Bridging the gap between academic research and practical implementation remains a major challenge in the transition toward sustainable urban mobility—especially in rapidly growing cities of the Global South. This paper examines the applicability of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) and its ABCD planning process in supporting real-world action in four East African cities: Nairobi, Kigali, Dar es Salaam and Kisumu. Drawing on participatory co-creation workshops, stakeholder interviews, and city-level strategy development, the analysis explores how systemic thinking and strategic dialogue can help identify critical gaps in governance, infrastructure, and institutional trust. The findings reveal that while many mobility strategies are visionary, they often lack integrated implementation pathways. However, elements of the ABCD approach were evident in practice, demonstrating how structured, participatory methods can build consensus, align actions with sustainability principles, and enhance local ownership. The study suggests that more systematic integration of the FSSD framework in implementation-oriented projects could further bridge the research–practice divide. This paper contributes to the literature on method application and research-practice translation, offering lessons for urban planners, policymakers, and researchers seeking to navigate the complexity of sustainable mobility transitions in developing contexts.

Neighbourhood typologies can be used to inform city planning and urban design. This paper looks at historical approaches and new conceptualizations in Sweden and Denmark to discuss implication for urban design practices. There is a long typo-morphological tradition in Sweden, however in Denmark it is seldom used as a method of analysis. This paper starts with describing three historical Swedish typo-morphological approaches. The first is historic-architectural emphasizes architectural styles. The second focuses on classifying neighbourhood types by physical attributes. The third argues that the Swedish neighbourhood typology describes not only physical form, but also social structure. The Danish application of neighbourhood types is more generic and made with the purpose of comparing numeric data with urban planning tendencies. It considers three major morphological urban structures and uses them to make combinations, as most neighbourhoods are hybrids of types. This paper discusses differences between well-established Swedish neighbourhood typology versus the Danish generic typology and concludes with implication for urban design practices and designing Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs). Practicing architects and urban designers can apply morphological research and both detailed or generic local neighbourhood typologies can be very useful conceptualizations.  

Urban morphology is defined as research program propounding methods and tools for the analysis and design of cities. The Nordic Network of Urban Morphology (NNUM) was established in 2006 to help promotion and diffusion of urban morphology both nationally in Sweden and across the Scandinavian countries. The morphological research in Scandinavia follows three research traditions: spatial analyses, typo-morphology and Space Syntax. There is a century long research tradition associated with geographical analyses of cities and regional science in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, typo-morphology in Sweden and vibrant Space Syntax groups in Sweden and Norway linking to individual researchers spread across Scandinavia. This paper maps scholars and groups at universities that follow and mix these traditions. It reviews the latest morphological research in Scandinavia and it also reflects on the future of morphological research in Scandinavia viewed in relation to the way in which Scandinavian cities fits into the worldwide pattern of urban development and dominating planning paradigms. In Scandinavian countries tradition collides with modernism and functionalism, but history have never been totally set aside. They tend to perpetually mix.

The history of Europe in the 20th century is closely tied to the history of urban planning. Social and economic progress but also the brute treatment of people and nature throughout Europe were possible due to the use of urban planning and the other levels of spatial planning. Thereby, planning has constituted itself in Europe as an international subject. Since its emergence, through intense exchange but also competition, despite country differences, planning has developed as a European field of practice and scientific discipline. Planning is here much more than the addition of individual histories; however, historiography has treated this history very selective regarding geography and content. This book searches for an understanding of the historiography of planning in a European dimension. Scholars from Eastern and Western, Southern and Northern Europe address the issues of the public led production of city and the social functions of urban planning in capitalist and state-socialist countries. The examined examples include Poland and USSR, Czech Republic and Slovakia, UK, Netherlands, Germany, France, Portugal and Spain, Italy, and Sweden. The book will be of interest to students and scholars for Urbanism, Urban/Town Planning, Spatial Planning, Spatial Politics, Urban Development, Urban Policies, Planning History and European History of the 20th Century. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Max Welch Guerra, Abdellah Abarkan, María Castrillo Romón and Martin Pekár; individual chapters, the contributors.

Early research on urban form in Sweden was undertaken before the First World War. After the Second World War research was influenced by the major criticisms levelled at comprehensive urban renewal and suburban mass housing. These criticisms were particularly on the ground that values embodied in the traditional built environment were being ignored. Increased interest in the study of historical urban fabrics was associated with the development of methodologies reliant on the concepts of typology and morphology. These development were dependent on the activities of individual researchers until the very recent development of wider co-ordinating research organizations.