Western cities are rapidly densifying, and new building typologies are being invented to mitigate high-rise and balance residential, commercial and recreational functions. This vertical urbanization requires rethinking the traditional design of public space to promote citizens’ well-being. While the …

The paper describes the first implementation of the Unified Citizen Engagement Approach (UCEA), a newly developed design-oriented framework for citizen engagement in the energy transition. The preliminary testing and evaluation of several of its pathways in Groningen, the Netherlands, show that the role …

One neighborhood in Groningen, the Netherlands, is a neighborhood housing about 12,000 citizens with on average a low-SES background, showing a less healthy and active lifestyle. In the past, initiatives have been undertaken to promote active lifestyle by implementing outdoor facilities stimulating physical …

Background and objectives Before the Covid-19 pandemic, important social studies already indicated the severe negative feedback associated with high-rise developments. During the Covid-19 pandemic, citizens were confronted with their neighbourhoods’ insufficient restorative capacity to maintain their …

In this paper, we apply a civic perspective and social innovation theory to examine how residents of a Dutch village experiencing rural depopulation and austerity reforms evaluate a civic initiative aimed at improving liveability, and what explains their evaluation. Using multivariate statistical analysis, …

Increasingly, discussions on sustainability, in particular in relation to energy transition, are finding their way to the regional and local political arena. Although for analysing transition pathways on these sub-national scales, conceptual frameworks such as the multi-level perspective may be helpful, …

The current COVID-19 pandemic confines people to their homes, disrupting the fragile social fabric of deprived neighbourhoods and citizen’s participation options. In deprived neighbourhoods, community engagement is central in building community resilience, an important resource for health and a prerequisite …

Lower levels of news use are generally understood to be associated with less political engagement among citizens. But while some people simply have a low preference for news, others avoid the news intentionally. So far little is known about the relationship between active news avoidance and civic engagement …

It is assumed by the projects demonstrating Positive Energy District (PED) concepts in cities across Europe that citizens should want and need to be involved in the development of new energy concepts, such as PEDs for these concepts to be deployed successfully. Six different PED research and innovation …

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of people’s lives, and seems to have affected people’s wellbeing and relation to technology now, and in the future. Not only has it changed people’s lives and the way citizens live, work, exercise, craft and stay connected, the pandemic has also altered …