate and energy governance: that local clean energy transitions depend primarily on supportive national or state policy regimes. Higher-level support certainly matters. But our findings show that local governments are not simply passive implementers of state or federal policy. In the absence of strong state support, cities can still create progress by using local policymaking authority, sustainability offices, municipal utilities, nonprofit partnerships, regional collaboration, community engagement, and diverse financing tools.</p> 290 291 <h2>Why this study matters</h2> 292 293 <p>
293Cities are major sites of energy consumption, infrastructure investment, and climate vulnerability. Yet many citiesâespecially small and medium-sized municipalitiesâoperate under serious financial, technical, and institutional constraints. These constraints become even more difficult when state governments do not provide renewable energy mandates, funding, or regulatory support.</p> 294 295 <p>Florida is a particularly revealing case. The state is highly vulnerable to sea-level rise, extreme weather, and climate-related disruption, but it lacks a Renewable Portfolio Standard and has recently moved away from stronger renewable energy commitments. Despite this state-level context, several Florida cities have voluntarily committed to 100% renewable energy goals. This creates an important empirical puzzle: <strong>what enables local clean energy action under constrained and unsupportive state conditions?</strong></p> 296 297 <h2>How we studied the question</h2> 298 299 <p>The article uses a qualitative case study design focused on 13 Florida cities committed to 100% renewable energy. The study draws on local government documents, news sources, and 29 semi-structured interviews with sustainability and resilience officers, utility representatives, and nonprofit actors involved in renewable energy planning. The analysis used an integrated thematic approach, combining inductive coding with deductive interpretation through transition management, multilevel governance, polycentric governance, and just transition frameworks.</p> 300 301 <p>This design does not claim to produce a universal causal model or statistical generalization. Instead, it develops a grounded framework for understanding how pioneering local governments navigate renewable energy transitions under adverse state-level conditions.</p> 302 303 <h2>Key findings</h2> 304 305 <p>The first major finding is that <strong>local institutional capacity matters</strong>. Cities with committed mayors, city councils, sustainability offices, and strong coordination with municipal utilities are better positioned to institutionalize renewable energy goals. In cases such as Orlando, St. Petersburg, Tallahassee, and Gainesville, sustainability offices and utility coordination helped translate broad commitments into planning, implementation, and policy development.</p> 306 307 <p>Second, the study finds that <strong>polycentric governance helps cities compensate for limited state support</strong>. Rather than relying only on state-led policy frameworks, cities collaborate horizontally with other local governments, counties, utilities, nonprofits, and regional coalitions. These networks help cities share information, pool resources, coordinate policy efforts, and pursue external funding. Regional collaboration in places such as Pinellas County and Sarasota illustrates how local actors can scale clean energy action beyond a single municipality.</p> 308 309 <p>Third, <strong>nonprofit organizations play a much larger role than simple advocacy</strong>. National and international organizations such as the Sierra Club and ICLEI help connect local governments to technical assistance, policy networks, and funding opportunities. Grassroots organizations also serve as bridges between local governments and communities, especially marginalized groups. In this way, nonprofits can function as advocates, consultants, conveners, and institutional intermediaries in local renewable energy transitions.</p> 310 311 <p>Fourth, cities use <strong>local policy tools</strong> to create supportive renewable energy environments. Comprehensive clean energy plans, sustainability action plans, local ordinances, solar requirements, green building standards, favorable net metering policies, and other regulatory tools allow cities to use their local authority even when state policy is weak or restrictive. These tools help institutionalize renewable energy commitments and protect them from short-term political or administrative changes.</p> 312 313 <p>Fifth, cities pursue <strong>technology pathways that reflect their local capacity</strong>. Smaller or resource-constrained cities often begin with energy efficie
313ncy, building retrofits, and smaller-scale solar strategies. Larger or better-resourced cities are more likely to pursue utility-scale solar, smart grid technologies, battery storage, and broader grid modernization. This finding is important because it avoids a one-size-fits-all model of energy transition: cities move at different speeds and use different tools depending on their financial, technical, and institutional capacity.</p> 314 315 <p>Sixth, the study shows that <strong>energy justice can be embedded early in the transition process</strong>. Florida cities used citizen engagement, grassroots advocacy, community renewable energy projects, targeted subsidies, and programs for low-income households to address procedural and distributional justice. This is important because equity is sometimes treated as a secondary concern after technical and financial feasibility. Our findings suggest that justice canâand shouldâbe built into renewable energy planning from the beginning.</p> 316 317 <h2>Theoretical contribution</h2> 318 319 <p>The article contributes to transition management theory by adapting it to the U.S. federalist context. Traditional transition management frameworks often assume more coherent vertical coordination across levels of governance. But in federal systems, local, state, and federal regimes may be fragmented, misaligned, or openly conflicting.</p> 320 321 <p>
321In this context, local governments can act both as <strong>niche innovators</strong> and as <strong>local regime builders</strong>. They experiment with new technologies, programs, and financing models while also using local policy authority to institutionalize renewable energy goals. This finding extends transition management theory by showing how local actors navigate conflicting multilevel regimes through polycentric and adaptive governance.</p> 322 323 <h2>Practical implications</h2> 324 325 <p>For local decisionmakers, the study suggests that progress is possible even when state support is limitedâbut it requires deliberate institution-building. Cities need more than symbolic renewable energy commitments. They need dedicated staff capacity, cross-departmental coordination, utility partnerships, nonprofit collaboration, community engagement, and realistic financing strategies.</p> 326 327 <p>For smaller cities, the most practical pathway may begin with energy efficiency, building retrofits, federal grants, nonprofit partnerships, and regional coalitions. For larger cities, more ambitious investments in grid modernization, utility-scale solar, storage, and long-term financing may be more feasible. In both cases, justice-oriented planning should be integrated into the process rather than added later.</p> 328 329 <h2>Limitations</h2> 330 331 <p>The findings should be interpreted carefully. This is a qualitative study of 13 pioneering Florida cities, not a statistical analysis of all municipalities. The article does not claim that these cities have already achieved 100% renewable energy, nor does it suggest that local action alone can fully overcome state-level barriers. State and federal policy still matter greatly. The study also acknowledges that the role of private-sector actors, especially investor-owned utilities and renewable energy businesses, requires further research.</p> 332 333 <p>The main contribution is therefore not a claim that cities can solve the clean energy transition alone. Rather, the article shows that even under constrained political conditions, local governments and their partners can build institutional, policy, technological, financial, and justice-oriented pathways for renewable energy transition.</p> 334 335 <h2>Suggested citation</h2> 336 337 <p>Jangjoo, S., & Tang, T. (2025). <em>Renewable energy transitions from the ground up: Building a framework for local action despite limited state support</em>. <strong>Cities, 158</strong>, 105737. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.105737" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.105737</a></p> 338 ` 339}, 340 341{ 342 id: "summary-bazaar-backbone-shiraz", 343 title: "The Bazaar as the Backbone of the Iranian City: A Historical Study of Shiraz", 344 date: "2019-01-01", 345 type: "paper-report",
346 typeLabel: "Paper Report", 347 primaryArea: "urban", 348 areas: ["urban"], 349 summary: "A paper report based on my Armanshahr Architecture & Urban Development article with Ali Reza Sadeghi and Mehdi Khakzand on the historical role of the bazaar in shaping Shirazâs Iranian-Islamic urban form.", 350 excerpt: "This research note explains how the bazaar functioned as a spatial backbone, movement corridor, social institution, and connector of religious, governmental, economic, and residential life in historical Shiraz.", 351 doiUrl: "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333917096_Historical_Analysis_of_the_Role_of_Bazaar_on_the_Formation_of_Iranian_Islamic_Urban_Form_Case_Study_Shiraz_Iran", 352 content: ` 353 <p><strong>Research Note | Urban Form, Historical Urbanism, and Iranian-Islamic Cities</strong></p> 354 355 <p>What makes a city more than a collection of streets, buildings, and commercial spaces? In the historical Iranian city, the answer often begins with the bazaar. In our article, <em>Historical Analysis of the Role of Bazaar on the Formation of Iranian Islamic Urban Forms; Case Study: Shiraz, Iran</em>, Ali Reza Sadeghi, Mehdi Khakzand, and I examine how the bazaar shaped the physical, social, economic, and symbolic structure of Shiraz across major historical periods. The central argument is that the bazaar was not merely a marketplace. It functioned as a spatial backbone, a pedestrian network, a social institution, and a connector among the cityâs major religious, governmental, economic, and residential elements.</p> 356 357 <p>The study begins from a broader question in urban history: <strong>how do specific urban elements organize the form and identity of a city over time?</strong> In Iranian-Islamic urbanism, the bazaar has historically been one of the main elements of the cityâs structure, alongside the Jame Mosque, governmental centers, residential neighborhoods, street networks, walls, gates, and public spaces. The article positions the bazaar as a central feature of the Iranian-Islamic city because it historically concentrated commercial and manufacturing functions while also supporting social, political, religious, and civic interactions.</p> 358 359 <h2>Why Shiraz matters</h2> 360 361 <p>Shiraz provides a rich historical case because its urban form developed through successive political and cultural periods, including the Banu Umayyad and Abbasid eras, Saffarid, Buyid, Salghurid, Safavid, Zand, Qajar, and contemporary periods. Across these eras, the bazaar repeatedly served as a structuring axis linking the cityâs main elements. Historical accounts from travelers and historians also describe Shirazâs bazaars as orderly, active, and spatially connected to major gates, squares, mosques, and governmental areas.</p> 362 363 <p>The article uses a <strong>descriptive, historical, and comparative research design</strong>, relying on historical texts, visual documents, maps, and period-based analysis of the evolution of Shirazâs urban bazaar. This is not a statistical or interview-based study. Its contribution is historical-interpretive: it reconstructs how the bazaarâs physical form, accessibility, function, and position changed over time and how those changes affected the broader form of the city.</p> 364 365 <h2>The bazaar as more than commerce</h2> 366 367 <p>A narrow reading of the bazaar would treat it as a site of trade. This article argues that such a reading is incomplete. Historically, the bazaar in Shiraz performed at least four overlapping roles.</p> 368 369 <p>First, it was an <strong>economic center</strong>, organizing production, exchange, guild activity, and regional commerce. Second, it was a <strong>movement corridor</strong>, often located along major access routes and connected to city gates and regional roads. Third, it was a <strong>social and civic space</strong>, where residents encountered one another, exchanged information, and participated in public life. Fourth, it was a <strong>spatial connector</strong>, linking mosques, governmental complexes, neighborhoods, squares, caravanserais, schools, and other urban institutions.</p> 370 371 <p>
371This multidimensional role is why the bazaar could function as the âbackboneâ of the city. It was not simply located inside the city; it helped produce the cityâs spatial order.</p> 372 373 <h2>Historical evolution of Shiraz Bazaar</h2> 374 375 <p>The article traces the bazaarâs changing role across historical periods.</p> 376 377 <p>In the <strong>Banu Umayyad and Abbasid periods</strong>, the core of Shiraz Bazaar appears as a linear structure around the main connection axis toward Estakhr. In this early phase, the bazaarâs regional commercial role was central to Shirazâs prosperity and growth.</p> 378 379 <p>During the <strong>Saffarid period</strong>, the bazaar became more formally integrated into the cityâs structure. The relationship between the bazaar and the Jame Mosque became clearer, and the bazaar gained a stronger official position in the cityâs urban hierarchy.</p> 380 381 <p>In the <strong>Buyid period</strong>, the cityâs main cores were organized around the intersection of important axes. The bazaar developed as an enclosed and roofed space with small parcels and regular fabric, connected to the mosque and related to governmental and religious centers.</p> 382 383 <p>During the <strong>Salghurid period</strong>, the bazaar became especially important as a linking element. It connected religious-cultural and military-governmental areas and helped integrate different parts of the city. This period strengthened the bazaarâs role not only as a commercial axis but also as an urban connector among major activity nodes.</p> 384 385 <p>
385In the <strong>Safavid period</strong>, the city form became more complex, with important urban cores linked through bazaars, passages, Chaharsouqs, and a plaid-like network. The bazaar helped connect dense, enclosed commercial spaces with open urban spaces and larger institutional complexes. Its commercial role was strengthened through related functions such as caravanserais, schools, and other facilities.</p> 386 387 <p>The <strong>Zand period</strong> is especially significant for Shiraz. The bazaar became connected to major Zand-era complexes, including urban buildings organized through open, semi-open, and enclosed spaces. Accessibility relied on hierarchical movement through streets, bazaars, squares, and building complexes. In this period, the bazaar continued to act as a linking element in the cityâs main structure.</p> 388 389 <p>In the <strong>Qajar period</strong>, the bazaar largely maintained its physical body, although broader trade routes and urban conditions began to shift. The construction of Bazaar Noe, also known as Mirza Yousefi Bazaar, is identified as one of the periodâs specific works.</p> 390 391 <p>The major rupture occurs in the <strong>contemporary period, especially from the Pahlavi era onward</strong>. Modern streets, car-oriented access, commercial passages, shopping centers, and new development patterns weakened the bazaarâs historical position. Street construction damaged parts of the bazaarâs physical integrity, and the bazaar lost much of its former role as the main axis of commuting, access, and social-economic interaction.</p> 392 393 <h2>Main finding</h2> 394 395 <p>The studyâs core finding is that the bazaar played a significant role in the formation of Shirazâs urban form across nearly all historical periods examined. Its <strong>physical form</strong>, <strong>functions</strong>, <strong>activity patterns</strong>, and <strong>accessibility features</strong> shaped the cityâs structure from the formation of Shirazâs early urban nucleus through the pre-modern period. The major exception is the contemporary era, when modernization, street construction, automobile-oriented planning, shopping centers, and new commercial forms reduced the bazaarâs centrality.</p> 396 397 <p>The article therefore offers a historically grounded interpretation of urban transformation: Shiraz grew when economic stability, political order, and bazaar-centered spatial organization reinforced one another. Conversely, the weakening of the bazaarâs integrative role reflects broader transformations in the cityâs social and physical structure.</p> 398 399 <h2>What this contributes</h2> 400 401 <p>This paper contributes to urban history and Iranian urban studies by showing that the bazaar should be understood as an <strong>urban institution embedded in physical form</strong>. It was simultaneously economic infrastructure, social space, cultural marker, and movement system. Its historical importance came from the way it connected people, activities, institutions, and spaces.</p> 402 403 <p>The paper also contributes to debates about modernization and urban continuity. It does not romanticize the bazaar as unchanged or timeless. Rather, it shows that the bazaarâs role changed across periods and was eventually weakened by modern planning interventions. This is important for contemporary urban conservation: preserving a bazaar is not only about preserving buildings. It is also about preserving relationships among movement, commerce, social interaction, public life, and historical identity.</p> 404 405 <h2>Practical implications for urban heritage</h2> 406 407 <p>For planners, urban designers, and heritage scholars, the case of Shiraz suggests that historic bazaars should be treated as <strong>structural urban systems</strong>, not isolated monuments. Conservation policies that focus only on architectural restoration may miss the deeper value of the bazaar as a connector of neighborhoods, public spaces, religious institutions, civic life, and economic activity.</p> 408 409 <p>
409In contemporary Shiraz, the challenge is not simply to protect the bazaar as a historic commercial corridor. The deeper challenge is to understand how its spatial logic, pedestrian structure, social role, and connection to the cityâs historical fabric can remain meaningful in a modern metropolitan context.</p> 410 411 <h2>Limitations</h2> 412 413 <p>This article is best read as a historical and morphological analysis. It does not measure current user behavior, economic performance, or social interaction through contemporary fieldwork. It also does not provide a quantitative spatial analysis of pedestrian flows or commercial networks. Its strength lies in its historical-comparative reconstruction of the bazaarâs role in shaping Shirazâs urban form over time. Future research could build on this work by using field observation, GIS-based spatial analysis, oral histories, or comparative studies of other Iranian cities.</p> 414 415 <h2>Suggested citation</h2> 416 417 <p>Sadeghi, A. R., Khakzand, M., & Jangjoo, S. (2019). <em>Historical analysis of the role of Bazaar on the formation of Iranian Islamic urban forms; Case study: Shiraz, Iran</em>. <strong>Armanshahr Architecture & Urban Development, 12</strong>(26), 89â101. <a href="https://doi.org/10.22034/AAUD.2019.89058" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.22034/AAUD.2019.89058</a></p> 418 ` 419}, 420 421 { 422 id: "summary-eventful-city-shiraz", 423 title: "Planning Shiraz as an Eventful City: Events, Tourism Competitiveness, and Urban Strategy", 424 date: "2021-01-01",
425 type: "paper-report", 426 typeLabel: "Paper Report", 427 primaryArea: "urban", 428 areas: ["urban", "methods"], 429 summary: "A paper report based on my Journal of Tourism and Development article with Khalil Hajipoor and Sahand Lotfi on eventful city planning, destination competitiveness, and strategic urban planning in Shiraz.", 430 excerpt: "This research note explains how Shiraz can use events not as isolated activities, but as part of a long-term urban strategy for tourism competitiveness, cultural identity, stakeholder coordination, and public value.", 431 doiUrl: "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376646309_Providing_Eventful_City_Planning_Strategies_Based_on_the_Principles_of_Enhancement_of_Destination_Competitiveness_Case_Study", 432 content: ` 433 <p><strong>Research Note | Eventful Cities, Destination Competitiveness, and Strategic Urban Planning</strong></p> 434 435 <p>Cities increasingly compete not only through infrastructure, investment, and economic capacity, but also through culture, identity, experience, and visibility. In our article, <em>Providing Eventful City Planning Strategies Based on the Principles of Enhancement of Destination Competitiveness, Case Study: Shiraz, Iran</em>, Khalil Hajipoor, Sahand Lotfi, and I examine how a historically and culturally rich city such as Shiraz can use events more strategically to strengthen its position as a tourism destination. The central argument is straightforward: <strong>events should not be treated as isolated entertainment activities; they should be planned as part of a long-term urban development and destination competitiveness strategy.</strong></p> 436 437 <p>The article begins from the idea that cities today operate in an increasingly competitive environment. Cultural assets, festivals, public events, and symbolic urban experiences can help cities differentiate themselves, attract visitors, strengthen identity, stimulate local economies, and improve quality of life. But this only happens when events are planned strategically. A city does not become an âeventful cityâ simply by holding many events. It becomes eventful when events are connected to a broader urban vision, stakeholder coordination, event programming, marketing, resource management, sustainability, and public value.</p> 438 439 <h2>Why Shiraz matters</h2> 440 441 <p>Shiraz is a particularly important case because it has strong cultural, historical, literary, architectural, climatic, and social assets. These qualities give the city significant potential as a domestic and international tourism destination. At the same time, the article argues that Shiraz has faced strategic weaknesses in using events as tools for tourism competitiveness. The role of events in the cityâs broader tourism and urban development plans has been limited, and previous event monitoring suggested inconsistency in the type, scale, and timing of events held in the city.</p> 442 443 <p>This creates a planning problem: Shiraz has meaningful event-related potential, but potential alone is not a strategy. Without institutional coordination, legal frameworks, stakeholder engagement, event calendars, marketing systems, resource inventories, and monitoring mechanisms, events may remain fragmented and underused. The paper therefore asks how Shiraz can move from scattered event activity toward an integrated eventful city strategy.</p> 444 445 <h2>What is an eventful city?</h2> 446 447 <p>The article builds on the concept of the <strong>eventful city</strong>, especially the work of Richards and Palmer. An eventful city is not simply a city full of festivals. It is a city that uses a strategic and sustainable event program to support long-term development goals and improve quality of life. In this sense, events are not ends in themselves; they are catalysts for place-making, urban regeneration, competitive identity, tourism development, and civic life.</p> 448 449 <p>The article identifies five major areas that must be addressed in eventful city planning: <strong>city vision</strong>, <strong>stakeholder relationships</strong>, <strong>event planning and event resources</strong>, <strong>marketing</strong>, and <strong>monitoring outcomes and sustainability</strong>. These areas are important because an eventful city requires more than event organization. It requires governance capacity, coordination, communication, evaluation, and alignment between individual events and long-term city goals.</p> 450 451 <h2>How we studied the issue</h2> 452 453 <p>Methodologically, the article is an applied and developmental planning study. It uses a de
453scriptive-analytical approach and applies the <strong>AIDA technique</strong>, or <strong>Analysis of Interconnected Decision Areas</strong>, to identify strategic pathways for Shiraz. A focus group of nine experts in urban planning, tourism, and management helped identify the cityâs major event-related problems, capacities, root causes, and possible solutions. The AIDA technique was then used to move from problems and objectives toward strategies, policy domains, authorities, and proposed projects.</p> 454 455 <p>This is important to state carefully: the paper does <strong>not</strong> claim to measure the economic impact of events in Shiraz, nor does it test whether the proposed strategies have already improved tourism performance. Its contribution is planning-oriented. It develops a structured strategic framework for how Shiraz could use eventful city planning to enhance destination competitiveness.</p> 456 457 <h2>Main diagnosis</h2> 458 459 <p>The study identifies several structural weaknesses in Shirazâs event planning system. These include the absence of a clear legal and institutional framework for events, limited awareness among officials regarding the strategic value of events, weak coordination between city events and broader urban visions, limited private-sector participation beyond sponsorship, fragmented stakeholder relationships, unclear permitting processes, insufficient support for organizers, lack of a comprehensive event calendar, limited use of Shirazâs full cultural and historical capacities, shortage of specialized event spaces, weak marketing, insufficient media strategy, and inadequate monitoring of event quality, audience satisfaction, competitors, and sustainability.</p> 460 461 <p>At the same time, the city has important assets: a rich historical and cultural background, multicultural identity, tourism recognition, educational and university capacity, information and communication infrastructure, interest among volunteer groups and NGOs, and opportunities to connect event planning to broader urban and tourism plans. The planning challenge is therefore not a lack of potential, but the absence of a coordinated system for converting potential into strategic urban value.</p> 462 463 <h2>Four strategic directions</h2> 464 465 <p>The article proposes four major strategies for planning Shiraz as an eventful city.</p> 466 467 <p>The first strategy is <strong>reforming the executive and managerial structures of events</strong>. This includes establishing an organizational structure for event affairs, managing the event supply chain, identifying stakeholders and their roles, monitoring events, and encouraging green practices. In practical terms, the paper proposes actions such as creating a permanent committee for Shiraz festivals, developing a four-season event calendar, building support systems for existing events, creating processes for new event proposals, and developing event evaluation metrics.</p> 468 469 <p>The second strategy is <strong>reforming the legal position and structure of events</strong>. The study argues that event planning should be incorporated into higher-level urban, tourism, and city development plans. Without legal recognition and standardized guidelines, events remain vulnerable to fragmentation, inconsistent implementation, unclear permitting, and weak accountability.</p> 470 471 <p>The third strategy is <strong>promoting public awareness and encouraging participation</strong>. Events should not be produced only by municipal or governmental bodies. The article emphasizes the need for broader stakeholder involvement, including residents, private-sector actors, public organizations, event organizers, NGOs, volunteers, and tourism stakeholders. Public participation matters not only for implementation, but also for legitimacy, social inclusion, and the long-term sustainability of event-based development.</p> 472 473 <p>The fourth strategy is <strong>developing and improving the cityâs event-related resources</strong>. This includes identifying Shirazâs specialized event resources, strengthening the cityâs multicultural identity, increasing specialized event spaces, attracting financial resources, improving physical infrastru
473cture, and training human resources for event management. In this framework, events depend on more than ideas; they require spaces, people, financing, technology, tourism infrastructure, cultural content, and institutional readiness.</p> 474 475 <h2>Why this matters for destination competitiveness</h2> 476 477 <p>The article connects eventful city planning to destination competitiveness. Events can help cities attract visitors, increase tourism expenditure, create memorable experiences, strengthen destination branding, support place-making, and integrate value-added tourism products. But these effects depend on whether events are strategically aligned with the destinationâs identity, resources, stakeholder networks, and marketing systems.</p> 478 479 <p>For Shiraz, this means that events should be designed around the cityâs actual strengths: literature, heritage, architecture, gardens, culture, history, education, religion, gastronomy, creative industries, and regional identity. A successful eventful city strategy should not imitate other cities mechanically. It should translate Shirazâs own cultural and urban identity into a coherent portfolio of events that serves both residents and visitors.</p> 480 481 <h2>Practical implications</h2> 482 483 <p>For urban planners and tourism policymakers, the study offers a practical lesson: <strong>event planning is governance work</strong>. It requires legal authority, organizational capacity, stakeholder mapping, calendars, evaluation systems, marketing strategies, sustainability standards, and long-term investment. A fragmented event system may generate occasional visibility, but it is unlikely to produce durable competitiveness.</p> 484 485 <p>For Shiraz, the strongest recommendation is to move from event organization to event governance. This means treating events as part of the cityâs strategic planning system, not as temporary programs. The city would need a permanent coordinating body, legal guidelines, transparent decision-making, public-private collaboration, a citywide event calendar, professional training, digital communication systems, and environmental standards for event sustainability.</p> 486 487 <h2>Limitations</h2> 488 489 <p>This paper should be read as a strategic planning study, not as an impact evaluation. It does not empirically measure whether the proposed strategies increased tourist arrivals, tourism revenue, resident satisfaction, or destination branding outcomes. It also relies on expert input and planning analysis rather than large-scale surveys of residents, tourists, or event participants. Future research could build on this work by testing the proposed strategies through implementation studies, visitor surveys, event impact analysis, GIS-based spatial analysis of event infrastru
489cture, or comparative research with other cultural tourism cities.</p> 490 491 <p>The articleâs main contribution is therefore conceptual and practical: it provides a structured planning framework for helping Shiraz use events as catalysts for destination competitiveness, urban identity, stakeholder coordination, and long-term development.</p> 492 493 <h2>Suggested citation</h2> 494 495 <p>Jangjoo, S., Hajipoor, K., & Lotfi, S. (2021). <em>Providing eventful city planning strategies based on the principles of enhancement of destination competitiveness, case study: Shiraz, Iran</em>. <strong>Journal of Tourism and Development, 10</strong>(3), 97â115. <a href="https://doi.org/10.22034/jtd.2020.239083.2079" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.22034/jtd.2020.239083.2079</a></p> 496 ` 497}, 498 499{ 500 id: "summary-event-led-regeneration-shiraz", 501 title: "Event-Led Regeneration and the Ritual-Religious Structure of Historic Shiraz", 502 date: "2022-01-01", 503 type: "paper-report", 504 typeLabel: "Paper Report", 505 primaryArea: "urban", 506 areas: ["urban", "methods"], 507 summary: "A paper report based on my Geography and Urban Space Development article with Sahand Lotfi, Mahsa Sholeh, Khalil Hajipoor, and Afrooz Fallah Manshadi on event-led regeneration in historic Shiraz.", 508 excerpt: "This research note explains how ritual, religious, and cultural events can help reconnect fragmented historic urban structures by linking public space, collective memory, and urban heritage.", 509 doiUrl: "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376645126_Event-led_Regeneration_to_Reconnect_the_Structure_of_Historic_Cities_Case_Study_Historical_Connected_Structure_of_Shiraz", 510 content: ` 511 <p><strong>Research Note | Urban Regeneration, Eventfulness, Ritual Heritage, and Public Space</strong></p> 512 513 <p>How can a historic city reconnect spaces that have been physically fragmented by modernization while still preserving the cultural and ritual life that originally gave those spaces meaning? In our article, <em>Event-Led Regeneration in Reconnecting the Ritual-Religious Structure of Historic Cities: Case Study of the Inter-Connected Structure of Historic Shiraz</em>, Sahand Lotfi, Mahsa Sholeh, Khalil Hajipoor, Afrooz Fallah Manshadi, and I examine this question through the historical structure of Shiraz. The central argument is that <strong>urban regeneration should not focus only on physical restoration; it should also revive the cultural, ceremonial, and religious events that historically animated urban spaces and connected them to collective memory</strong>.</p> 514 515 <p>The paper is grounded in a simple but important idea: historic urban spaces are not only architectural containers. They are also stages for social life, ritual practices, public gatherings, religious ceremonies, collective memory, and civic identity. When modernization fragments historic fabrics, the damage is not only physical. It also weakens the relationship between spaces, events, meanings, and communities. In Shiraz, this rupture is especially important because the cityâs historical structure has long been shaped by ritual-religious territoriality, religious places, bazaars, gardens, public spaces, and ceremonial routes.</p> 516 517 <h2>Why Shiraz matters</h2> 518 519 <p>Shiraz is one of Iranâs oldest continuously inhabited urban settlements and has a dense historical, cultural, religious, and spatial structure. The paper focuses on the <strong>historical interconnected structure of Shiraz</strong>, especially the north-south axis within the historical fabric. This area includes major religious, cultural, commercial, and public-space elements that historically supported public events and ritual life. The study treats this structure not only as a physical urban system, but also as a cultural and ceremonial system.</p> 520 521 <p>The article shows that the historic structure of Shiraz has served as a platform for political, social, religious, and ceremonial events across different periods. Congregational mosques, successive bazaars, multifunctional complexes, gardens, shrines, and public spaces each contributed to the continuity of events and s
521ocial life. However, contemporary urban transformationsâfragmentation of components, weakening of centers, removal or incapacity of historic spaces, and lack of coherence between modern development patterns and the traditional urban fabricâhave reduced the ability of this structure to host and sustain meaningful events.</p> 522 523 <h2>What the study does</h2> 524 525 <p>This is an applied and developmental urban planning study using a descriptive-analytical approach. The research combines library research, document analysis, historical review, field observation, and on-site surveys. The fieldwork examined public spaces, urban corridors, focal points, visual axes, landmarks, and the relationship between religious-cultural events and their physical-spatial settings. The study also used the <strong>SOAR strategic model</strong> and the <strong>ANSOFF matrix</strong> to develop event-led regeneration strategies.</p> 526 527 <p>The paper does not claim to measure the full economic impact of events, nor does it test a completed regeneration intervention. Its contribution is strategic and conceptual: it develops a planning framework for using ceremonial, religious, and cultural events as catalysts for reconnecting historic urban structures.</p> 528 529 <h2>Key empirical insight</h2> 530 531 <p>One of the most important findings is that the study area is small in spatial terms but highly significant in event terms. Through monitoring urban events in Shiraz during 1398/2019â2020 using documentary sources, the study found that although the study area represented only about <strong>1% of Shirazâs legal urban area</strong>, it hosted <strong>67% of the cityâs events</strong>. Religious events accounted for approximately <strong>69%</strong> of events, while cultural events accounted for approximately <strong>23%</strong>. The distribution was also uneven: Shahcheragh hosted 65 recorded events, Hafez Hall hosted 26, and most other locations hosted fewer than ten. The study also found that 76% of events occurred in designated venues, while street-based events were more limited and often connected to religious mourning ceremonies or political processions.</p> 532 533 <p>This finding is important because it shows that Shirazâs historic core still functions as a major event landscape, even though its spatial cohesion has weakened. In other words, the cultural and ritual âcontentâ of the city has not disappeared. The problem is that the physical-spatial structure no longer fully supports the cultural and ceremonial life that continues to exist.</p> 534 535 <h2>Main argument</h2> 536 537 <p>The article argues that <strong>event-led regeneration can help reconnect the historical structure of Shiraz by linking physical spaces with ritual, religious, cultural, and social practices</strong>. This means that regeneration should not be reduced to façade improvement, isolated heritage conservation, or infrastru
537cture upgrades. It should also ask: What events belong to this place? What collective memories are attached to this route, shrine, bazaar, garden, square, or mosque? How can contemporary planning support these events without turning them into artificial spectacles?</p> 538 539 <p>The study therefore frames events as tools for urban regeneration, but not in a superficial or purely promotional sense. Events are valuable because they can reactivate public spaces, strengthen social cohesion, support cultural continuity, create economic opportunities, and reconnect fragmented urban elements.</p> 540 541 <h2>Strategic framework</h2> 542 543 <p>Using the SOAR model and ANSOFF matrix, the article proposes strategies around two major objectives: <strong>regenerating the urban ritual structure</strong> and <strong>integrating ritual spaces into an eventful urban structure</strong>.</p> 544 545 <p>The first strategic direction is to develop a <strong>calendar and portfolio of ceremonial, religious, and cultural events</strong>. This includes planning event types, scales, organizational arrangements, participant groups, access patterns, transportation needs, and spatial requirements. A stronger event calendar would help connect events to specific places and times rather than allowing them to remain fragmented or irregular.</p> 546 547 <p>The second direction is to increase <strong>creative participation</strong>, especially among community groups and young people. The paper emphasizes indigenous arts, local associations, social groups, and stakeholder participation as part of event design and implementation. This matters because events can only support regeneration if they are socially embedded and not merely imposed from above.</p> 548 549 <p>The third direction is to increase the <strong>economic benefits of event hosting</strong>. This includes identifying financial resources, public and private support, employment opportunities, and economic activities connected to cultural and religious events. The article treats economic benefit as important, but not as the only purpose of event-led regeneration.</p> 550 551 <p>The fourth direction is to improve <strong>
551event infrastructure and venue quality</strong>. The study recommends reviewing event venues, upgrading infrastructure, improving open spaces, developing criteria for venue selection, and enhancing the identity and design quality of spaces used for events. This is especially important in a historic city where poorly planned interventions can damage heritage values rather than strengthen them.</p> 552 553 <h2>Contribution to urban regeneration research</h2> 554 555 <p>The paper contributes to urban regeneration literature by emphasizing the relationship between <strong>tangible heritage</strong> and <strong>intangible heritage</strong>. Historic buildings, streets, mosques, bazaars, gardens, and shrines are tangible urban elements. Rituals, ceremonies, religious gatherings, collective memories, and cultural events are intangible forms of heritage. The article argues that regeneration becomes more meaningful when it addresses both.</p> 556 557 <p>This is also where the study is analytically strongest: it criticizes regeneration approaches that focus too heavily on physical design while neglecting cultural content. In Shiraz, the problem is not simply that historic spaces need repair. The deeper issue is that the historical relationship between space, event, and collective memory has been weakened. Event-led regeneration offers a way to repair that relationship.</p> 558 559 <h2>Practical implications</h2> 560 561 <p>For planners and urban managers, the article suggests that historic-city regeneration should begin with a careful reading of the cityâs cultural and ritual structure. Before designing new spaces or infrastru
561cture, planners should identify the historical routes, ceremonial nodes, event venues, public spaces, religious places, and collective memories that already structure urban life.</p> 562 563 <p>For Shiraz, this means that event-led regeneration could support a broader revitalization program by reconnecting religious-cultural places, improving event infrastructure, strengthening public participation, coordinating event calendars, and designing public spaces that can host flexible ceremonial and cultural activities.</p> 564 565 <h2>Limitations</h2> 566 567 <p>This study should be read as a strategic planning and conceptual framework paper, not as a completed impact evaluation. It does not empirically test whether the proposed strategies increased tourism, economic activity, social cohesion, or resident satisfaction after implementation. The event monitoring is also tied to a specific period and set of documentary sources. Future research could build on this work through resident surveys, participant observation, spatial network analysis, visitor behavior studies, or evaluation of implemented event-led regeneration projects.</p> 568 569 <p>The main contribution is therefore not a claim that events alone can regenerate historic cities. Rather, the article shows that <strong>ritual, religious, and cultural events can become powerful catalysts when they are planned in relation to historical structure, public space, collective memory, and urban heritage</strong>.</p> 570 571 <h2>Suggested citation</h2> 572 573 <p>Lotfi, S., Sholeh, M., Hajipoor, K., Jangjoo, S., & Fallah Manshadi, A. (2022). <em>Event-led regeneration in reconnecting the ritual-religious structure of historic cities: Case study of the inter-connected structure of historic Shiraz</em>. <strong>Geography and Urban Space Development, 9</strong>(3), 171â193. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.22067/jgusd.2022.47725.01" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://dx.doi.org/10.22067/jgusd.2022.47725.01</a></p> 574 ` 575}, 576 577{ 578 id: "summary-human-built-environment-wellbeing", 579 title: "HumanâBuilt Environment Interactions: How Neighborhood Environments Shape Subjective Well-Being", 580 date: "2022-12-01", 581 type: "paper-report",
582 typeLabel: "Paper Report", 583 primaryArea: "urban", 584 areas: ["urban", "methods"], 585 summary: "A research note based on my Scientific Reports article with Ali Reza Sadeghi, Maryam Ebadi, and Fatemeh Shams on how perceived neighborhood environments relate to subjective well-being in historic Shiraz.", 586 excerpt: "This paper report explains how walkability, neighborhood appreciation, and residential safety relate to social inclusion, life satisfaction, mental well-being, happiness, and health in the historic neighborhood of Sange Siah.", 587 doiUrl: "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-25414-9", 588 content: ` 589 <p><strong>Research Note | Healthy Neighborhoods, Urban Design, Subjective Well-Being, and Historic Urban Fabrics</strong></p> 590 591 <p>What makes a neighborhood supportive of human well-being? In our article, <em>Human-built environment interactions: The relationship between subjective well-being and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics</em>, Ali Reza Sadeghi, Maryam Ebadi, Fatemeh Shams, and I examine how peopleâs perceptions of their neighborhood environment relate to their subjective well-being in the historical neighborhood of Sange Siah in Shiraz, Iran. The central argument is that <strong>neighborhood environments are not only physical settings; they are social, emotional, and psychological environments that can shape how people experience life, belonging, satisfaction, happiness, and health</strong>.</p> 592 593 <p>The study begins from a broader urban planning concern: rapid urbanization, daily stress, and deteriorating neighborhood environments have made the creation of healthy neighborhoods a major challenge. In this context, subjective well-being is not a secondary issue. It is closely connected to social sustainability, quality of life, and the everyday experience of urban space. The neighborhood is especially important because it operates as an intermediate scale between the city and the individual. It is where people walk, interact, access services, form attachments, and experience safety or insecurity.</p> 594 595 <h2>Why Sange Siah matters</h2> 596 597 <p>The case study focuses on <strong>Sange Siah</strong>, a historic neighborhood in Shiraz. The neighborhood was selected because it has a strong historical identity, distinctive physical structure, and an active neighborhood center. The paper describes Sange Siah as a historically meaningful area with more than 30 registered historic buildings and collections, including mosques, baths, bazaars, passages, and public spaces. Despite deterioration and social change, the neighborhood still preserves important traces of the traditional concept of âneighborhoodâ and âneighborhood center.â</p> 598 599 <p>This makes Sange Siah an important case for studying humanâbuilt environment interactions. Historic neighborhoods are not only heritage zones; they are living environments. Their physical qualities, social networks, walkability, accessibility, safety, and public spaces can directly shape how residents and users experience everyday life.</p> 600 601 <h2>What the study measures</h2> 602 603 <p>The article examines the relationship between two major concepts: <strong>perceived neighborhood environment characteristics</strong> and <strong>subjective well-being</strong>.</p> 604 605 <p>Perceived neighborhood environment characteristics were measured through three main components: <strong>walkability</strong>, <strong>neighborhood appreciation</strong>, and <strong>residential neighborhood safety</strong>. Walkability included diversity, accessibility, street connectivity, and safety infrastructure for walking. Neighborhood appreciation included aesthetics and social cohesion. Residential neighborhood safety included residential density and crime rate.</p> 606 607 <p>Subjective well-being was measured as a multidimensional concept rather than a single feeling. The study included six components: <strong>affective characteristics</strong>, <strong>satisfaction with life</strong>, <strong>mental well-being</strong>, <strong>feeling of happiness</strong>, <strong>social inclusion</strong>, and <strong>physical and mental health</strong>. This is one of the strengths of the paper: it avoids reducing subjective well-being only to happiness, satisfaction, or mental health. Instead, it treats well-being as a broader combination of emotional, cognitive, social, and health-related dimensions.</p> 608 609 <h2>How we studied the relationship</h2> 610 611 <p>The study used a survey research design. Data were collected through questionnaires from people who lived or worked in Sange Siah and used neighborhood spaces in their daily lives. The sample size was <strong>97</strong>, calculated using Cochranâs formula because the exact population size was unknown. Researchers were present in the neighborhood for 21 days, from July to August 2021, across working days, holidays, and different times of day and night. The questionnaire was based on a 5-point Likert scale and included demographic questions, perceived neighborhood environment items, and subjective well-being measures.</p> 612 613 <p>The data were analyzed in SPSS. Because the data were not normally distributed, the study used the nonparametric Spearman correlation coefficient. This is important: the paper identifies statistically meaningful relationships between perceived neighborhood environment characteristics and subjective well-being, but it does <strong>not</strong> claim direct causality.</p> 614 615 <h2>Main findings</h2> 616 617 <p>The overall finding is that perceived neighborhood environment characteristics had a <strong>moderate positive correlation</strong> with subjective well-being. The total correlation between perceived neighborhood environment characteristics and subjective well-being was <strong>r = 0.579</strong>. This means that people who evaluated their neighborhood environment more positively also tended to report higher levels of subjective well-being.</p> 618 619 <p>The strongest relationship was with <strong>social inclusion</strong>. Among the six subjective well-being components, social inclusion had the highest positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics, with <strong>r = 0.712</strong>. This suggests that neighborhood environments may be especially important for peopleâs sense of belonging, social participation, and connection to others.</p> 620 621 <p>Other components also showed meaningful positive relationships. <strong>Satisfaction with life</strong> had a correlation of <strong>0.614</strong>, <strong>mental well-being</strong> had <strong>0.569</strong>, <strong>
621positive and negative affect</strong> had <strong>0.526</strong>, and <strong>feeling of happiness</strong> had approximately <strong>0.458â0.468</strong>. Physical and mental health had the weakest positive correlation, at <strong>0.230</strong>.</p> 622 623 <p>Among neighborhood environment characteristics, <strong>walkability</strong> showed the strongest relationship with total subjective well-being, with a correlation of <strong>0.619</strong>. Residential neighborhood safety followed with <strong>0.482</strong>, while neighborhood appreciation had <strong>0.385</strong>. This ranking matters for planning: in this case, improving walkability appears especially important for supporting well-being.</p> 624 625 <h2>What this means</h2> 626 627 <p>The study suggests that a healthy neighborhood is not created only through physical repair or beautification. It also requires attention to how people perceive access, diversity of activities, street connectivity, walking conditions, lighting, seating, open space, safety, aesthetics, and opportunities for social cohesion.</p> 628 629 <p>For Sange Siah, this matters because the neighborhood has both strong historical assets and serious contemporary challenges. Its historical passages, public spaces, religious and commercial buildings, and neighborhood center provide a foundation for social life. But migration, deterioration, social change, and physical problems can weaken peopleâs sense of belonging and well-being. The findings indicate that improving the built environment may be one pathway for strengthening social inclusion and subjective well-being in such historic fabrics.</p> 630 631 <h2>Contribution to urban planning and design</h2> 632 633 <p>The paper contributes to urban planning and built environment research in three main ways.</p> 634 635 <p>First, it treats subjective well-being as a <strong>multidimensional urban outcome</strong>. Rather than measuring only happiness or life satisfaction, the study includes emotional, cognitive, social, mental, and health-related dimensions. This gives a more complete picture of how neighborhood environments relate to well-being.</p> 636 637 <p>Second, it focuses on <strong>perceived neighborhood environment characteristics</strong>. What matters is not only the objective presence of streets, buildings, sidewalks, or public spaces, but also how people experience and evaluate them. Urban design is therefore not only about physical form; it is also about perception, use, meaning, safety, and social interaction.</p> 638 639 <p>Third, it studies a <strong>historic urban fabric</strong>. Many well-being and built environment studies focus on contemporary residential areas, suburban neighborhoods, or general urban settings. This article shows that historic neighborhoods require special attention because they combine heritage value, everyday life, social vulnerability, public space, and neighborhood identity.</p> 640 641 <h2>Practical implications</h2> 642 643 <p>For planners and urban designers, the strongest implication is that neighborhood improvement strategies should prioritize walkability and social inclusion. In practical terms, this can include improving sidewalks, lighting, seating, green and open spaces, accessibility to services, public transportation connections, street connectivity, and spaces that support social interaction.</p> 644 645 <p>For historic neighborhoods, conservation policies should not focus only on buildings. They should also protect and improve the everyday public realm. A historic neighborhood can have architectural value but still fail residents if it lacks safe, accessible, socially supportive, and well-maintained spaces.</p> 646 647 <h2>Limitations</h2> 648 649 <p>This study should be interpreted carefully. It is based on a sample of 97 respondents in one historical neighborhood in Shiraz. The findings show correlations, not causal effects. The study is also based on self-reported perceptions, which are valuable but may be shaped by individual expectations, social conditions, income, age, gender, and personal experiences. Future research could strengthen this work through larger samples, longitudinal data, comparative studies across multiple neighborhoods, spatial analysis, and mixed-method research comb
649ining surveys with observation and interviews.</p> 650 651 <p>The central contribution remains important: <strong>peopleâs well-being is connected to how they perceive and experience their neighborhood environment</strong>. Healthy neighborhoods require more than physical infrastructure; they require environments that support social inclusion, satisfaction, mental well-being, happiness, safety, and everyday dignity.</p> 652 653 <h2>Suggested citation</h2> 654 655 <p>Sadeghi, A. R., Ebadi, M., Shams, F., & Jangjoo, S. (2022). <em>Human-built environment interactions: The relationship between subjective well-being and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics</em>. <strong>Scientific Reports, 12</strong>, 21844. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-25414-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-25414-9</a></p> 656 ` 657}, 658 659 { 660 id: "summary-women-safe-healthy-urban-spaces", 661 title: "Women in Safe and Healthy Urban Public Spaces: What Environmental Factors Matter Most?", 662 date: "2023-04-01", 663 type: "paper-report",
664 typeLabel: "Paper Report", 665 primaryArea: "urban", 666 areas: ["urban", "methods"], 667 summary: "A research note based on my BMC Womenâs Health article with Ali Reza Sadeghi, Elahe Sadat Mousavi Sarvine Baghi, and Fatemeh Shams on environmental priorities for womenâs presence in urban public spaces.", 668 excerpt: "This paper report explains why safety and security are foundational for womenâs presence in public spaces, while also showing how accessibility, behavioral compatibility, climate comfort, freedom of use, collective memory, and urban vitality matter.", 669 doiUrl: "https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-023-02281-8", 670 content: ` 671 <p><strong>Research Note | Gender, Urban Public Space, Safety, and Healthy Cities</strong></p> 672 673 <p>Urban public spaces are often described as spaces âfor everyone,â but in practice, people do not experience them equally. Womenâs ability and willingness to use streets, parks, plazas, and other public spaces are shaped by safety, accessibility, social norms, environmental quality, comfort, and the design of the built environment. In our article, <em>Women in a Safe and Healthy Urban Environment: Environmental Top Priorities for the Womenâs Presence in Urban Public Spaces</em>, Ali Reza Sadeghi, Elahe Sadat Mousavi Sarvine Baghi, Fatemeh Shams, and I examine which environmental qualities matter most for womenâs presence in urban public spaces in Shiraz, Iran.</p> 674 675 <p>The central argument of the study is that <strong>womenâs presence in public space is not only a matter of individual preference; it is deeply shaped by environmental conditions and urban design choices</strong>. Public spaces that feel unsafe, inaccessible, uncomfortable, socially restrictive, or poorly maintained can limit womenâs participation in everyday urban life. C
675onversely, spaces designed around safety, behavioral compatibility, accessibility, climate comfort, freedom of use, and social vitality can support womenâs more active presence in the city.</p> 676 677 <h2>Why this study matters</h2> 678 679 <p>Women make up roughly half of urban populations, yet their experiences in public spaces have often been ignored or oversimplified in urban design and planning. The article argues that before gender-sensitive planning became more widely discussed, many urban spaces were implicitly designed around menâs needs and patterns of use. This has contributed to gendered urban spaces in which womenâs access, comfort, mobility, and sense of safety are more constrained.</p> 680 681 <p>This issue is not only about access to space. It is about public health, social participation, citizenship, and urban justice. Womenâs reduced presence in public spaces limits opportunities for everyday interaction, leisure, mobility, visibility, and participation in public life. A safer and healthier city therefore requires careful attention to the environmental conditions that encourage or discourage womenâs use of public spaces.</p> 682 683 <h2>Case and method</h2> 684 685 <p>The study focused on <strong>Eram Street in Shiraz</strong>, one of the cityâs well-known public streets, used for leisure, education, work, and everyday movement. The research used a descriptive-analytical survey design. First, the authors reviewed the literature and conducted in-depth interviews with urban designers, psychologists, and women over 18 to identify relevant criteria. A pilot phase with 50 women helped refine the criteria and questionnaire. The final questionnaire included 34 items organized around 10 environmental priorities.</p> 686 687 <p>The final survey was randomly distributed among <strong>256 women over 18</strong> who used urban public spaces in Shiraz. Researchers were present on Eram Street for 19 days, including working days, holidays, and different times of day and night, to reach a broader range of respondents. IBM SPSS was used for analysis. The study used T-tests to rank environmental priorities and correlation tests to examine relationships between personal characteristics and womenâs environmental priorities. The questionnaire reliability was acceptable, with Cronbachâs alpha reported as <strong>0.81</strong>.</p> 688 689 <h2>What the study found</h2> 690 691 <p>The most important finding is that <strong>safety and security ranked as the top environmental priority for womenâs presence in urban public spaces</strong>. In the study, security included individual, social, and psychological dimensions. This means that womenâs use of public space depends not only on whether a space is objectively safe, but also on whether it feels safe, defensible, visible, and socially comfortable.</p> 692 693 <p>The full ranking of environmental priorities was as follows: <strong>safety and security</strong>, <strong>compatibility with behavioral patterns</strong>, <strong>eventuality</strong>, <strong>permeability</strong>, <strong>attention to climate</strong>, <strong>liberty</strong>, <strong>collective memory</strong>, <strong>variety</strong>, <strong>complexity</strong>, and <strong>identity</strong>.</p> 694 695 <p>This ranking is important because it shows that womenâs presence in public space is shaped by a combination of practical, emotional, cultural, and spatial factors. Safety is first, but it is not the only concern. Women also value spaces that fit everyday behavioral patterns, support events and activity, allow movement and access, respond to climate conditions, enable freedom of action, carry collective memory, include diverse users and uses, provide visual richness, and reflect identity.</p> 696 697 <h2>Safety is necessary, but not sufficient</h2> 698 699 <p>The studyâs strongest message is that safety is foundational. A public space cannot be genuinely inclusive if women do not feel secure using it. The paper emphasizes that perceived safety and actual safety are not identical. A space may have low recorded crime but still feel threatening because of poor lighting, limited visibility, social surveillance, lack of activity, weak maintenance, or gendered norms of use.</p> 700 701 <p>At the same time, the study does not reduce womenâs needs only to safety. The second-ranked factor, <strong>compatibility with behavioral patterns</strong>
701, points to the importance of spaces that fit womenâs everyday routines, social interactions, comfort needs, and preferred activities. The third-ranked factor, <strong>eventuality</strong>, highlights the importance of lively and active spaces where cultural, social, religious, or sporting events can occur. The fourth-ranked factor, <strong>permeability</strong>, emphasizes access, openness, and the ability to move through and reach public spaces.</p> 702 703 <h2>Personal characteristics also matter</h2> 704 705 <p>The study also examined whether womenâs age, education, marital status, and employment status were associated with different environmental priorities. Among these characteristics, <strong>age had the strongest overall correlation</strong> with the environmental components. Collective memory had a strong positive correlation with age (<strong>r = 0.805</strong>), followed by identity (<strong>r = 0.784</strong>), liberty (<strong>r = 0.703</strong>), and safety and security (<strong>r = 0.644</strong>). In other words, older respondents placed stronger emphasis on collective memory, identity, freedom of action, and safety.</p> 706 707 <p>Education had the weakest overall correlation with the environmental components, but it showed a strong positive relationship with liberty (<strong>r = 0.589</strong>). Employment status was moderately associated with eventuality (<strong>r = 0.553</strong>) and safety and security (<strong>r = 0.485</strong>). Marital status had a weaker overall correlation, but it was more strongly associated with safety and security and liberty than with several other components.</p> 708 709 <p>These findings suggest that women are not a homogeneous group. Different groups of women may prioritize different qualities of public space depending on age, education, employment status, marital status, everyday responsibilities, and social expectations.</p> 710 711 <h2>Contribution to gender-sensitive urban planning</h2> 712 713 <p>The article contributes to urban planning and womenâs health research by developing and testing a framework of environmental priorities for womenâs presence in public space. It brings together urban design, public health, safety, gender, environmental psychology, and public space studies.</p> 714 715 <p>
715Its main contribution is practical: it provides a ranked set of environmental priorities that planners and designers can use when thinking about womenâs everyday presence in public spaces. Rather than treating womenâs presence as a vague social issue, the study identifies concrete environmental dimensions that can be assessed, improved, and monitored.</p> 716 717 <h2>Practical implications</h2> 718 719 <p>For planners, designers, and municipal officials, the findings suggest that gender-sensitive public space design should begin with safety, but move beyond it. A safer public space requires lighting, visibility, maintenance, defensible design, public oversight, and reduced fear of crime. But a healthier and more inclusive public space also requires comfort, accessible routes, active uses, public events, climatic protection, freedom of movement, social diversity, and places that carry memory and meaning.</p> 720 721 <p>For Shiraz, the study suggests that improving womenâs presence in public space requires attention not only to physical design, but also to the social atmosphere of streets and public areas. Spaces should be designed so women can walk, sit, socialize, participate in events, access services, and feel that they belong.</p> 722 723 <h2>Limitations</h2> 724 725 <p>The findings should be interpreted carefully. The study is based on women over 18 in Shiraz and uses Eram Street as the case study context. It is a cross-sectional survey, so it identifies priorities and correlations rather than proving that specific design interventions will directly increase womenâs presence. The data are also based on self-reported perceptions, which are valuable but shaped by personal experience, social norms, and local cultural context. Future research could expand this work through comparative studies across multiple cities, observational analysis of womenâs actual use of public spaces, interviews with different age and income groups, and before-and-after evaluations of public-space interventions.</p> 726 727 <p>The main conclusion remains clear: <strong>womenâs presence in urban public spaces depends strongly on the environmental quality of those spaces, and safetyâunderstood physically, socially, and psychologicallyâis the first priority for creating healthier and more inclusive urban environments</strong>.</p> 728 729 <h2>Suggested citation</h2> 730 731 <p>Sadeghi, A. R., Mousavi Sarvine Baghi, E. S., Shams, F., & Jangjoo, S. (2023). <em>Women in a safe and healthy urban environment: Environmental top priorities for the womenâs presence in urban public spaces</em>. <strong>BMC Womenâs Health, 23</strong>, 163. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-023-02281-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-023-02281-8</a></p> 732 ` 733}, 734 735{ 736 id: "summary-empowering-cities-eventful-planning", 737 title: "Empowering Cities Through Eventful City Planning: A Toolkit for Destination Competitiveness", 738 date: "2024-07-12", 739 type: "paper-report",
740 typeLabel: "Paper Report", 741 primaryArea: "urban", 742 areas: ["urban", "methods"], 743 summary: "A paper report based on my Tourism Planning & Development article with Khalil Hajipoor and Sahand Lotfi on eventful city planning, destination competitiveness, and strategic urban governance.", 744 excerpt: "This research note explains how cities can use events as part of a long-term planning process for destination competitiveness, cultural identity, stakeholder coordination, sustainability, and public value.", 745 doiUrl: "https://doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2024.2371835", 746 content: ` 747 <p><strong>Research Note | Eventful Cities, Tourism Planning, Urban Strategy, and Destination Competitiveness</strong></p> 748 749 <p>Cities increasingly compete through culture, identity, visitor experience, and symbolic visibilityânot only through infrastructure or traditional economic development. In our article, <em>Empowering Cities through Eventful City Planning: A Toolkit for Enhancing Destination Competitiveness</em>, Khalil Hajipoor, Sahand Lotfi, and I develop a practical planning toolkit for cities seeking to become more competitive tourism destinations through strategic event-based development. The article was published in <em>Tourism Planning & Development</em> in 2024.</p> 750 751 <p>The central argument is that <strong>events should not be treated as isolated festivals, temporary spectacles, or one-time promotional tools</strong>. When properly planned, events can support long-term urban development, destination branding, social cohesion, cultural vitality, tourism growth, and residentsâ quality of life. But when poorly planned, events can also intensify inequality, over-commercialize public space, disrupt residentsâ everyday life, and produce benefits that are captured by only a narrow group of stakeholders.</p> 752 753 <p>This is why the paper asks a practical question: <strong>how can citiesâespecially cities in developing-country contextsâmove toward becoming âeventful citiesâ in a strategic, inclusive, and sustainable way?</strong></p> 754 755 <h2>What is an eventful city?</h2> 756 757 <p>An eventful city is not simply a city that hosts many events. It is a city that uses events as part of a broader strategic process. Events become tools for place-making, urban regeneration, destination identity, tourism development, and public value. In this sense, the city should not merely âserveâ events by providing space, infrastructure, and public resources. Rather, events should serve the cityâs long-term goals.</p> 758 759 <p>The paper emphasizes that eventful city planning requires decisions across five major domains: <strong>the strategic position of events in the cityâs vision</strong>, <strong>stakeholder relationships</strong>, <strong>event programming</strong>, <strong>marketing strategies</strong>, and <strong>monitoring outcomes and sustainability</strong>. These five domains form the foundation of the toolkit.</p> 760 761 <h2>Why this study matters</h2> 762 763 <p>Many cities want to use festivals, cultural programs, sports events, exhibitions, heritage events, and mega-events to attract tourists and strengthen their image. Yet many lack a structured framework for deciding which events to support, how to align events with city goals, how to involve stakeholders, how to evaluate outcomes, and how to avoid negative consequences.</p> 764 765 <p>The article responds to this gap by identifying <strong>Critical Success Factors</strong> for eventful city planning. These factors are the institutional, managerial, strategic, and operational conditions that cities need if they want events to contribute meaningfully to destination competitiveness.</p> 766 767 <h2>How we developed the toolkit</h2> 768 769 <p>The study uses a multi-stage methodology. First, we conducted a comprehensive literature review on eventful cities, destination competitiveness, event tourism, urban planning, and Critical Success Factors. Second, we analyzed global experiences from eventful cities, city event strategies, and mega-events. The paper examines experiences from cities such as Melbourne, Singapore, Edinburgh, Rotterdam, Barcelona, and Montreal, and reviews event strategies from cities including Edinburgh, Hutt City, Launceston, Portsmouth, Queensland, Nelson, and Warrnambool.</p> 770 771 <p>Third, we used the <strong>Fuzzy Delphi Method</strong> with a panel of 14 experts in event management, urban planning, and tourism. This method helped address uncertainty in expert judgment and build consensus around the most important Critical Success Factors. Experts evaluated potential factors using triangular fuzzy numbers, and consensus was reached when differences between rounds fell below the studyâs threshold.</p> 772 773 <p>Finally, the study used expert input and literature-based analysis to develop executable strategies for each Critical Success Factor. The result is both a conceptual framework and a practical handout for cities seeking to enhance destination competitiveness through eventful city planning.</p> 774 775 <h2>The five Critical Success Factor domains</h2> 776 777 <p>The first domain is <strong>the strategic position of events in the cityâs vision</strong>. Events need to be treated as part of long-term city, tourism, and regional development strategies. This requires forward-looking leadership, legal and organizational structures, and alignment between event programs and the cityâs identity, priorities, and competitive positioning.</p> 778 779 <p>The second domain is <strong>stakeholder relationships</strong>. Eventful city planning depends on identifying stakeholders, clarifying their roles, and building long-term relationships among public agencies, private-sector actors, nonprofits, event organizers, community groups, media, volunteers, sponsors, and residents. The article emphasizes that stakeholder engagement should go beyond symbolic consultation. It should include coordination, training, support, communication, resource sharing, and fair distribution of event benef
779its.</p> 780 781 <p>The third domain is <strong>event programming and related destination resources</strong>. A city needs more than a scattered list of events. It needs a strategic event portfolio, a four-season event calendar, support for existing events, mechanisms for identifying new event opportunities, and a clear process for evaluating event proposals. Cities also need to assess their content resources, physical infrastructure, financial resources, and human resources.</p> 782 783 <p>The fourth domain is <strong>marketing strategy</strong>. Events should be aligned with the destinationâs broader marketing strategy. This includes branding, digital marketing, media engagement, event calendars, conference and expo participation, pricing analysis, information and communication technologies, and integration of events with other tourism products.</p> 784 785 <p>The fifth domain is <strong>monitoring outcomes and sustainability</strong>. Cities need to evaluate the economic, social, cultural, environmental, and tourism-related outcomes of events. The toolkit recommends event evaluation systems, survey protocols, sustainability practices, green event training, environmental monitoring, and mechanisms for using data to improve future event planning.</p> 786 787 <h2>What the toolkit contributes</h2> 788 789 <p>The main contribution of this paper is that it moves the eventful city discussion from concept to implementation. Earlier research has often explained why events matter or how events affect cities. This article instead asks: <strong>What should city managers, planners, and tourism officials actually do if they want events to strengthen destination competitiveness?</strong></p> 790 791 <p>The toolkit provides an applied structure for answering that question. It connects theory with executive solutions. It identifies what cities should institutionalize, who should be involved, what resources should be assessed, how events should be marketed, and how outcomes should be monitored.</p> 792 793 <p>The practical handout in the paper visually organizes the eventful city planning process around drivers, inhibitors, principles, analytical questions, eventfulness process components, and expected heritage, social, economic, and tourism outcomes. It is intended as a usable planning guide rather than only a theoretical diagram.</p> 794 795 <h2>Why this matters for developing cities</h2> 796 797 <p>The paper is especially relevant for cities that have cultural, historical, social, or tourism potential but lack mature event governance systems. Many developing cities have strong cultural resources but weak coordination, fragmented stakeholder networks, limited funding structures, inadequate event infrastru
797cture, and insufficient evaluation systems.</p> 798 799 <p>For these cities, becoming an eventful city is not about copying global festival cities or chasing mega-events. It is about building governance capacity. That means creating legal frameworks, event management structures, stakeholder networks, event calendars, data systems, funding mechanisms, marketing platforms, and sustainability standards.</p> 800 801 <h2>A critical view: events are not automatically good</h2> 802 803 <p>The article is careful not to romanticize events. Events can create visibility, tourism, identity, and economic activity. But they can also produce exclusion, displacement, commercialization, public-space disruption, inflated economic claims, and unequal benefit distribution. The paper therefore situates the toolkit within debates about âeventification,â where cities risk becoming spaces organized around continuous events rather than residentsâ everyday needs.</p> 804 805 <p>The toolkit is designed to help reduce those risks by emphasizing stakeholder inclusion, sustainability, monitoring, fair benefit distribution, resident quality of life, and alignment with long-term city goals.</p> 806 807 <h2>Practical implications</h2> 808 809 <p>For city planners and tourism managers, the study suggests that event planning should be treated as a core part of urban governance. Cities need dedicated organizational structures, clear event policies, interdepartmental coordination, public-private-nonprofit collaboration, and transparent evaluation mechanisms.</p> 810 811 <p>For destination managers, the study shows that events can strengthen competitiveness only when they are connected to branding, visitor experience, cultural resources, tourism products, infrastructure, and market positioning.</p> 812 813 <p>For event organizers, the toolkit highlights the importance of working within a larger citywide strategy. Individual events may succeed on their own terms, but they create greater public value when they contribute to a coherent event portfolio and long-term destination development.</p> 814 815 <h2>Limitations</h2> 816 817 <p>This paper should be read as a toolkit and expert-informed planning framework, not as an impact evaluation of a completed eventful city program. The Critical Success Factors are based on literature review, analysis of global experiences, city event strategy documents, mega-event cases, and expert consensus through the Fuzzy Delphi Method. The study does not prove that applying the toolkit will automatically increase tourism revenue, resident well-being, or destination competitiveness in every context.</p> 818 819 <p>The authors also acknowledge that the toolkit may not be universally applicable without adaptation. Cities differ in culture, governance capacity, political structure, tourism markets, infrastructure, resources, and public expectations. Future research should test the toolkit in different regional and cultural settings and evaluate long-term outcomes after implementation.</p> 820 821 <p>The main contribution remains practical and policy-relevant: <strong>cities can use events more effectively when they treat eventfulness as a strategic planning process rather than a series of disconnected activities</strong>.</p> 822 823 <h2>Suggested citation</h2> 824 825 <p>Jangjoo, S., Hajipoor, K., & Lotfi, S. (2024). <em>Empowering cities through eventful city planning: A toolkit for enhancing destination competitiveness</em>. <strong>Tourism Planning & Development</strong>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2024.2371835" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2024.2371835</a></p> 826 ` 827}, 828 829{ 830 id: "summary-institutional-design-implementation-gaps", 831 title: "Diagnosing Institutional DesignâImplementation Gaps: Making Institutional Change Visible", 832 date: "2026-04-08", 833 type: "paper-report",
834 typeLabel: "Paper Report", 835 primaryArea: "methods", 836 areas: ["methods", "crf", "energy"], 837 summary: "A paper report based on my in-press Policy Studies Journal article with Tian Tang, Laura Arpan, Elizabeth Lapan, David G. Webster, Paul Bitterman, John C. Little, and Amro M. Farid on diagnosing institutional designâimplementation gaps.", 838 excerpt: "This research note explains a dual-layer SysML protocol for comparing rules-in-form and rules-in-use, identifying divergence nodes, and making gradual institutional change visible in complex governance systems.", 839 content: ` 840 <p><strong>Research Note | Policy Process Methods, Institutional Analysis, Collaborative Governance, and Systems Modeling</strong></p> 841 842 <p>Why do formal rules often work differently in practice than they do on paper? In our article, <em>Diagnosing Institutional DesignâImplementation Gaps: A Dual-Layer Systems Modeling Language Protocol for Visualizing Institutional Change Mechanisms</em>, accepted and in press at <em>Policy Studies Journal</em>, Tian Tang, Laura Arpan, Elizabeth Lapan, David G. Webster, Paul Bitterman, John C. Little, Amro M. Farid, and I develop a methodological protocol for diagnosing the gap between <strong>rules-in-form</strong> and <strong>rules-in-use</strong> in complex governance systems.</p> 843 844 <p>The central argument is methodological: <strong>institutional change is often difficult to observe because it occurs through small, repeated divergences between formal procedures and actual implementation routines</strong>. These divergences may not immediately appear as formal policy change, legal amendment, or organizational restructuring. Yet over time, they can produce meaningful institutional transformation through mechanisms such as drift, layering, conversion, and displacement.</p> 845 846 <h2>Why this paper matters</h2> 847 848 <p>Public policy scholars have long recognized that formal rules do not automatically govern practice. Laws, protocols, administrative procedures, and organizational charts may prescribe one process, while actors in real governance settings adapt, negotiate, bypass, reinterpret, or supplement those rules. This is especially common in polycentric and collaborative governance systems, where authority is distributed across multiple agencies, jurisdictions, technical committees, and stakeholder groups.</p> 849 850 <p>The problem is that these changes are hard to study systematically. Traditional qualitative narratives can describe what happened, but they often struggle to represent the full implementation architecture of a complex governance process: who acts, in what sequence, using what information, through which technical tools, and at which decision points. Our paper responds to this methodological problem by adapting <strong>Systems Modeling Language</strong>, or <strong>SysML</strong>, from systems engineering to institutional analysis.</p> 851 852 <h2>The core idea: two maps of the same governance process</h2> 853 854 <p>The paper introduces a <strong>dual-layer SysML protocol</strong>. The first layer maps the formal process: the rules, procedures, and responsibilities written into statutes, protocols, guidance documents, and official governance frameworks. We call this the <strong>rules-in-form</strong> layer. The second layer maps what actors actually do in practice: recurring routines, workarounds, informal negotiations, technical adaptations, and implementation shortcuts. We call this the <strong>rules-in-use</strong> layer.</p> 855 856 <p>The key methodological move is to overlay these two maps. Where the rules-in-use layer bypasses, supplements, parallels, redirects, or weakens the rules-in-form layer, the protocol identifies what we call <strong>divergence nodes</strong>. These are specific points in the governance process where formal design and practical implementation separate.</p> 857 858 <p>This matters because divergence nodes make institutional change visible. Instead of treating implementation gaps as vague or anecdotal, the method locates them in the process architecture itself.</p> 859 860 <h2>What the method shows</h2> 861 862 <p>The protocol helps classify divergence through four major mechanisms of gradual institutional change.</p> 863 864 <p><strong>Drift</strong> occurs when formal rules remain in place but become hollowed out, outdated, or only nominally followed. <strong>Layering</strong> occurs when actors add new informal routines or procedures on top of existing formal arrangements. <strong>Conversion</strong> occurs when existing formal rules or venues are redirected toward new purposes. <strong>Displacement</strong> occurs when alternative tools, venues, or procedures begin to substitute for the formal process.</p> 865 866 <p>The method is diagnostic rather than prescriptive. It does not automatically tell us whether a divergence is good or bad. Some informal adaptations may help a system function under difficult conditions. Others may weaken accountability, equity, transparency, or legitimacy. The contribution is to make these divergences inspectable, traceable, and open to empirical debate.</p> 867 868 <h2>The illustrative case: Chesapeake Bay watershed governance</h2> 869 870 <p>We demonstrate the protocol using the <strong>Chesapeake Bay Program</strong>, one of the most complex collaborative environmental governance systems in the United States. The paper focuses on the Best Management Practice verification and annual progress reporting workflow. This workflow is central because it c
870onnects jurisdictional implementation, technical modeling, water-quality accountability, and federal-state negotiations.</p> 871 872 <p>The formal model reconstructs the officially prescribed BMP verification process, including jurisdictional data preparation, data submission, central data warehousing, model ingestion, technical review, policy approval, and public dissemination. The paperâs <strong>Figure 1</strong> visualizes this formal workflow as a SysML activity diagram, showing actor swimlanes, action nodes, and information flows.</p> 873 874 <p>The rules-in-use overlay then maps recurring informal practices, including unofficial spreadsheet exchanges, preview loops, negotiated resubmissions, informal model adjustments, and the use of alternative modeling tools. The paperâs <strong>Figure 2</strong> overlays formal and informal practice, showing informal capability chains and institutional-change mechanisms across the BMP verification workflow.</p> 875 876 <h2>Main insight</h2> 877 878 <p>The analysis shows that implementation gaps in collaborative governance are not simply failures of compliance. They may reflect rational adaptation under conditions of technical complexity, resource constraints, reputational risk, and distributed authority. In the Chesapeake Bay Program, informal routines can help actors manage uncertainty and preserve collaboration. But they can also create asymmetries: actors with stronger technical capacity, better access to modeling expertise, or closer relationships with technical committees may be better positioned to use informal preview loops, negotiate resubmissions, or contest official model outputs.</p> 879 880 <p>This is one of the paperâs most important contributions: it shows how power can travel through technical routines. Data schemas, model parameters, verification procedures, reporting templates, and modeling tools are not neutral background infrastructure. They shape who can intervene, who can negotiate, and whose interpretation becomes operationally consequential.</p> 881 882 <h2>Contribution to institutional analysis</h2> 883 884 <p>This paper contributes to institutional analysis by connecting Ostromâs distinction between rules-in-form and rules-in-use with historical institutionalist theories of gradual change. It also contributes methodologically by providing a replicable way to visualize implementation architecture. Rather than relying only on narrative description, the protocol represents actor responsibilities, workflow sequencing, decision points, information flows, and socio-technical artefacts in a single visual model.</p> 885 886 <p>The paper also clarifies its relationship to the Institutional Grammar and Institutional Grammar Tool. It does not replace statement-level institutional coding. Instead, it complements it. Institutional Grammar is especially useful for parsing institutional statements. The SysML protocol is useful for representing how those statements become implementation workflows and how those workflows diverge in practice.</p> 887 888 <h2>Practical implications</h2> 889 890 <p>For policymakers, program managers, and collaborative governance practitioners, the protocol offers a way to identify where formal implementation processes are vulnerable to drift, informal bypasses, technical opacity, or unequal capacity. This can support more targeted institutional redesign.</p> 891 892 <p>For example, if a divergence node appears around data submission, reform might require better version control, clearer audit trails, or more transparent documentation. If divergence appears around model review, reform might require broader technical access, clearer change-log disclosure, or more inclusive review procedures. If divergence appears around approval routines, reform might require strengthening deliberative transparency or clarifying decision authority.</p> 893 894 <p>The broader lesson is that implementation problems are often architectural. They are embedded in workflows, technical artefacts, and informal routinesânot only in formal rules.</p> 895 896 <h2>Limitations</h2> 897 898 <p>This paper should be read as a methodological proof-of-concept, not as a full quantitative evaluation of the Chesapeake Bay Program. The analysis is qualitative and diagnostic. It does not calculate formal metrics of divergence, institutional performance, or network robustness. Hetero-Functional Graph Theory is discussed as a potential future extension, but the empirical demonstration centers on the SysML-based dual-layer protocol.</p> 899 900 <p>The model also abstracts a common architecture of the BMP verification workflow rather than capturing every jurisdictionâs full informal context. Individual jurisdictions may diverge in different ways depending on their goals, staff capacity, technical expertise, and political constraints. Future research can extend the protocol through more granular jurisdiction-level models, quantitative indicators, cross-case comparison, and integration with Institutional Grammar coding.</p> 901 902 <p>The main contribution is therefore precise: <strong>the paper provides a transparent and replicable method for making institutional designâimplementation gaps visible, traceable, and analytically comparable</strong>.</p> 903 904 <h2>Suggested citation</h2> 905 906 <p>Jangjoo, S., Tang, T., Arpan, L., Lapan, E., Webster, D. G., Bitterman, P., Little, J. C., & Farid, A. M. (in press). <em>Diagnosing institutional designâimplementation gaps: A dual-layer systems modeling language protocol for visualizing institutional change mechanisms</em>. <strong>Policy Studies Journal</strong>.</p> 907 ` 908}, 909 910 911 912 913]; 914 915window.SJ_BLOG_POSTS = (window.SJ_BLOG_POSTS || []).map(post => ({ 916 authorName: window.SJ_BLOG_DEFAULT_AUTHOR.name, 917 authorImage: window.SJ_BLOG_DEFAULT_AUTHOR.image, 918 ...post 919}));
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