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As the most concentrated area of human activities, cities consume many natural resources and discharge a large amount of waste into the natural environment, which has a huge environmental impact. Most of the ecological and environmental problems, such as environmental pollution, global climate change, and loss of biodiversity, are related to urban systems. How to coordinate urban development with the urban ecological carrying capacity is related to the destiny of the city itself, and also to whether its surrounding areas can successfully achieve the goal of high environmental quality and sustainable development. At present, the theory and methods of urban ecological carrying capacity research are relatively new, which has caused problems for policy makers in practical applications. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for urban ecological carrying capacity assessment based on the analysis of ecosystem services supply and demand. Combined with multi-source spatial data and spatial model methods, the supply and demand of ecosystem services were spatially quantified. The capital city of China, Beijing, was the case study area for this research. The spatial differentiation of the supply–demand relationship of ecosystem services is formed. The priority areas for ecological carrying capacity improvement at pixel scale and at the administrative level are obtained, respectively. The results show that the first priority area is concentrated in the center of the urban area, accounting for 31.11% of the total area of Beijing. According to the secondary zone and the specific ecosystem service type, the ecological carrying capacity improvement strategy of different zones is proposed. This study provides a new perspective for investigating urban ecological carrying capacity and for identifying the priority areas for ecological carrying capacity improvement, and helps the policy-makers to design tailored policy actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the background of the international dialogue and action agendas regarding climate change and the protection of biodiversity, China has embarked during the past years on a new urbanisation approach, gradually advancing from an era of high-speed sprawl to one of more high-quality, green and low-carbon city development. Several national policies and strategies have been put in place, which are consequently rolled out at the sub-national level in provinces and cities. Energy efficiency in urban areas, nature-based solutions and new green ecological site developments are particularly important planning priorities fuelling the national government's ambition to transform cities to be more liveable and sustainable. Further priorities are digitalisation and smart city approaches, as well as responding to COVID-19 implications in the sense of 'green recovery'. This paper summarises the low-carbon development policy framework in China and provides three case studies of selected projects from the capital city, Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city of Beijing has increasingly been re-integrated with the world since the 1980s, thereby entering into closer, but more complex relationships with the global system. To understand the implications for urban planning, it is important to appreciate that Beijing is handling these global-local relationships amid delicate 'local' relationships with the Chinese state, in ways that are obviously different from those of the West. The objective of this paper is to throw light on how new global and local forces have infl uenced planning in Beijing, fi rst by understanding the nature of urban government in Beijing and then by examining master plans for the city. From a Foucauldian perspective, it tries to describe state practices, including urban planning, of the Chinese governmentality. It focuses on the effectiveness of government during this new era, taking into account non-state practices, including those adopted from the outside world. It argues that the state needs to invent new toolkits and conceive urban problems differently to cope with these new forces. The paper illustrates this argument by investigating the formulation of the two master plans for Beijing, the 1954 and 2005 Plans, and documents how the latter has been updated to incorporate these new global and local forces. It concludes that there is no uni-directional interaction between global and local. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Previous studies have understood urban competitiveness mainly from an economic perspective. Drawing on insights from recent debates on urban governance that argue for sustainable development, this study employs a more balanced view that takes into account the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of urban competitiveness. A four-level hierarchical indicator system is used to examine the competitiveness of 253 Chinese cities at the prefecture level or above in the year 2000. The results show that most of the top 20 cities are in the eastern part of China and have populations over 0.5 million. The bottom 20 cities are located primarily in the western part of China and have smaller populations that range from 0.2 to 0.5 million. In 2000 the city with the top economic competitiveness was Shanghai, the top social competitiveness was Beijing, and the top environmental competitiveness was Zhuhai. A given city does not necessarily rank the same in economic, social, and environmental competitiveness, but may perform well in different ways. The paper argues that, in order to sustain urban competitiveness, a city should achieve not only good economic performance, but also satisfactory social and environmental development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing inequality in spatial accessibility to hospitals in developing countries has been attracting attention from researchers and politicians. The situation seems to be worse in growing megacities where more than 10 million people live and rapid urban sprawl has caused serious problems with the supply of health and public transport services. The recent global COVID-19 pandemic calls for particular attention to be afforded to the matter of equal access to basic medical facilities and services for people across different neighborhoods. Although some studies have already been undertaken into the subject of health-focused inequality in the cities of developing countries, the spatial inequity in hospital accessibility has rarely been discussed to date. In this paper, I aim to provide new evidence by considering Beijing as a case study. With the results of my analysis, I show that low-income neighborhoods have experienced lower levels of accessibility not only to high-tier hospitals (secondary and tertiary hospitals) but also to primary healthcare services (primary hospital and neighborhood clinics). The rate at which high-income neighborhoods access secondary and tertiary hospitals is approximately 4 times and 1.5 times as high as that of low-income neighborhoods. Low-income face nearly twice the travel time of those from high-income neighborhoods to reach the nearest primary hospital or neighborhood clinics. Suburban neighborhoods have less access to medical services than neighborhoods that are located in the central urban areas. It seems that the rapid urban sprawl has been worsening spatial inequality in the context of access to medical services in the growing megacity of Beijing. Equal access to healthcare services should be prioritized in future policy discussions, especially in relation to the urban growth management of megacities in developing countries in order to ensure that fair and inclusive urbanization processes are undertaken. Equal access to healthcare services would also be widely beneficial in the context of managing the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]