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Urban areas mediate climate transformations and generate new forms of climate urbanism. Looking at climate action in the twelve fastest-growing cities in China with under one million people, this paper proposes a perspective on urban climate politics 'from elsewhere' that foregrounds the potential role of smaller urban areas in mediating climate transformations. The analysis reveals three climate action strategies that reflect practical, institutional, and personal spheres of climate transformations. Planning action in the personal sphere provides opportunities for urban transformations. A perspective 'from elsewhere' calls for greater attention to planning for diverse change strategies for climate transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past forty years, more than 3,800 new towns emerged and accommodated over 150 million urban inhabitants in China, which drew much attention since they were reported as "ghost cities" by media in the late 2000s. This literature review examines existing research and synthesizes current discussions through a meta-analysis. It concludes that existing literature, led by environmental scientists and designers, exhibits two polarized debates around the new towns' uniqueness and the future of ghost cities. Gaps exist in national-scale surveys, criticism of planning methodology, and theories that can explain the current disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural and creative industries (CCIs) have been regarded as a growth driver for economic and urban development in many cities worldwide. This study first traces the development of CCIs in China, both as the leading top-down approach and as grassroots efforts in local communities. Then, it identifies the driving forces for CCIs' development and their impacts on urban development and regeneration. The extensive literature review finds that China's CCIs share many common characteristics with Western cities. Meanwhile, the CCIs in Chinese cities also demonstrate unique characteristics, for example, strong top-down policy guidance; close relation with continuous urbanization especially through the construction of science and technology parks; and extremely weak ties with local communities. Based on the review, the authors suggest future research agendas to better understand the mechanisms that affect CCIs-related urban (re)development and both social and economic impacts from CCI development at multiple scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within three decades, the urban housing reform in China has changed access to housing from a system of socialist administrative allocation to that of more market-dominated housing development and consumption. Researchers have studied the socioeconomic and spatial consequences of these profound transformations. This review focuses on China's housing inequality literature in relation to the changing origins, spatial patterns, and recent policy responses. The article reveals the unique features of China's transitional economy along with massive urbanization, in which housing inequalities are rooted in socialism and strengthened by institutional changes of a state-led market economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article first provides a critical scoping review of empirical literature on the relationship between urban structure and travel in China. The review finds that residential suburbanization alone increases travel, polycentric development has mixed effects, and jobs–housing balance reduces travel. Second, this article compares the empirical findings of the urban structure–travel relationships in China with those observed in other countries, and it identifies contextual factors that can explain the differing relationships in China. We suggest that future research improve data and methodology and broaden the research scope to investigate the complex mechanisms that affect the urban structure–travel relationship in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facing the need to control urban sprawl, many Chinese cities are exploring the use of development-limiting boundaries, such as urban growth boundary (UGB) and urban development boundary (UDB), as required by the central government. Through a key word search of several databases including Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, we identified and reviewed hundreds of articles published in academic or professional journals. Our review shows that policy processes discussed in the literature have emphasized the technical aspect with analytical sophistication. We identified three types of approach to UGB and UDB in the literature: the growth-driven, the constraint-oriented, and the hybrid. While urban theories and modeling techniques that originated from Western countries have greatly influenced the analytical process underlying some of these approaches, the UGB/UDB policy debate and explorations were also responsive to China's unique urban and policy conditions. Despite the rich empirical content in the literature, very little research has been grounded in a scientific understanding of China's urban development. Issues such as intergovernmental coordination, policy enforcement, and evaluation were also inadequately addressed in the existing literature. The literature's newness may have been a major factor for these limitations. Our critique of the current literature may inspire new areas of research to generate knowledge that can inform China's continuous policy efforts to combat urban sprawl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]