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This paper tests China's three-dimensional intergovernmental competition in terms of land leasing. Using the land-leasing data of China's prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2019 collected from China Land Market, and with the help of the dynamic spatial Durbin model, we show that in the land-leasing behavior of prefecture-level cities in China, three-dimensional government competition does exist and that the influence coefficient from high to low is the government competition of different periods in the same region, shown as horizontal government competition and vertical government competition, respectively. In particular, China's government competition and regional economic development show a clear correlation. We find obvious heterogeneity: in the eastern region, the government competition for land leasing started earlier and has now begun to transform. However, the three-dimensional government competition in the western region lags behind the national level. Therefore, urban development should emerge from the mindset of blindly focusing on the expansion of urban areas, paying more attention to the guiding role of urban planning in urban development and promoting cities on the path of sustainable development by improving the efficiency of land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become an increasingly popular means of delivering urban development projects (UDPs) and have long-lasting effects on urban sustainability. However, private interests tend to conflict with environmental and social sustainability goals in UDPs. Through an in-depth case study of the Gu'An New Industry City, the earliest UDP delivered via PPP in China, this study investigates whether PPPs advance urban sustainability and what governance strategies in UDPs may help reconcile private sector participation with broader sustainability goals. The success of the Gu'An project suggests PPPs are promising instruments for advancing urban sustainability. Good practices extracted from the Gu'An project show collaborative partnerships improve efficiency, incentive contracts enhance effectiveness, and public participation advances democratic ideals. By developing a framework that links PPP network features with public values, this research demonstrates how PPPs might serve as an effective policy for achieving sustainable development goals in private-led UDPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban land-use planning is becoming increasingly complex in China because it requires estimating the future urban extent and balancing its various aspects, e.g., provision of enough housing and employment opportunities and preservation of the environment. This paper presents an integrative approach to the problem of sustainable land-use planning. Specifically, an urban growth simulation tool, a cellular automata model, was used to determine the extent of the urban area, and a neural network approach was used to quantitatively predict the land-use structure in the projected year. A multiobjective optimization genetic algorithm was then developed to search for Pareto-optimal urban land-use plans within the urban extent determined by the urban growth model. To search for a sustainable urban land-use plan, social, economic, and environmental objectives were defined that reflect the multiple objectives of the urban system. In addition to these nonspatial goals, objectives concerning the spatial distribution of land usages were proposed. These are classified as local and global spatial objectives. A case study of the Donghu Lake watershed was conducted. Donghu Lake is one of the largest downtown lakes in central China, and the watershed area is undergoing rapid urbanization and suffering from nonpoint source water pollution. The study was carried out to validate the proposed method, and it demonstrated that the models are appropriate for areas undergoing urban expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]