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In the process of global urban development, there are urgent ecological security and environmental pollution problems, green development is the fundamental way for urban sustainable development, economic transformation and mitigation of ecological and environmental problems. Based on the panel data of 283 cities at prefecture level and above in China from 2003 to 2017, this paper analyzes spatial–temporal evolution characteristics of urban green development efficiency (UGDE) and the peer effects of UGDE between cities of different grades. It is found that during the study period, in terms of temporal evolution, the average UGDE in China increased from 0.47 in 2003 to 0.61 in 2017, with a cumulative growth rate of 29.79%, showing a rising trend in general. In terms of spatial evolution, the number of low-efficiency cities and medium-efficiency cities continued to decrease. The eastern region has always been the main distribution area of higher-efficiency cities and high-efficiency cities; in the central region, UGDE in most cities improved significantly; in the western region, UGDE has always lagged behind that in the eastern and central regions. In addition, the center of gravity of UGDE presented a trend of northwest migration in general, with a total displacement of 100.07 km, and UGDE showed a spatial dispersion trend. The empirical results indicate that the improvement of UGDE in large cities has a driving effect on that in neighboring medium cities and small cities through the positive peer effect, and the growth of UGDE in medium cities has a promoting effect on that in neighboring small cities through the positive peer effect; the increase of UGDE in medium cities has a positive peer effect on that in neighboring large cities, and the growth of UGDE in small cities has a positive peer effect on that in neighboring medium cities; UGDE promotes each other between large cities through the positive peer effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization has accelerated China's economic growth, but it has also brought many sustainability issues. This paper selected a random forest model to study the impact of local government-led urbanization on urban sustainable development. Urbanization affected urban sustainable development through government revenue expansion, land resources mismatch, and industrial structure adjustment. The results showed that the adjustment of industrial structure has the greatest impact on urban sustainable development, and the importance of the average output of industrial enterprises confirms it. Government revenue expansion and land resources mismatch are more important to the sustainable development of representative urban agglomerations. The goodness of fit of the random forest model is better than the multiple linear regression (MLR) model and the extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) model. The generalization ability of the model is improved with the optimization of variables. The main contribution of this paper is that we have established a complete information dynamic game model on government revenue expansion, land resource mismatch, industrial structure adjustment, and urban sustainable development. And the random forest model is used to study the relationship between the above variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable urban development must balance social, economic and environmental sustainability, compensate for shortages in development process and improve the welfare of society as a whole. In this paper, a comprehensive system for evaluating the sustainable development of the economy–society–environment system and a coupling coordination model of the three systems for analysing the level of city sustainable development are presented. In addition, the spatial autocorrelation cluster of the coupling coordination degree is analysed. The spatial–temporal evolution law is explored by integrating the panel data of 285 cities above the prefecture level in China (2003–2017). The results show that (1) the level of coupling coordinated development has raised; (2) the subsystem lagging problem has been alleviated, but only for approximately 20% of the economy–society–environment priority type cities; and (3) the degree of coupling coordination shows a positive spatial autocorrelation, which presents dispersion to agglomeration, with cities in the high–high agglomeration category mainly distributed in the eastern region and the concentration of cities in the low–low agglomeration category changing from the Midwestern region to part of the north-east China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are gradually developed on the basis of adapting and transforming the natural environment. In a certain urban area, human activities, natural environment, and other factors and their mutual influence constitute the urban ecological environment. Therefore, the evaluation of urban ecological environment quality is of great significance to the analysis of urban development. This paper takes a city in Western China as the evaluation object, uses AHP to determine the index weight, reasonably analyzes the current situation of the urban ecological environment, and further comprehensively evaluates the quality of the urban ecological environment. The study shows that from 2013 to 2018, the comprehensive capacity of the city's ecological environment quality showed a steady upward trend, except that the natural disasters of floods and mudslides in 2014 had a certain degree of fluctuation. The comprehensive index of ecological environment quality has increased from 0.337 in 2013 to 0.412 in 2018. The overall level is still low, but the development speed is relatively stable. The urban ecological environment has been gradually improved, and society, economy, and nature have maintained a certain degree of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to improve the sustainability of resource-exhausted cities has become a difficult problem for China to implement the sustainable development strategy, and the construction of resilient cities has become the best way to solve this problem. This paper constructed an evaluation indicator system of the sustainable development for resource-exhausted cities from the perspective of resilient cities. The entropy weight-TOPSIS-grey relational degree model was used to quantitatively analyze the sustainable development capacity of 23 resource-exhausted cities in China from 2010 to 2020. And the coupling coordination degree model was further used to analyze the relationship between urban resilience and the dimensions of economy, environment, society and resource respectively. The weak links affecting their sustainable development was explored through obstacle degree model. The research results are helpful to fully understand the current situation and obstacle factors of the sustainable development of resource-exhausted cities in China, and promote the sustainable development of cities through the construction of resilient cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweden and the broader region of Scandinavia have been widely praised for their efforts to develop and promote models of sustainability for the rest of the world. Swedish international architecture and urban planning firms are driven by the advantage of being able to brand their projects as “Sustainable and Scandinavian.” In this sense, “the sustainable city” has become a Swedish service to export. In order to strengthen a coherent image of Swedish sustainable urban development, in, 2007, the Swedish Trade Council initiated a marketing platform for eco-profiled companies under the name of “SymbioCity.” This paper seeks to explore the production of imaginaries at play in the performance of “SymbioCity.” It especially addresses the way in which notions of progress and a better city life were presented to Chinese audiences in the Swedish pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010. The Swedish pavilion is here regarded as a node in the export of a wider network of Swedish sustainable urban planning services. I argue that the imaginaries that Sweden produces through activities associated with the SymbioCity underlines a view that equates “progress” with the notion of “decoupling” of economic growth and CO2-emissions. In presenting an image of decoupling as a Swedish experience possible to transfer to China, it also establishes views of progress as linear and space as static. Using the term “absent presence” opens up a counter narrative, which turns decoupling as a Swedish experience into a myth and raises the need for urban imaginaries based on a relational view of space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increase of global integration, the peri-urban area (PUA) of megacities in Asia has become a favourite destination for foreign direct investment (FDI). This paper uses the PUA of Shanghai as a case study to investigate the impact of global forces on the urban expansion of the city, and the link between urban growth and sustainable development in this mega-urban context. Shanghai has grown impressively during the past two decades in terms of economic and physical transformation. Much of this transformation has rested on the unbridled exploitation of land and other environmental resources in its peri-urban area. This is characterised by the designation of development zones and the concentration of manufacturing FDI, resulting in dispersed growth and environmental degradation. The disruption of the physical environment, combined with the concentration of the urban poor in these areas (in particular ‘temporary migrants’), has turned the PUA into a potential crisis point threatening the social and economic development of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective land use contributes to sustainable urban development. However, there are various reports suggesting that urban land resources used mismatch to different extents in many Chinese cities. This study measures the degree of the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources from a supply–demand perspective, and a mismatching coefficient, namely land resource mismatch (LRM), is adopted as the measurement. The data used for the empirical analysis are from a sample of 35 cities in China. The empirical study shows the effectiveness of employing the mismatching coefficient LRM model in evaluating the degree of the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources. The research findings suggest the following: (1) Overall, the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources is significant in China in the form of either supply shortage or over-supply. (2) The degree of the mismatch phenomenon is different between different types of land, with the land for administration and public services showing more serious mismatching and the land for commercial and business facilities showing less mismatching. (3) There are significant differences both in the type and the degree of land use mismatch among different cities, which are contributed largely by the intensity of local government's controlling and planning role on land resources and the maturity of applying market mechanisms. The results from this study can inform the government of the importance and necessity of adopting effective policy measures for mitigating the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources. The research method applied in this study can be applied in a larger context internationally for understanding the effectiveness of utilizing urban land resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an effective measure to solve the dilemma of urban energy consumption and economic development, the new energy demonstration city (NEDC) policy in China could greatly promote the development of the new energy industry and urban economy. This study aims to explore how the NEDC policy effectively promotes the growth of urban land use efficiency (ULUE), an essential indicator of economic development, through the urban industrial structure. Based on the panel data of 285 Chinese cities during 2003–2019, this study took the NEDC policy as a quasi-natural experiment and employed the PSM-DID method and the mediating effect model to objectively evaluate its policy effects. We found that the NEDC policy could significantly promote the growth of the ULUE. Specifically, the ULUE has been significantly improved by 17.0%. The NEDC policy could also promote the ULUE indirectly through the mediating effect of industrial structure advancement (ISA), but the mediating effect of industrial structure rationalization (ISR) was not significant. Furthermore, the promotional effect of the NEDC policy on the ULUE has regional heterogeneity. Compared with eastern cities and high-innovation cities, central and western cities and medium-innovation and low-innovation cities can obtain much higher promotion effects. This study may provide some policy inspiration for policymakers to support low-corban and sustainable economic development and urban land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive green growth (IGG) based on coordinating the society, economy, and environment is a new way to reach sustainable development. However, there is a lack of relevant research in developing countries. To bridge this gap, based on a comprehensive index that includes economy, social, and environment, this study evaluates the urban inclusive green growth index (IGGI) of 282 in China from 2003 to 2020 and analyzes the spatiotemporal dynamics and regional differences. Moreover, the spatial Durbin model is employed to explore the plausible influencing factors of urban IGGI in China. The main results show an increasing trend of IGGI in Chinese cities and imbalanced spatiotemporal dynamics. Furthermore, the econometric regress results show that upgrade of industrial structure, opening up, human capital, and urban innovation have significant positive impact on urban IGGI, while the administrative capacity of the government and urban industrialization show negative impact on urban IGGI; human capital not only affects the local IGGI but also has significant spatial spillover effects to the surrounding cities. This finding provides new evidence for China to achieve its 2030 sustainable development goals and sheds lights on how policy can be improved to boost IGGI levels and achieve carbon neutrality in 2060. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding whether and how urban innovation offers a sound solution to the dilemma of urban green development is a crucial response to mitigate the detrimental effect on natural resources and environment for transitioning to sustainable urban development. To address the critical issue, we propose urban green development evaluation index system, and then examine how the urban innovation affects urban green development from the perspectives of government-scale, enterprise-scale, and spatial correlation network, all of which are originally applied in the 108 cities of Yangtze River Economic Belt of China (YREB) during period 2006–2018. The evaluation results show that urban innovation promotes urban green development, and both government-scale and enterprise-scale contribute to the effects. The constructed spatial correlation network of urban innovation illustrates the network structural form and reveals the network property, and further results tell that increasing network density and centrality would promote green development obviously. More specifically, the network density of urban innovation has been tied to the enhancement of urban green development, which is more significant in middle reaches than in lower and upper reaches of YREB. Similarly, optimizing the network's degree centrality and closeness centrality can help facilitate urban green development in whole YREB. Thus, the research findings would provide new insights into the essence and driving forces from various scale and hidden network when exploring and seeking urban green development path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid growth of urbanization and motorization in China in recent years, the demand for transportation in people's work and daily lives has increased. In this context, a number of issues such as urban traffic congestion, energy consumption, and environmental pollution have become increasingly severe. As a result, the tremendous socioeconomic, resource, and environmental pressures have been placed on the development of urban transportation. Sustainable economic and social development requires green development as a precondition. The economical and efficient use of resources and the protection and improvement of the ecological environment are conducive to the formation of a new pattern of modernization for the harmonious development of man and nature. Transportation planning is an essential technical field for promoting the development of green and ecological cities, and it is one of the primary responsibilities of urban planning. The application of green ecological planning technology and the scientific and reasonable development of traffic planning and management measures can aid in reducing energy consumption and, thus, achieving the goal of environmental protection. In this field, green transportation is a mature green ecological planning technology. Green transportation development is not only a key solution to urban transportation problems, but also an essential means of achieving sustainable urban development, so it has become a hot topic in the field of transportation. As the ideal city of the postindustrial era, ecocity can serve as a model for the sustainable development of China's small and medium-sized cities. After all, industrial development is an unsustainable path, so human society must embrace green development. The core of green development lies in shifting from an exclusive reliance on industrialization to the urban transformation into an ecological civilization. Given the current contradictions between economic growth and resource and environmental degradation, promoting green and environmentally conscious transportation planning with resource conservation in mind is a crucial means of resolving these contradictions. Government incentives and restrictions are essential for the development of green transportation. Therefore, it is crucial to study the impact of environmentally conscious transportation planning and management measures on the economic growth of small and medium-sized cities. This will provide relevant departments and stakeholders with guidance and a reference for formulating policies that will contribute to the harmonious development of China's green transportation and economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of China's urban agglomerations has been accompanied by enormous ecological costs. Based on the perspective of ecological constraints, this paper constructed a "quantity-efficiency-structure" evaluation framework for sustainable urban development. Taking the π-shaped Curve Area in the Yellow River Basin as the study area, the improved ecological footprint model and the information entropy method were adopted to evaluate the sustainable development potential (SDP) of the 17 cities in the Area from three aspects: ecological supply and demand (quantity comparison), ecological well-being performance (efficiency assessment), and ecological carrying structure (structure evaluation). From 2005 to 2019, ecological constraints of the three aspects exhibited obvious east-west and north-south spatial heterogeneity and even formed spatial clusters. Through multivariate systematic correlation analysis, openness degree, economic level, population, urbanization rate, industrial structure, scientific innovation, energy consumption, and the role of government were found to have different effects on the SDP and its three aspects. Given the results of the "quantity-efficiency-structure" evaluation and the influencing mechanism of SDP, cities in Area were grouped into weak sustainable, weak unsustainable, strong sustainable, and strong unsustainable types using systematic clustering method, and development suggestions were proposed accordingly. This study was expected to provide new ideas for studying sustainable development and policy proposals for urban development in the Curve Area. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southwest China faces harsh environmental pollution challenges and rapid development. Against this backdrop, exploring the impact mechanism of the urban network on carbon emissions in rapidly developing regions is of great significance to the balance between regional development and carbon emissions reduction, as well as regional sustainable development. The objective of this study is to quantify the relationship between carbon emissions and the urban network, using panel data analysis for 47 cities in southwest China from 2010 to 2019. Therefore, several urban network indices were selected and quantitatively studied by using the spatial Durbin model to reveal the impact mechanism of the urban network on carbon emissions in rapidly developing regions. The results show that: (1) the growth of carbon emissions in a city has a significant positive spatial spillover effect on the surrounding areas; (2) the temporal and spatial distribution of carbon emissions is highly coincident with the urban network; (3) the urban network has a two-sided impact mechanism of promoting and inhibiting carbon emissions; and (4) the effect of the impact mechanism is affected by regional development conditions, and the promotion effect plays the main role in rapidly developing regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urban growth has become a global phenomenon. As these city populations expand, urban governance is even more of a daunting challenge in many countries. China is not an exception. It is at once a transitional state still undergoing urbanization and economic development; it is also currently experiencing a slowing economy. China's cities must simultaneously continue to improve the quality of urban life while maintaining social stability. Using the city of Guangzhou as an example of China's mega‐cities, this study explores the financing strategies used by Chinese cities to manage urban growth. While economic growth has always been the main priority, Guangzhou's strategy has not followed China's traditional approach of growth for growth's sake; instead, it is relying on investment in innovation and transportation to promote the local economy. Education is also being stressed as a means of fostering human resources. However, undisciplined infrastructure financing and ineffective intergovernmental fiscal relations are jeopardizing the city's fiscal sustainability. To correct this will require further reforms of China's fiscal system and a careful sequencing of reforms to maintain a sustainable growth in the urban area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the long history of the feudal society of China, Kaifeng played a vital role. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Kaifeng became a worldwide metropolis. The important reason was that the Grand Canal, which was excavated during the Sui Dynasty, became the main transportation artery for the political and military center of the north and the economic center of the south. Furthermore, Kaifeng was located at the center of the Grand Canal, which made it the capital of the later Northern Song Dynasty. The Northern Song Dynasty was called "the canal-centered era." The development of the canal caused a series of major changes in the society of the Northern Song Dynasty that were different from the previous ones, which directly led to the transportation revolution, and in turn, promoted the commercial revolution and the urbanization of Kaifeng. The development of commerce contributed to the agricultural and money revolutions. After the Northern Song Dynasty, the political center moved to the south. During the Yuan Dynasty, the excavation of the Grand Canal made it so that water transport did not have to pass through the Central Plains. The relocation of the political center and the change in the canal route made Kaifeng lose the value of connecting the north and south, resulting in the long-time fall of the Bianhe River. Kaifeng, which had prospered for more than 100 years, declined gradually, and by the end of the Qing Dynasty, it became a common town in the Central Plains. In ancient China, the rise and fall of cities and regions were closely related to the canal, and the relationship between Kaifeng and the Grand Canal was typical. The history may provide some inspiration for the increasingly severe urban and regional sustainable development issues in contemporary times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]