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E-commerce-related last-mile logistics have a great impact on cities. Recent years have seen sustained growth in e-commerce in most developed countries, a trend that has only been reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The perceived impact of this phenomenon varies depending upon the perspective of the players involved: individual members of the public, companies, or the public administrations. Tackling the issue from these perspectives, the goal of this article is to explore the kinds of impact this phenomenon has and will have. We use as the basis for their classification the so-called triple bottom line (TBL) of sustainability, encompassing people, planet, and profit; we complement this with the impact classification used by the European Science Foundation’s impact assessment working group. After performing a systematic review of the literature following PRISMA guidelines, our results show that, albeit to different degrees, the four impact dimensions analyzed (economic, social, environmental, and technological) have only received incipient coverage in the existing literature. Given its ever-growing importance, we believe that greater attention needs to be paid to this phenomenon, especially with regard to those aspects having the greatest impact upon urban systems and the different stakeholders involved. Only in this way can the public policies needed to mitigate these externalities be properly implemented.

Before industrialisation, the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) were part of Europe's poor periphery, but over the last century these countries have become some of the richest in the world. This article analyses the origins of Nordic growth from the late-nineteenth century, focusing on a previously neglected topic: the role of transportation. We argue that transportation, and most notably large investments in railways, played a key role in Nordic industrialisation. Railways made the exploitation and exportation of natural resources possible in what had previously been isolated areas and helped fuel a process of rural-based industrialisation. By creating conditions that favoured migration towards previously scarcely populated, but economically booming areas, Nordic industrialisation was paralleled by a reduction in regional inequality as measured in per capita GDP. Railways were created before local population growth and helped shape the economic landscape of the entire region. The Nordic railway system is remarkable in that it helped exploit relatively deserted areas and create new towns. We demonstrate these points using maps based on HGIS highlighting railways, regional GDPs and population densities from the mid-nineteenth century until 1960The Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) form Europe's northernmost geographical region and include some areas that even reach beyond the Arctic Circle. 1 Although peripheral in geographic terms and small in population terms, but over the last century these countries have become some of the richest in the world.1 Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands are also often referred to as Nordic countries, but they have been omitted from this analysis due to a lack of data and the fact that their economic development and growth have mainly been due to factors other than railways.

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The current work models urban growth in the continuous built-up areas of 47 Spanish cities from the mid-nineteenth century through to the present day. We did this by compiling a comprehensive Geographic Information System (GIS) dataset, based on a series of historic maps and aerial images, and then used this to study urban growth and to make spatial comparisons. Our chosen indicator of expansion: population density, was calculated by dividing the total population of each city (based on its municipal area) by its built-up area during each period. Our results revealed four different stages of growth, each of which was characterised by a certain political and economic reality. They showed the clogging up of the walled city, the shaping of the urban ensanches, the maturity of the compact city and the process of metropolisation.

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This data paper presents a reconstruction of historical ports and coastal routes in England and Wales during the age of the sailing ship, ending at the beginning of the twentieth century. The dataset was created by an amalgamation of twenty different sources, including geographical data, primary sources and secondary literature. Ports found in historical documents were listed by year of appearance and georeferenced. Ports that appear in multiple sources were listed only once. Coastal routes between ports were drawn based on navigation charts and bathymetry data, distinguishing five categories with different characteristics. Visibility from the coast was deduced from elevation rasters and lighthouse locations. Subsequently both ports and coastal routes were checked using topological rules to ensure the connectivity of the network. The data is provided in shapefile format with all the attributes and can be analysed using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for different types of geographical and historical studies.

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