This article is an effort to scrutinize the role of Information Technology development in the chronological transformation of Urban Planning domain using the exploratory research approach. In this research, it is argued that the theoretical and practical understanding of Urban Planning should absorb and integrate the bright outcome of the rise of Information and Technology to foster congruent future urban development. The article addresses the trends of transformation in the urban planning domain through the myopic lens of the expansion of information and communications technology era followed by investigating the key drivers shaping the interaction between modern-day urban planning and information technology considering both the dark and bright sides into account.

Land and property development process include a series of multifaceted activities ranging from purchasing to converting it for development purposes and everything in between. The process itself encompasses multiple stakeholders, drivers, and contributions from diversified public and private actors and transaction cost arises out of their complex interaction. Transaction costs incurred during any kind of human interactions (i.e. transactions). Every actor involved in the process wishes to maximize his achievement under various constraints and hence institutional arrangement (i.e. set of humanly devised rules to administer the constraints) is necessary for efficient management of the development process. Therefore, to devise an optimum outcome out of economic and social transactions in the property development process, cooperative and competitive relationships between individuals should be understood from a broader socio-political and governance structure. In this research, it is critically argued that land and property development process should implicate a multifaceted set of formal and informal rules or institutional arrangement to govern the intrinsic interaction, action and thereby reducing the related transaction cost. The argument is further reproachfully evaluated and implicated in the urban development process through the myopic lens of Transit-oriented development (TOD) pathway. A vigilant combination of descriptive and explanatory research approach is adopted to analyze the connection between theory and practice.

Affordable Housing, the basic human necessity has now become a critical problem in global cities with direct impacts on people's well-being. While a well-functioning housing market may augment the economic efficiency and productivity of a city, it may trigger housing affordability issues leading crucial economic and political crises side by side if not handled properly. In global cities e.g. Singapore and Hong Kong where affordable housing for all has become one of the greatest concerns of the Government, this issue can be tackled capably by the provision of public housing. In Singapore, nearly 90% of the total population lives in public housing including public rental and subsidized ownership, whereas the figure tally only about 45% in Hong Kong. Hence this study is an effort to scrutinizing the key drivers of success in affordable public housing through following a qualitative case study based research methodological approach to present successful experience and insight from different socio-economic and geo-political context. As a major intervention, this research has clinched that, housing affordability should be backed up by demand-side policies aiming to help occupants and proprietors to grow financial capacity e.g. subsidized rental and subsidized ownership can be an integral part of the public housing system to improve housing affordability.

Rajshahi, blessed by the geographical advantage provided by the river Padma, is a beautiful and one of the cleanest cities in Bangladesh. It presents a spectacular image and stunning sight to its residents. But Rapid urbanization created immense pressure on the infrastructures and cityscape by rescinding most of the natural assets and scenic beauty it possessed historically. The growing pressure of population influx accompanied by unplanned urbanization threatens the survival of its waterbodies, wetlands, and greeneries, which many other contemporary cities strive to achieve with hard-hearted planning measures. Moreover, the city suffers from inadequate provision of quality outdoor recreational facilities. Yet because of the verdant resources, it still can set an example of becoming green and fluid landscape. There are scopes to connect the city people to the urban landscape and blue-green infrastructures by applying proper planning and urban design techniques. For example, it can explore the potential and scope of a water-based transportation system to create outdoor recreation space for city dwellers as well as a transport mode in the city. This SECTION discusses the prospects and potential of enhancing recreational aspects of Circular Inland Waterways. It also analyzes the benefits of a network of waterways well-connected and integrated with the existing conventional transportation system to reduce pressure on land transport and promote a sustainable system. This research was conducted in two phases each involving a distinct approach. The first one was a macroscopic approach to probe the potential of the water transport system in Rajshahi city. The required data on traffic volume, traffic growth rate, roads and existing waterbodies were collected, and GIS and Remote Sensing tools were used to find the scope of waterway transport around Rajshahi City. In the second approach, a detailed design was proposed for a potential circular waterway network in the city. Results indicate that there is a huge prospect for introducing a circular waterway transport system around Rajshahi city to create a place of fluid landscape and minimize the pressure on the existing land transportation system.

This research has critically argued that a vigilant combination of flexibility and certainty in spatial planning can bring about the most optimum planning outcomes. Therefore, to reproachfully evaluate the core argument, this research has tried to empirically respond to the research question of which balance of government intervention and market freedom produces the optimal economic, social and spatial outcomes. This research question has been further translated into an associated central hypothesis i.e., a hybrid planning system with an optimal balance between discretionary and regulatory planning approach can bring about the desired economic, social, and spatial outcomes.

Social safety, security, and comfort of school-going children during the travel time to school becomes a subject of anxiety to the parents and is a crucial issue in recent times. In this regard, community-based transport can be a significant way to address social security issues in travel at a reasonable cost and reduce the burden on private mode. In Dhaka city, school van service already exists but due to some sort of problems the service has not been proved an efficient and formal mode of transport for solving mobility problems. This study seeks to identify the existing problems and prospects of the school van service and provide a unique, healthy, safe, and reliable transport mode for children. Applying different tools of the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) method, the problems and solutions have been drawn from the community. The recommendations of this study will help the school van services (a community-managed para-transit system) to be more functional in playing a vital role in solving the problems of short-distance travel. This service has great potentialities to be adopted in other trips such as trips to and from offices which will lessen the road congestion at the peak periods.

In recent years, land supply in Hong Kong has fallen sharply and fails to keep pace with the growth of population and number of households. Land shortage becomes urgent and dire. With the inadequate provision of residential land, housing supply is also adversely affected.Insufficient housing supply leads to surging property and rental price in the private market. According to the Rating and Valuation Department (RVD), the overall private domestic price index peaked in June 2017 at 336.1. Keen housing demand is also observed in the private rental market. RVD statistics showed that the domestic rental index also reached the peak at 183.6 in June 2017 and the vacancy rate of about 3.8% as at the end-2016, which is much lower than the average vacancy rate of 5% from 1996 to 2015 (Development Bureau, 2017).In addition, there is soaring housing demand in public housing. As at the end-December 2021, the average waiting time for general applicants was 5.7 years, which is nearly double of the Housing Authority’s target for providing the first flat offer to general applicants at around three years on average (Housing Authority, 2021). Identifying and securing sufficient land to meet both current and anticipated pressing housing demand becomes a key challenge of the government. In the light of this, the government has established a dedicated task force (Task Force on Land Supply) in September 2017 and appointed 30 professionals from different disciplines, such as planning, engineering, academia and think tank, to take a Marco-review on the land supply sources, look for feasible options as well as consider the pros and cons of various options. 18 land supply options were worked out for the public to make choices in the public engagement exercise. Among the 18 choices, the development area on the Periphery of Country Parks was regarded as one of the land supplies sources. This option does not only include the Hong Kong Housing Society’s studies on developing Two Pilot Areas on the Periphery of Tai Lam and Man On Shan Country Parks, but also include developing more areas on the periphery of Country Parks. The proposed option received overwhelming attention from the public and aroused debates in various perspectives. Its ecological value, recreational value, financial viability and even legitimacy were discussed. However, spatial analysis on the suitability of having residential development in Country Parks has not been conducted. Therefore, in this study, multi criteria GIS analysis is conducted to evaluate the geographic suitability of Hong Kong Country Parks for residential purpose with the consideration of various criteria.