Search

Understanding the evolution of the urban spatial structure is of great significance for clarifying the stage and trajectory of urban development and formulating future urban development plans. Given that previous studies have marginally explored the long-term evolution of the urban employment spatial structure, this paper proposes a theoretical model hypothesizing five sequential stages of a complete evolution cycle from the perspective of mono- and polycentricity: mono-centralization, main-centralization, multi-centralization, de-centralization and re-centralization. Further empirical results based on 292 prefecture-level cities in China from 1997 to 2017 support the model and demonstrate that most cities present an evolution in line with the hypothesis, except a few cities experiencing short-term fluctuations, and approximately 60 % of cities are in the stage of multi-centralization, where subcenters have a growth advantage, and the main center has a scale advantage. Additionally, this paper reveals two characteristics of the evolution of the urban employment spatial structure in China: spatiotemporal compression and government intervention. • Propose a theoretical evolutionary model of urban employment spatial structure. • Empirically test the theoretical model based on a sample of 292 prefecture-level cities in China from 1997-2017. • The evolution of the urban employment spatial structure in China gradually tends to be polycentric. • Spatiotemporal compression and government intervention are features of China's urban employment spatial structure evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Given the ongoing "mobility turn" in social science research, a more comprehensive understanding of segregation is needed. Activity-space-based segregation studies have aroused renewed interests in geography and urban planning research. Most of the existing studies utilized the differences in spatial characteristics of people's actual activity space to identify the segregation among social groups. However, few studies have examined activity-space-based segregation in terms of individuals' potential activity space and the temporal variations in their segregation experiences. This paper aims to help fill these two research gaps by implementing an empirical study in Beijing. We examine the activity-space-based segregation of the residents of different types of housing in a Beijing suburb in terms of both actual activity space and potential activity space. We further investigate the temporal variations of the residents' segregation experiences during a week. A 7-day individual GPS tracking dataset, combined with the activity diary data and the socioeconomic attributes data of 422 participants is used for the study. The major finding is that residents of different types of housing in Beijing do experience activity-space-based segregation, while the characteristics of segregation vary with respect to actual activity space and potential activity space. Also, participants' segregation experiences varies between different days of the week. This paper offers some empirical evidence on enriching the understanding of activity-space-based segregation research as well as improving the understanding about social segregation among the residents of different types of housing in Chinese cities. It also generates some nuanced knowledge for future policy recommendations in a broad context. Highlights • Residents of different housing types in Beijing do experience activity-space-based segregation, while the characters of segregation varies in AAS and PAS. • The residents of affordable housing have both the smallest AAS and PAS on weekdays, which makes them the most isolated group. • With respect to the residents of market housing and institutional housing, they have relatively large AAS on weekdays while having relatively moderate PAS. • As for the residents of resettlement housing, their PAS are relatively large, although their AAS are small. • Significant differences in the extensity of both the AAS and PAS of the residents in different housing types can only be identified on weekdays. In weekends, differences in the extensity of the activity spaces are not significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study looks into one of the most promising low carbon city planning initiatives in China, namely Shenzhen's International Low Carbon City (ILCC). First as a collaborative project between the Dutch and Chinese partners, the ILCC's international partners have expanded to include other countries, such as Germany, Italy, France, Australia and the US. This paper investigates the influence of these international actors in the development process of the ILCC and their benefits in the long run, through knowledge transfer and accumulation of resource. The paper first highlights a broad understanding of ‘low carbon city’ followed by detailed discussions on discourses of ‘low carbon city’, ‘eco-city’, and ‘low carbon eco-city’ in China. Then it provides insights on knowledge transfer in low carbon city development, and particularly the Sino-Foreign cases of China. The authors then introduce the case of study (ILCC) and highlight its visions, project planning, and partnerships. Using primary and secondary data, it then maps the ILCC's international actors and their roles, and then analyses their behaviours and impacts in the project's planning and development process. Next, the paper summarises the research findings with further updates on the case of ILCC. The authors conclude that the engagement between Chinese and international partners differ in three forms and they are (1) the type of involvement; (2) the level and timeframe of involvement; (3) the level of Influence in the project's multiple stages. The paper concludes that the role played by an international partner evolves as the project proceeds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1978, market transition in China has significantly influenced the roles of the state, the market and the residents in urban restructuring. Since 2008, the central government has initiated Shantytown Redevelopment Projects (SRPs) to improve the living conditions of low-income residents. Between 2008 and 2012, about 12.6 million households were involved in SRPs, and forced to move as their dwellings were demolished. This paper investigates how SRPs are implemented by revealing how different stakeholders interact in SRPs in the city of Shenyang, China. Through in-depth interviews with various stakeholders and analysis of policy documentation on SRPs, the paper reveals a complex interplay between different stakeholders, which is characterized by the centralization of the inception of SRPs, the decentralization of actual SRP implementation, changes in the role of market forces, and decreasing housing affordability and multiple deprivation of residents in SRP target areas. Various stakeholders have consensus on the need for improving the living conditions in deprived neighbourhoods and on boosting the housing market. However, conflicts arise due to frictions between the central and local governments regarding the implementation of SRPs. We also find evidence of an entrepreneurial paradox in the relationship between local governments and developers. Finally, a mismatch occurs between the scope of the SRP policy and residents' attempts to improve their socioeconomic situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource-based cities play a crucial role in China's economic development. However, they are faced with the challenge of urban shrinkage due to the slowdown of economic growth in China, single industrial structure and the ‘boom and bust’ industrial cycle. To reverse the expected decline of these cities in the future, the Chinese Government has implemented active policies at national, provincial and municipal levels. This paper reviews the current planning policies and practices in resource-based cities in China from the macro perspective, and analyses how the Government engages with the pressing economic problems faced by resource-based cities, in particular, focussing on economic restructuring. To further analyse the policies from Central Government and the diversification of practices in local contexts, this paper presents two case studies, a petroleum mining city (Daqing City) and a coal mining city (Pingxiang City). Through discussion and an evaluation of general and place-based policies and practices for resource-based cities, this paper aims to enhance the understanding of shrinking cities in China and shed light on the policy-making of economic development for other resource-based cities in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Social epidemiological studies have long understood housing as a social determinant of mental health. However, most studies have focused on the formal housing sector and the conceptualisation of housing is limited to the housing per se. This study aims to bridge the gap by investigating the mental health impact of housing disadvantages concerning the migrant population in China, who are largely excluded from the formal housing sector. Drawing from recent writings on stress as the intermediary agent between modern city life and mental illness, the study examines the relationship between housing and neighbourhood conditions, perceived stress and mental health status. Using a large-scale survey conducted in twelve Chinese cities in 2009, this research found that informal housing tenants have the highest level of perceived stress and worst mental health status compared to dormitory tenants and formal housing residents. Poor housing conditions are significantly associated with perceived stress but not with mental health, while the neighbourhood social environment significantly predicts both perceived stress and mental health. The paper concludes by calling for more ethnographic research on migrants' resilience and stress-coping strategies and more attention in urban planning and housing policy to address the vulnerability and adversity of migrant settlements. Highlights • Proposing a conceptualization of housing stress for migrants in urban China • Explaining the theoretical links between housing, stress and mental health • Exploring the impact of migrant housing on their mental health • Calling for more ethnographic data to understand migrants' stress-coping strategy [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the global discourse of ambiguous property rights, the prevailing argument is that ambiguous property rights are blamed for myriad land-related problems in the Global South. In the absence of secure land property rights, China provides new insights into this prevailing argument; however, whether China's ambiguous land property rights have led to land-related problems is still under heated debate. Through an empirical investigation of the Shanghai No.10 Iron and Steel Works redevelopment, this paper explains the ambiguity of property rights over state-owned industrial land in relation to the ambiguous property rights approach and evaluates its impacts on industrial land redevelopment. The case study analyzes the major stakeholders and their de jure rights and de facto rights, reveals the land rents redistribution, and examines how ambiguous property rights fundamentally impacted the spatial outcomes of the No.10 Steelworks site. With the evidence of the two-sided impacts caused by ambiguous property rights in China, this paper criticizes the monolithic understanding of ambiguous property rights in the global discourse and argues that the introduction of ambiguous property rights has been a double-edged sword for land redevelopment in non-Western countries. New thinking concerning alternatives to land institutions is finally discussed within and beyond China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a formal analysis of the neighborhood vibrancy created by urban form. We use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to develop quantitative measures of urban form and define neighborhood vibrancy based on a GPS-based activity survey in suburban Beijing. An Urban Form index was adopted to determine that our measures of urban form capture meaningful differences in the characteristics of urban neighborhoods – differences that may have direct impacts on neighborhood vibrancy. Specifically, high density and mixed land use are strongly positively correlated with neighborhood vibrancy, whereas developed external traffic systems are negative. However, a thorough inter-circulation system and convenient accessibility do not always boost neighborhood vibrancy. These factors lose efficacy when gated neighborhoods are selected and surrounding facilities are distributed far away. Our study argues that urban planners, using their professional judgment, can contribute to urban vitality at the neighborhood scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent decades have witnessed a drastic shift in the spatial structure of China's large cities, from being monocentric to polycentric; however, the existing literature has not completely identified the transformation process, due to a lack of investigation from employment distribution. By using enterprise registration data from 1996, 2001, and 2010, this paper aims to fill the research gap by examining employment subcenters and their effect on population distribution in Beijing. We found that (1) the number of employment subcenters increased from 6 in 1996 to 11 in 2001, and to 16 in 2010; and (2) the population distribution in 2000 was not significantly affected by the appearance of employment subcenters, while the population distribution in 2010 was significantly and positively impacted by distance to the nearest subcenter. These results justify the trend of Beijing becoming a polycentric city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have frequently taken urban density as a surrogate for economic efficiency and applied composite scores such as urban intensity to assess the existing physical forms of towns. However, measures of intensity might nuance crude calculations of density while considering how such measures relate to future plans and the process of transformations. This paper used open source geospatial data and regulatory detailed planning to measure urban intensity of the existing and the planned. Spatial analytical techniques were applied to compute accessibility to destinations, building density, compactness of development, and diversity of land use function of sixteen specialty towns in China. The results showed that the regulatory detailed planning of these cases might not improve town planning measured by intensity in terms of spatial arrangement in the time horizon of 15–20 years. We found that well-integrated monocentric forms with the finer street network could potentially provide a more suitable spatial distribution for mid-sized towns measured by urban intensity, no matter whether the urban form is linear or center-spreading. Moreover, the comparison between the existing and the planned implies that the poly-centric urban form for mid-sized towns in China could end up with a lower score of urban intensity. We outline a framework of urban intensity measures that include analytical consideration of what is there now, planned to what is forthcoming, and conceptual in terms of time and space. • Differentiating urban intensity from density • Using urban block as the spatial unit of study is more accurate than a synthetic spatial grid. • Comparing existing and planned conditions of medium-sized towns • Evaluation and intervention of town planning policies [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walkable places are valuable assets in cities. They have advantages over vehicle-oriented spaces in terms of economic, social, health, energy and environmental perspectives. Walk-only precincts (WoP) have been built in various parts of the world with different degrees of success. City size, and all the urbanization and planning implications that it brings, is not the main determinant to build WoP, as these can be found in large as well as small and medium size cities in Asia, Europe and the Americas. However, small and medium size cities are increasingly burdened by the appearance of new commercial centers elsewhere, a lack of funding for urban design and programmatic improvements, and limited spirit of initiative by current precincts' stakeholders. Using the Commercial Revitalization Vibrancy (CRV) theory, this paper compares and contrasts WoP in three pair-wise large and small cities: Shanghai (China) and Macau (SAR of PRC), Lisbon and Figueira da Foz (Portugal), and New York City and Miami Beach in the United States. Field work was conducted in all cities during the last decade and a half. Three conclusions and key findings for the success of this type of precincts are distilled. • Walkable places are valuable assets in cities. • In terms of city life, walk-only areas have advantages over vehicle-oriented spaces. • The paper applied the CRV theory to precincts in Asia, Europe and North-America. • WoPs are preeminent according to their host territories' urban and functional hierarchy. • WoPs idiosyncratic niche markets serve to bolster each cities' metropolitan hinterlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: China’s rapid growth over the last three decades has attracted much academic attention. In the post-reform era, economic growth has been paralleled by rapid urbanization. China’s urbanization experience has been shaped heavily by the state through national urban policies as well as through local administrative means. Much has been written about large Chinese cities in the more developed coastal regions, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but little is known about the process of city-making in medium-sized and small Chinese cities, especially those in the less developed central and western regions of the country. This paper sheds light on the processes of urban transformation in Hebi, a medium-sized inland city in Henan Province, emphasizing the critical role that the local state has played in city-making, the mechanisms and processes of change, and the resultant impacts on the city. As a mining city, Hebi has been threatened by depleting natural resources. To invigorate the city, a new city center has been built to attract new enterprises. Through intensive interviews and fieldwork conducted in 2007 and 2008, we examine what the city government of Hebi has done to turn the newly constructed urban space into a new administrative and economic center of the city. With the establishment of new enterprises, the local economy has been diversified, although coal continues to be a major component of Hebi’s economy. The role of the local state in the production and development of the new urban space is direct and forceful. As local state policies on urban development have been implemented by strong administrative means, we conceptualize the contemporary Chinese model of urbanization as “administrative urbanization”. One problem with this kind of state-dominated urbanization and city-making is that the needs of the people are not fully considered, and it is unclear who the major beneficiaries are. More case studies are needed to determine how economic and political forces are driving China’s land-based urban development, the extent to which local states are understood as entrepreneurial, profit-seeking and pro-growth, the relationship between the local state and other stake-holders in local urban development, and who has benefited from administrative urbanization. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The absence of a sound theoretical foundation is a major problem in urban conservation planning. This paper suggests the basis for a solution that harnesses the concept of urban landscape units. The nature and application of this concept are discussed in relation to the problems faced by urban conservation in China, where the pressures for change to, and the removal of, the traditional urban fabric are greater than practically anywhere else in the world. Parts of two conservation areas in Guangzhou are examined. Comparisons are made between the conservation proposals of the City and those based on urban landscape units. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

China has witnessed fast urban growth in the recent decade. This study analyzes spatio-temporal characteristics of urban expansion in China using satellite images and regionalization methods. Landsat TM images at three time periods, 1990/1991, 1995/1996, and 1999/2000, are interpreted to get 1:100000 vector land use datasets. The study calculates the urban land percentage and urban land expansion index of every 1km2 cell throughout China. The study divides China into 27 urban regions to conceive dynamic patterns of urban land changes. Urban development was achieving momentum in the western region, expanding more noticeably than in the previous five years, and seeing an increased growth percentage. Land use dynamic changes reflect the strong impacts of economic growth environments and macro-urban development policies. The paper helps to distinguish the influences of newly market-oriented forces from traditional administrative controls on China’s urban expansion. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Given the central role of households in motivating and implementing migration, this paper argues that the "householding" and split-household approaches are fundamental and essential for migration research, by drawing from original research on rural-urban migrants in China and four published studies on Asian migrants. Translocality and household-splitting that enable the earning of remittances or help meet other family goals such as children's education, set in motion processes of gender and intergenerational divisions of labor that involve both the migrants and the left-behind, and have implications for urban development in large cities as well as cities near rural areas. Hundreds of millions of rural migrants in China circulate between their home villages and host cities, and large numbers of women from Southeast Asia work overseas. Likewise, skilled migrants from South Asia and East Asia maintain transnational households that straddle their home and host countries. Household biographies and interviewees' narratives from these examples highlight two strategies of migrants and their family members: their flexibility and frequent changes of location, work, activity, and household arrangement; and their reinventing women's and men's responsibilities without challenging traditional gender ideology. These stories underscore the importance of householding and split-households for informing contemporary migration theories and research. • Both international and internal migrants pursue "householding" and split-household strategies. • Both migrants to cities and the left-behind contribute to sustaining and maintaining the split households. • Members of split households change frequently their location, work, and household arrangement. • Migrants and the left-behind reinvent their family responsibilities vis-à-vis gender norms. • Experiences of Asian migrants to cities are important for migration theories and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the complexity of multi-tier decision-making in the planning and development of High-Speed Rail (HSR) stations in China, where relationships between central and local governments have been reformed whilst the HSR system has been built at a fast pace. By analysing field interview data and secondary information, the research addresses a key question about whether multi-tier governments play a concerted role in station area planning and development decision-making. The findings reveal that the siting of the station, the planning of the station area, and the development of the different sectors of the HSR station and its vicinity are outcomes of the interplay between the central and the local governments, each of which has their distinctive logic in discharging responsibilities and pursuing interests associated with the projects. In the siting of the Wuhan HSR station, the municipal and central governments interacted actively with each other to safeguard their visions of development, whilst in the planning and development of the station vicinity, both the municipal and the central administrations were passive to collaboration thus foregone an opportunity to develop an integrated HSR station project. • HSR stations and their vicinity were products of negotiations between multi-tier governments. • Governments had specific roles and distinctive interests associated with HSR stations. • Central and local government interacted through formal and informal institutions. • Existing formal institutions discouraged parties from collaboration. • Informal institutions helped resolve conflicts but not develop an integrated station area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of high-speed rail (HSR) is a key component of China's overall economic development policy. HSR generates external effects across economic sectors and has the potential to transform spatial-economies. Understanding these effects is, therefore crucial for long-term urban and regional development policy and planning. This paper examines the effect of HSR development on the growth and spatial dynamics of knowledge-intensive economy (KE) in major cities of China. The analysis does not only adopt the widely used proxy of total length of HRS network, but it also includes the frequency of HSR services and its interactions with network length. HSR effects on: (a) absolute KE employment growth (b) KE spatial concentration and (c) KE regional specialisation are examined, controlling for relevant socio-economic variables. The results show that HSR network development and service frequency had varying effects on KE growth and spatial dynamics at multiple spatial scales. At the national level, HSR service frequency positively affected KE employment growth, concertation and specialisation, while HSR network expansion had a small but negative association with KE regional specialisation. Among the three main regions of China, positive effects of HSR service frequency were evident in the more prosperous eastern region. In contrast, effects were negligible in the less-developed central region. The results show that HSR development combines with existing favourable regional economic conditions to generate more growth in historically prosperous regions, thereby entrenching existing economic development imbalances. These insights could inform long-term strategic regional development policy to reduce uneven development outcomes in China. • Absolute growth, spatial concentration and regional specialization of knowledge-intensive economy employment are examined. • HSR network development and service frequency had different effects on KE spatial dynamics at multiple spatial scales. • HSR effect was most significantly evident in the prosperous eastern China. • HSR development combines with existing economic conditions to entrench economic development imbalance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Community participation is key for sustainable cultural heritage management and urban development. • There are differences between Chinese and international practices on community participation within cultural heritage. • In general, Chinese cultural heritage management is a government-led process. • Chinese participatory governance for cultural heritage is still nascent and it has yet to find a firm foothold. Community participation is an essential issue in heritage management. The international heritage organisation ICCROM published a guidance document discussing people-centred approaches to heritage management in 2015. Cultural heritage management is recommended to be carried out through a community participation process. Despite the growing literature on community participation in cultural heritage management, little research has been done on comparing Chinese to international approaches. Although in China several pilot projects have conducted effective community participation and achieved excellent outcomes. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing an overview that compares and discusses the similarities and differences between Chinese and international approaches. A systematic literature review of the state-of-the-art was conducted to explore these differences based on four themes: engaged communities, participatory methods, degrees of participation and steps taken within cultural heritage management. This review concludes both Chinese and international practices seek to collaborate with and empower local communities in their approaches, with Chinese pilot cases, such as Tianzifang in Shanghai. However, in general, Chinese cultural heritage management is government-led, in which community participation is happening to a minimal degree. China is encouraged to learn from international practices when developing contextualised management approaches, to better face the challenges of rapid urbanisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A game-theoretic approach was harnessed to analysis the urban regeneration in China. • Redevelopment of industrial land that had been used by central SOEs is studied. • The bargains between stakeholders shifted from "prisoners' dilemma" to "pigs' payoffs", and then to "neo-pigs' payoffs". Drawing upon the game-theoretical concepts for urban land redevelopment in China, this paper provides further substantiation on, and demonstrates, two major fronts in empirical terms. First, the redevelopment trajectory of industrial land that had been used by a central state-owned enterprise (SOE) was identified and was shown as deadlocked by disputes on the pathway to cooperation between the local government and the original land user. Second, the shifts in the bargains between the pair from the "prisoners' dilemma" to "pigs' payoffs," and then to "neo-pigs' payoffs" were analyzed, and we showed how industrial land can be redeveloped. Finally, we argued that disputes between the entrepreneuralization of local governments and the politicization of SOEs constitute a potent system of explanatory coordinates that effectively reveal the hidden logic of industrial land redevelopment in urban China. Different from the redevelopment of local SOEs, communications between the user and owner of urban land, as well as the tradeoff of benefits, are key factors in breaking the aforementioned deadlock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper is a spatial (urban and territorial) approach to high speed rail implications for cities, with focus on recent research and developments. The current situation and future challenges of HSR in Europe are analyzed taking into consideration three main levels of analysis: inter-city relationships, wider spatial implications and the role of HSR stations. The paper reviews the different approaches in two world powers, China and USA, considering their HSR territorial strategies and station location rationale. This dual review, based on European territorial experience, is useful as a reflection on HSR developments in the near future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Property-led urban redevelopment in contemporary Chinese cities often results in the demolition of many historical buildings and neighbourhoods, invoking criticisms from conservationists. In the case of Beijing, the municipal government produced a series of documents in the early 2000s to implement detailed plans to conserve 25 designated historic areas in the Old City of Beijing. This paper aims to examine the recent socio-economic and spatial changes that took place within government-designated conservation areas, and scrutinise the role of the local state and real estate capital that brought about these changes. Based on recent field visits and semi-structured interviews with local residents and business premises in a case study area, this paper puts forward two main arguments. First, Beijing’s urban conservation policies enabled the intervention of the local state to facilitate revalorisation of dilapidated historic quarters and to release dilapidated courtyard houses on the real estate market. The revalorisation was possible with the participation of a particular type of real estate capital that had interests in the aesthetic value that historic quarters and traditional courtyard houses provided. Second, the paper also argues that economic benefits generated by urban conservation, if any, were shared disproportionately among local residents, and that local residents’ lack of opportunities to ‘voice out’ further consolidated the property-led characteristic of urban conservation, which failed to pay attention to social lives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]