Developed essentially in the context of American cities, the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) model has also occupied the literature regarding European cities, especially those with long developed urban rail systems. This paper provides a critical overview of the TOD model regarding three main topics: key features and typologies; benefits, drawbacks and implementation challenges; and readiness criteria. It then proceeds to an investigation of the potential for implementing the TOD model in the context of Southern European cities, traditionally considered to fall into typical compact forms of development, many of which also lack integrated urban and transport planning. Based on the case of Thessaloniki, Greece, which introduces urban rail by constructing a metro system, a typology is proposed, adapted to the case of a dense and mixed-use city, and two pilot TOD plans are presented. The paper highlights that an integrated urban and transport planning based on a modification of the TOD model could be implemented in Southern European cities, taking advantage of their compact and mixed-use features but also constraining the relatively recent phenomenon of suburban dispersion. Nevertheless, overcoming the multiple institutional and financing barriers is necessary to guarantee a successful transfer and adaptation of the TOD model.

The focus of experiential tourism is for the consumer or visitor to experience the tourist destination and to actively interact with local people, cultures, and the place itself. In fact, it can be seen as a form of tourism that builds upon place identities, both tangible and intangible, by energetically introducing the visitor to the culture, history, nature, traditions, cuisine, and social life of a place. In doing so, the emotional, physical, or spiritual experience of the consumer becomes a dynamic source of place branding. The paper investigates the main features of experiential tourism in the Greek regions of Central Macedonia, and Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, and discusses their interactions with place identity. Our methodology consists of a qualitative survey based on semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and a thematic analysis to trace the main features of the experiential product and enterprises that develop such products. The paper concludes that experiential tourism in Greece bears many of the features highlighted in the literature. Furthermore, our findings underline some new aspects, especially the links between the experiential product, small and well-qualified enterprises, and a place’s tangible and intangible identities, which make experiential tourism an opportunity for locales and their branding.

Adopted by UNESCO in 2011, the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) Recommendation consolidated earlier traditions of urban heritage conservation into a policy-oriented framework for managing change in historic cities. This embedded heritage management within sustainable urban development agendas, governance, and implementation tools. A review of HUL-related scholarship spanning from 2010 to 2024 sets the main focus of the current paper. The research engages two complementary perspectives: a bibliometric analysis of 172 publications drawn from ScienceDirect and ProQuest, and a bibliographic (thematic) review of 50 works, systematically isolated from the larger corpus, that directly engage with the concept. This study investigates how the HUL concept has evolved conceptually, how it has been interpreted across different research traditions, and to what extent current scholarship reflects or advances its intended methodological and operational scope. Bibliometric mapping was conducted using VOSviewer, supported by metadata generated in Zotero and organised through subsequent Excel classification, while the literature analysis employed a structured interpretive framework. Findings reveal that although direct references to the “HUL approach” remain limited, research frequently aligns with its core principles—sustainability, adaptive reuse, identity, and intangible values. Since 2019, case studies have expanded rapidly, spearheaded by projects carried out in China and Italy, marking a clear shift from theoretical elaboration to practical application. This transition has redirected scholarly attention from conceptual debates to the real-world challenges of participation, integration of local data, and balancing heritage management with urban development. The study concludes that effective HUL practice requires a professional mindset rooted in flexibility, interdisciplinarity, and continuous adaptation rather than prescriptive, checklist-driven methodologies.