Housing is ranked high among other human needs but its delivery is usually insufficient in terms of number of stocks. If a significant number of the available ones are not occupied, it might cause unwanted waste of government resources. This study aimed at identifying the reasons for such non-occupancy in public housing, in Ondo State, Nigeria, through user-satisfaction survey on cultural aspects. Hypothesizing that lack of cultural sensitivity in design and planning affects significantly on public housing non-occupancy, three public housing estates were investigated in three local governments. From literature review, eight contextually significant cultural variables were selected for investigation namely: kinship relations, relaxation, food preparation, identity, security, environment and housing management, privacy, and service provisions. Results showed that the residents were satisfied with four of them, namely, kinship relations, food preparation, environment and housing management, and service provisions but not with the others. This study insisted that careful considerations on selected context specific cultural variables are important during housing design and planning.

Pedestrian Activity is popularly associated with health issues. However, pedestrian activity has more contributions. Especially in business or commercial districts, a lot of pedestrian activity takes place. Not all of them are related with health issues. Researchers have found that pedestrian activity not only creates a buzzing vibrancy in the commercial districts, but also can significantly contribute to the local security, which is also a very important issue. Therefore, there have been searches for variables which can generate and sustain such pedestrian activity. Studies show that though there are some universal variables, some of them are specific to local context. This study searched for such variables in physical environment, which can create and sustain such vibrancy in the context of urban commercial centers in Malaysia. With a method of observing pedestrian activity, and hypothesizing the intensity of people as the parameter of such vibrancy, this study adopted several key statistical methods to come up with some interesting findings. It showed that certain components of mixed land use patterns and streetscapes are significant to generate and sustain pedestrian vibrancy.