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This article focuses on the results of published research into China's urban planning history since 2011. A total of 1,057 articles were selected, including 198 theses, 465 journal papers, and 394 conference papers. It provides quantitative statistics and analysis of the literature, using CiteSpace to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the data. Based on quantitative analysis and supported by the literature, this paper qualitatively concludes and summarizes the research hotspots and evolution of Chinese urban planning history from five dimensions: planning practice, system construction, thought and theory, figures, and discipline. The achievements delve into the exploration of motivations and mechanisms, planning ideology, methodology, practice subjects, and preparation process based on a staged review of the historical process of practice and a summary of its characteristics, which shows a process from partial to holistic and fragmented to systematic in general terms, contributing to the formation of a complete planning history research system. A comprehensive analysis of quantitative statistics, knowledge mapping of literature, and important research content reveals the characteristics of research into the history of Chinese urban planning over the past decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Old residential area regeneration has long been integral to China's urban planning, construction, and governance. This paper divides its history in China into four periods based on the policy and its positioning in the socio-economic pattern: slow development as a non-productive sector (1949 to late 1970s), housing marketization under unified planning (late 1970s to early 2000s), a livelihood-oriented transitional period (early 2000s to early 2010s), and a large-scale comprehensive project (early 2010s to the present). It summarizes the positioning, purpose, type, actor, and research characteristics in each period and points out that the old residential area regeneration in China has always been in dynamic interaction between the state, market, and society, presenting complicated characteristics. This process is like a pendulum oscillating between the dual attributes of urban regeneration and housing policies, and relevant studies exploring the Chinese path since 1949 are featured by pragmatism and policy implication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper examines population redistribution and urban growth in Nanjing—an ancient capital and a new Tier-1 city in China—from 1990 to 2015, focusing on the dynamic processes of urbanization and suburbanization. We rely on China's census and survey microdata and the shift–share method to investigate population changes and spatial expansion in the city. The results show that Nanjing has been suburbanizing since the 1990s, accentuated by two distinct periods. In the 2000s, intracity migration led to urban spatial expansion and the population of the inner suburbs grew much faster than that of the city center. Urban residents moved from the city center to the inner suburbs for better living conditions. In the early 2010s, urban growth was fueled by rural–urban migration for employment and city-living after the relaxation of migration rules. Population growth was concentrated in the newly developed outer suburbs. In both periods, the suburbs were the main area of population growth, consistent with the trend of China's traditional Tier-1 cities. Urban growth and population redistribution were led by two countervailing processes—the suburbanization of urban residents and the urbanization of rural–urban migrants. Unlike most US cities, Nanjing has kept its high population density in the city center despite the continued suburbanization. These findings illustrate the unique pattern of China's urban growth and provide important implications for urban planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As long as maps produced by the official Chinese state mapping agency at scales larger than 1:1,000,000 remain inaccessible, Soviet General staff maps provide the best alternative. Although toponyms are given only in cyrillicized form, vernacular script equivalents may be found on pre-1945 Japanese military survey maps as well as on some maps of the US Army Mapping Service (AMS). A unique feature of the Soviet 1:200,000 map series is the accompanying spravka or descriptive text on the reverse of each sheet, probably constituting in aggregate the most detailed description of China ever compiled. Soviet General Staff plans of Chinese cities include 'objects' of military significance, many of which are omitted or not identified on any other mapping. This paper presents translations of the spravka from a representative sheet of the 1:200,000 series and from the city plan of Beijing, together with an evaluation of the reliability of their content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, urbanization has been a major topic of discussion among academics and professionals when investigating issues such as social segregation, spatial inequality, and urban sustainability. However, little attention has been given to the relationship between social characteristics and the ever-changing development of urban spaces. This paper seeks to investigate progressive changes in the social stratification structure in Wuhan's urban development zone (UDZ) while focusing on their associated spatial transformations, based on census data of Wuhan in 1990, 2000, and 2010. To obtain this objective, the study will answer two key questions: (1) What are the characteristics of urban social spatial evolutions of Wuhan the second-tier city in China? (2) What are the mechanisms of social spatial evolution? And (3) what role does the social spatial evolution play in urban social planning and management? We used varimax rotated principal component analysis (PCA) to extract social dimensions along with ArcMap to enhance spatial analysis while visualizing the distribution of social factor scores. The results show that since 1990, the local population (particularly the aging population) has reflected a hollowing trend. Industrial relocation and population mobility have become the main social dimensions in the 1990s and 2000s respectively. The characteristics of socio-spatial transformations are from concentric rings as well as combinations of concentric rings, axial aggregations, and multiple clusters. These transformations are formed by the push–pull force of the large area and the centripetal and centrifugal forces inside the city. We have concluded that top-down systems dominate socio-spatial transformations in the early stages, while public participatory management plays a more important role in the later stages, which will become inclusive governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large‐scale demolition has been ubiquitous in fast urbanising China. The politics of redevelopment is often seen as secondary, derived from and defined by local entrepreneurial governance. However, changing state politics, in particular national political mandates, has not been adequately addressed. Through examining variegated practices, this paper understands how the changing national political context affects or redefines local redevelopment projects. These cases reflect local responses to the national campaigns for rural vitalisation and "Beautiful China", heritage preservation and "incremental regeneration" (weigaizao), and community participation in dilapidated neighbourhoods for a "harmonious society". We find that these redevelopment projects are inherited from and associated with, but at the same time go beyond, growth machine politics. We argue that their motivations reflect a governance mode of "state entrepreneurialism" to achieve extra‐economic objectives through market instruments, and that this illustrates geopolitics, especially the role of the national state in development politics. [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]

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]

The existing literature has depicted market-oriented land governance by comparing it with other types of governance, such as government-led or state-intervention modes. However, unanswered questions remain. What are the nuances of market-oriented land governance in terms of institutional components and performance? Furthermore, how do context-specific conditions, including the versatile roles of the government, contribute to divergences in market-oriented land governance? To investigate these questions, a comparative analysis of two typical cases of urban land redevelopment (ULR) in China was performed based on a theoretical framework consisting of contextual factors, institutional components, and performance. The results show the following: 1) market-oriented governance of ULR is composed of price mechanisms with divergent competition and cooperation mechanisms induced by various biophysical conditions, actor characteristics, and transaction properties; 2) nuanced market-oriented land governance leads to ULR performance that differs in physical outcomes, distribution effects, and process efficiency; and 3) the local government plays an overarching role in fostering and sustaining market-oriented ULR. This paper sheds light on the emergence of different market-oriented land governance practices and the indispensable role of the local government using empirical evidence from China that is distinct from that found for the Western context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]