Abstract
Fast-paced urban growth in China has produced a specific, transient form of urban periphery, which continuously shifts outwards as the city expands. Seeing this process as a distinctive type of (sub)urbanization, this paper encapsulates it under the notion of edge-urbanization. The paper argues that edge-urbanization in China is fueled by deliberate government policies, which seek to mobilize peripheral land for high-growth strategies. The relationships between urban expansions and spatial economic policy are analyzed more closely in the case of Tianjin. Geospatial analysis derived from satellite imagery for the period of 1980–2015 reveals the morphological and temporal dynamics of urban growth in the post-reform era. Built-up land in Tianjin has expanded 1.8 times during this period, with the dominant growth type being edge-expansion. This character of urban expansion is shown to be closely associated with government’s “project fever”—setting up development zones and new economic activity on city edge. The results demonstrate a decisive role of the state in shaping (edge) urbanization in China’s major cities.
Highlights
Cities have been center stage in China’s dramatic transformation since the start of economic reforms in the late 1970s
Perspectives on urban governance, economic development, land use policy, and urban planning [4,5,6] are generally disconnected from the advancements in urban morphological studies, including those based on remote sensing and other geospatial techniques that can provide high-resolution spatial data and compensate for inconsistencies in official statistical data [7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
In order to delve deeper into the patterns and causes of edge-urbanization, in what follows we discuss how it has played out in the specific context of Tianjin, including how its parameters are contingent on state development policy
Summary
Cities have been center stage in China’s dramatic transformation since the start of economic reforms in the late 1970s. In particular, that what very much defines the spatial character of China’s urbanization is the rapid and continuous expansion of urban land at the edge of existing urban areas. Based on multiple-sourced remote sensing data, we reveal three morphological types of urban growth in Tianjin—infilling, edge expansion, and leapfrogging—and demonstrate a rapid pace of edge expansion among them. We link these patterns of urban growth to the broader context of spatio-economic policies, highlighting, in particular, the role of mega-project “fever” and policies for setting up development zones in driving edge-urbanization. We document both the evolution of Tianjin’s urban growth towards edge-urbanization and demonstrate the role of spatio-economic policies in this evolution
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