Social and environmental goals are often mutually reinforcing. Urban forms may encourage social sustainability as well as social inclusion or may have the potential to create areas of crime and social exclusion. The issues of relationship between sustainable development and urban form have given birth to new paradigms of design approach such as new urbanism, the compact city and the eco-city. This paper examines the impact of urban form on social sustainability at the neighbourhood level. It seeks to better understand the relationship between urban form and social sustainability by comparing three neighbourhoods with dissimilar urban forms in Delhi, India. Household surveys and observation surveys in these three neighbourhoods were conducted, and it was found that the urban form of a neighbourhood plays a very important role in creating a socially sustainable residential neighbourhood. The study established that social interactions within the communities are higher when dwelling units are placed around the public realm or common open space. The study demonstrated that provision of high quality and well-located open space at the precinct level, mixed land use and good accessibility to the public realm and social infrastructure play an important role in increasing the social sustainability of the neighbourhood.

During summer heatwaves, heat load exacerbates in urban heat islands (especially in hot climates) and threatens public life in cities. This paper examines the links between urban microclimates, outdoor thermal discomfort and public life through an exploratory case study. Heat resilience is highlighted as the ability of the space to support its normal activities when experiencing out-of-comfort temperatures. It also reports on the correlations between heat sensitive outdoor activities and urban greenery in three disparate case studies in Adelaide. Results indicate that necessary and optional activities start to decline after the apparent temperature reaches the threshold of 28 °C–32 °C, while activities in public spaces with more urban greenery show higher resilience to heat stress. Research findings propose heat resilience as a quality indicator in public space and support the application of urban greenery to make urban settings more resilient to heat stress.

Urban green space plays an important role in enhancing the quality of environment especially for urban biodiversity. Declining biodiversity around the world has received much attention among academics, professionals and citizens. The United Nations has declared year 2010 as the ‘International Year of Biodiversity’. Urban biodiversity movement is important to ensure healthy city environments. Despite this ongoing movement, urban dwellers have little knowledge about conservation of biodiversity particularly wildlife. Moreover, biodiversity has received little attention from built environment practices (Brown & Grant, 2005; Niemelä, 1999). In general, urban wildlife habitat is protected as reserved forest. Many species of wildlife are generally found in such reserved forests. In comparison, the scale of urban parks in Kuala Lumpur is massive, much larger than protected forests. This paper presents the situation of urban wildlife species and the quality of habitats in Kuala Lumpur. It is found that many factors contribute to the healthy conservation of urban wildlife such as quality and variety of habitats, ornamental versus native vegetation and ecological design. The findings highlight that common urban birds are dominant in urban green spaces regardless of the size of the green spaces. However, only larger urban green spaces help protect species. Finally, the study concludes that urban wildlife in Kuala Lumpur is rapidly declining and that there is a greater need for the community and stakeholders to promote programs and activities to preserve and enhance urban wildlife. Development of comprehensive acts, policies and guidelines are vital for urban wildlife protection.