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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant mobility restrictions and generated profound impacts on global socio-economic development. Mobility restrictions can generate significant impacts on the demand and supply sides of the rental housing market. By taking 77 large Chinese cities as cases, this research establishes a stepwise mediation effect test to evaluate the impacts of the pandemic on the rental housing market during Q1 2020. The results show that the confirmed cases were negatively associated with rental unit transactions, and the inter-city and intra-city movement played a significant role of mediating effects. Meanwhile, the impact of pandemic on rents lagged behind rental transaction in China's large cities, and the strict mobility controls caused the high vacancy rate of rental housing, leading to the bankruptcy of many housing rental agencies. Our research add to the burgeoning literature examining the mediating effect of mobility control between confirmed case and housing rental market. It demonstrates that the change of housing rental market induced by pandemic in China is the short-term influence on rental unit transaction, which is different from western countries. In China, a country with the most strict mobility control, the challenges come from the impact of pandemic on housing rental agencies. • Mobility restriction has generated negative impacts on the rental housing market during the pandemic. • Confirmed cases are negatively associated with rental unit transactions through the mediating effects of mobility in China. • The Pandemic has caused hardship on both the tenants and housing rental agencies in China. • Supportive financial policies and the protection of tenants' rights are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper uses recent UN data to examine population growth in the world’s 485 largest cities between 1950 and 2010. Three themes guide the analysis. First, the changing population size distribution of these large cities is studied. Second, the changing global urban center of gravity is calculated and mapped. As expected, this urban centroid drifted steadily to the south and east after 1950. Third, the cities are grouped into 10 clusters, ranked from fastest growing to slowest growing, based on the similarity of their 5-year population growth rates during the 60-year study period. Some generalizations regarding size and location are given for the cities in these clusters and future trends for the world’s largest cities are briefly discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Since the introduction of the economic reforms in late 1978, the Chinese urban system has experienced spectacular growth, accompanied by a rapid rise of urbanization from about 20% to more than 36%. Although restricted by government policy, the development of large cities prevailed in the 1980s, as shown in a previous study (). This process of predominantly large cities growth appeared to continue in the 1990s, as is shown with further analysis and update on the issue, within the framework of globalization and other economic theories. Based on newly published demographic and economic data, the paper depicts the growth and concentration of population, foreign direct investment and employment availability in the large cities in contemporary China. This paper argues that in this globalization process, in which the fundamental economic rationales of increasing returns, urbanization economies and urbanization agglomeration prevail, large cities will continue to outperform the small cities and so the dominance of large cities will continue. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The aim of this study is to verify the hypothesis that the rapid metropolization process that has been taking place in large Polish cities since the beginning of the second phase of post-communist transition in 2000 leads to their socio-economic diversity, which is manifested, among others, in the differentiation of the level and structure of crime. Introduced into the discourse of this paper are subsequent stages of metropolization, which are called potential, initiating, advanced, and mature and which the examined cities have achieved so far. These stages have led to various economic and social effects, which resulted in changes in the level and structure of crime. Eighteen core cities of functional urban areas (FUAs) according to the classification ESPON 2007, were adopted as case study objects. Averaged crime data for the period 2013–2017 were analyzed in total and for seven types of crimes. The obtained results confirmed the adopted hypothesis. • The post-communist transition started the rapid metropolization of large cities. • Metropolization generally resulted in Poland since 2000 in a decrease in total crime. • Metropolization has reached different stages in individual cities: embryonic, initial and advanced. • In the initial stage, crime increased, especially against property, and traffic. • In the advanced stage, crime decreased, especially against freedom, and against life and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]