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Urban growth management is a popular topic for study area all over the world. Despite the increasingly rich literature, however, little has been considered of the complex relationship between the various urban development factors and their feedback structure. This paper contributes in understanding the mechanism of, and establishing a link between, urban growth management oriented by zoning in China (namely development priority zoning or DPZ). A system dynamics urban growth model is presented that is integrated with China's socio-economic development situation. With Yiwu city and Qingtian County as case studies, the model is applied in simulating urban growth under different driving modes. The results indicate that the DPZ in these two areas has an influence on urban growth management strategy, with the driving mode of urban growth affecting economic development levels, migration and types of land conversion. It is concluded that different driving modes are needed for different types of regions according to the functional positioning of their DPZ and that the model contributes to their identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few decades, China has seen a steep rise in diverse eco city and low carbon city policies. Recently, attention has begun to focus on the perceived shortcomings in the practical delivery of related initiatives, with several publications suggesting a gap between ambitious policy goals and the emerging realities of the newly built environment. To probe this further, in this article we examine – based on the policy network approach – how the gap between high-level national policies and local practice implementation can be explained in the current Chinese context. We develop a four-pronged typology of eco city projects based on differential involvement of key (policy) actor groups, followed by a mapping of what are salient policy network relations among these actors in each type. Our analysis suggests that, within the overall framework of national policy, a core axis in the network relations is that between local government and land developers. In some cases, central government agencies – often with buy-in from international architecture, engineering and consulting firms – seek to influence local government planning through various incentives aimed at rendering sustainability a serious consideration. However, this is mostly done in a top-down manner, which overemphasizes a rational, technocratic planning mode while underemphasizing interrelationships among actors. This makes the emergence of a substantial implementation gap in eco city practice an almost predictable outcome. Consequently, we argue that special attention be paid in particular to the close interdependency between the interests of local government actors and those of land and real estate developers. Factoring in this aspect of the policy network is essential if eco city implementation is to gain proper traction on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the resilience of smart cities can provide new insights for the sustainable development of cities, with important practical significance for improving their carrying capacity, disaster resistance, and development capacity. However, despite the recent large-scale development of smart cities in China, it is still uncertain whether smart cities could effectively promote urban resilience. Exploiting the quasi-experimental nature of smart city development in China, this paper uses DID and PSM-DID to determine their impact on urban resilience. Four aspects of urban resilience are analyzed: economic resilience, social resilience, ecological resilience, and infrastructure resilience. The results show that the development of smart cities can improve social resilience considerably without any obvious effect on economic and ecological resilience and even negatively affect infrastructure resilience; the distribution effect, technological effect, and structural effect are important mechanisms for smart cities to influence urban resilience; and smart cities that have a sound industrial structure, enough good-quality companies, large size, and a large pool of highly-skilled labor are much more likely to be associated with a high level of urban resilience. Policy suggestions are also provided to promote the simultaneous improvement of smart cities and urban resilience, and hence help establish a new 'urban resilience' model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]