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In order to explore the causal relationship between the level of urban digital construction and urban economic growth, this paper takes 280 cities in China as the research object and constructs a comprehensive indicator evaluation system covering digital infrastructure, overall economic level, innovation development level, digital industry development status, and ecological environment conditions. Using the entropy method to weigh various indicators, this paper has obtained the evaluation results of the digital construction level of each city from 2011 to 2021. Furthermore, a panel data regression model is used to empirically analyze the impact of urban digital construction level on urban economic growth. The results show that for every 1% increase in the level of urban digital construction, the GDP will increase by 0.974. Through the above research, we hope to further enrich the theoretical and empirical research in the field of the digital economy, provide a scientific and reasonable method for quantitatively evaluating the level of urban digital construction, and provide decision-making references for improving the level of urban digital construction and promoting sustainable urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green development is a significant concept that cannot be ignored in contemporary society. However, in the context of China's transition from high-speed growth to high-quality development, the complex impact of urban development has brought great challenges to the urban green environment. In this paper, the impact of urban development on green development efficiency (GDE) was studied. First and foremost, a Super-SBM model was introduced to measure the GDE of 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta during 2009–2018. Moreover, a Tobit model was used to analyze the correlation between four urban development factors, including economic development and GDE. According to the results, the mean GDE of the Yangtze River Delta is 0.824, and the GDE in most cities there has shown a fluctuating growth trend in this decade. By comparison, the GDEs of coastal cities and cities in the southeast of the Yangtze River Delta were generally higher than those of cities in the north, indicating that the green development is geographically unbalanced, and there is spatial heterogeneity in the area studied. The study's results also suggest that the urban economic development, innovation level, and government planning play a significant role in stimulating urban green development, and that the expansion of urban construction area hinders the improvement of GDE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The future of cities in China is becoming increasingly important, not just within China but globally. China's urban population has grown from about 200 million in 1980 to about 800 million or 59% in 2018: that is about twice the total population of the USA and 1.5 times the total population of the EU. China has over 100 cities with over a million people. There are also more and more papers being written about urbanisation in China. However, urban development in China is very unlike urban development in the west or in many other developing countries. Despite the growth of a large, dynamic market sector, China is still a Communist country in terms of the pervasive and leading role of the party and the state. The question posed in this commentary is whether urbanisation in China is unique; or, to be more precise, whether the post-reform Chinese experience of urbanisation since around 1980 is so unusual that it constitutes an entirely unique case which lies outside conventional generalisations about urban change processes. This question links to recent discussions of comparative urbanism in which various scholars have grappled with questions about the generalisability of urban theory and experience. The tentative conclusion is that Chinese urbanisation may be unique and is certainly not easily subsumed into standard discussions about urban development and urban change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of local (city-level) sustainable development (LSD) is explored against the backdrop of urban dynamics and the international discussions on sustainable development. Urban metabolism is a key concept used in the analysis. Overall, sustainable urban development is seen to have an internal dimension and an external dimension, even though urban jurisdictions may be restricted to the former. Sustainable cities (SCs) and policies for LSD are discussed conceptually and in terms of their operational use, with a focus on urban policies in developing and emerging countries. Examples are given of SCs in China. Cities with strategies related especially to climate change are considered separately and analysed in terms of developed-developing, adaptation or mitigation focus. Again, examples of especially 'low-carbon' cities in China are presented. From these elements, this paper extracts some elements of a (social science) research agenda in urban environmental studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of the concentration of human capital on individual happiness in Chinese cities. In contrast to findings in the literature based on the US context, we report lower individual happiness for residents living in cities with higher levels of human capital. A further investigation shows that the housing price underpins such negative human capital externalities in well-being. The results are robust to different model specifications. While human capital is often considered the key factor for the economic success of cities, this research informs subnational policy-makers of the potential negative consequence of attracting talent and possible solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban developments steered by major events have a long history. Already from the second half of the nineteenth century, World Expositions were mobilized as opportunities for urban upgrading. This article highlights the spatial effects of three Chinese major expositions on their host cities in the early twentieth century (1906–1929). It will in particular highlight the impact on urban development and planning, such as the construction of modern public complexes, the promotion of new urban districts, and the catalysis of structural urban transitions. Considering the significant historical, political, and social analogies, we argue in this article that expositions were adopted under the influence of foreign examples as a model of planning interventions to prompt the modernization of the host cities in China. However, while there was an important transfer of spatial concepts and models, we contend that Chinese authorities played a leading role in importing and exploiting these expositions as strategic instruments. They did so by actively and consciously mobilizing multiple urban actors such as social elites, but also civil society leaders and merchants. This article based on archival research on three expositions, provides novel insights into the urban history of the host cities during the exposition period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities with great government capacity are expected to become more effective in mobilizing resources and promoting urban economic development than other cities. While urban government capacity is important in its own right, its size structure across nearby cities is crucial because multiple channels wherein local governments generate externalities beyond their jurisdictions are present. By quantifying urban government capacity and regional size structure across Chinese cities in 2010, I examine the direct effect of a city's government capacity on its economic performance and the indirect effect of the urban government capacity's size structure among neighboring cities. Our analysis confirms that urban government capacity has a positive and significant effect on urban economic performance, and cities exhibit better economic performance in regions that have a leading city in urban government capacity than in regions where urban government capacity is relatively evenly distributed. Further examination suggests that the effect of urban government capacity on economic performance is stronger for cities in monocentric regions than in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2010 World Expo in Shanghai provided a unique opportunity to examine emerging visions of utopian urbanism in the Global South, and the contradictions contained within them. The theme of the event was ‘Better City, Better Life’, and in its own promotional literature the Shanghai World Expo Coordinating Committee stressed the importance of sustainable, harmonious cities. The Expo was seen by many proponents as a way to educate the public about the opportunities and challenges cities face, and to identify and demonstrate solutions that harnessed the dynamism of urban space. At the same time, the Expo was itself a massive undertaking of urban redevelopment that dramatically reshaped parts of the downtown landscape and beyond. The aim of this article is to examine the vision of the World Expo that its proponents put forth, and to explore both inherent and extrinsic tensions between this vision and the trajectory of urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on land use planning topics, including "Historical Amnesia: New Urbanism and the City of Tomorrow," "More Than Sector Theory: Homer Hoyt's Contributions to Planning Knowledge" and "Methodology for the Survival Analysis of Urban Building Stocks."