How can resource-based cities respond to urban shrinkage within a resilience framework

Western cities have been confronted with the challenges of 'urban shrinkage' as changes in economic and production models have caused population migrations. China, in its recent history, has experienced rapid and dynamic growth in its cities. However, as its economy is evolving, it too is being confronted with 'urban shrinkage' challenges. Populations have been shifting inside small and medium sized cities in response to problems created during this rapid growth period. Most heritage areas have suffered from depopulation, neglect and disinvestment. The historic Puhuiquan neighborhood in Yulin City is a classic example of the current Chinese version of 'urban shrinkage'. Yulin City, founded as a military city five centuries ago, has shifted its focus away from its historic purpose into a resource-based city. Yulin’s planning developed new areas, drawing population out of the historic Puhuiquan neighborhood. This area is the home to a unique urban cultural landscape where land and architecture have merged to create the development of various types of 'cave' houses. Suffering from the effects of 'urban shrinkage', this research explores the causes and potential solutions for the area employing both 'smart shrinkage' and 'urban renewal' strategies, informed by local resident participation, to develop a sustainable renewal strategy for this heritage area.

Urban shrinkage in a developing context: Rethinking China's present and future trends

With social and economic environment changes occurring in the world and deepening of the urbanization process, China’s urban development exhibits a new phenomenon of growth and shrinkage fluctuations. The resource-based city shrinkage phenomenon is particularly prominent. Research on the commonalities and patterns of similar groups should be enhanced. We constructed an urban shrinkage evaluation index system from the three dimensions of population, economy and space. Accordingly, we explored the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of 175 resource-based cities in China from a multidimensional perspective with the entropy method, shrinkage model and transfer matrix method. The results indicated that most resource-based cities in China occurred in the non-shrinking state, but their development speed gradually decreased or even presented stagflation. The shrinkage measure-related results in the different dimensions revealed that the number of shrinking cities is increasing. The population, economic and comprehensive shrinkage levels were mainly slight and remained stable. The number of cities experiencing moderate and severe shrinkage was relatively small and mostly encompassed short-term shrinkage. Spatial shrinkage demonstrated a clear administrative hierarchy difference. Moreover, the spatial distribution range of shrinking cities in each dimension expanded and exhibited obviously similar characteristics, i.e., shrinking cities were relatively concentrated in Northeast China, while they were more scattered in other regions. Furthermore, the geodetector technique was applied to reveal the influencing factors of resource-based city growth and shrinkage. Based on the results, the change in the secondary industry output value share at the start of the study was the primary factor. The impact of each employment structure indicator from 2014 to 2018 was particularly significant. Comprehensive exploration of the shrinkage characteristics of this particular group of cities and their development behavior from a multidimensional perspective can provide an important reference for the transformation and high-quality development of resource-based cities.

As China's urbanization process enters the middle and later stages, the phenomenon of urban shrinkage is gradually spreading in some cities. It is of great significance for China's urban development to rationally view the phenomenon of urban shrinkage and clarify the effect and mechanism of urban shrinkage on the upgrading of urban industrial structure. In this paper, we analyze the spatial characteristics of urban shrinkage in China based on the census data and panel data of Chinese cities from 2010 to 2019. On the basis of sorting out the impact mechanism of urban shrinkage on industrial structure upgrading, we construct instrumental variables and intermediary effects models to empirically test the relationship between urban shrinkage and industrial structure upgrading. The results show that urban shrinkage has a significant restraining effect on the level of industrial structure sophistication, and the level of industrial structure sophistication will decrease by 0.126 when the degree of urban shrinkage increases by 1%, but the impact of urban shrinkage on the level of industrial structure rationalization is not obvious. The mechanism analysis shows that the industrial structure upgrading is inhibited by reducing the accumulation of human capital stock and reducing the ability of scientific and technological innovation. Further research shows that the negative effects of urban shrinkage on urban industrial structure are more prominent in those less developed areas, old industrial bases and resource-based cities. The findings provide new insights for Chinese cities to cope with the problem of shrinkage and achieve sustainable development.

Rapid urbanization is universally acknowledged to degrade ecosystem services, posing significant threats to human well-being. However, the effects of urban shrinkage, a global phenomenon and a counterpart to urbanization, on ecosystem services (ESs) remain unclear. This study focuses on China’s Rust Belt during the period from 2000 to 2020, constructing a comprehensive analytical framework based on long-term remote sensing data to reveal the temporal and spatial patterns of ESs and their associations with cities experiencing varying degrees of shrinkage. It employs a random forest (RF) model and a Shapley additive explanation (SHAP) model to measure and visualize the significance and thresholds of socioeconomic factors influencing changes in ESs. Our findings highlight the following: (1) Since 2010, the three provinces of Northeast China (TPNC) have begun to shrink comprehensively, with the degree of shrinkage intensifying over time. Resource-based cities have all experienced contraction. (2) Regional urban shrinkage has been found to enhance the overall provision capacity of ESs, with the most significant improvements in cities undergoing continuous shrinkage. (3) The impact of the same socioeconomic drivers varies across cities with different levels of shrinkage; increasing green-space ratios and investing more in public welfare have been identified as effective measures to enhance ESs. (4) Threshold analysis indicates that the stability of the tertiary sector’s proportion is critically important for enhancing ESs in cities undergoing intermittent shrinkage. An increase of 10% to 15% in this sector can allow continuously shrinking cities to balance urban development with ecological improvements. This research highlights the positive aspects of urban shrinkage, demonstrating its ability to enhance the provision capacity of ESs. It offers new insights into the protection and management of regional ecosystems and the urban transformation of the three eastern provinces.

Understanding the urbanization and transformation trajectories of resource-based cities (RBCs) is pivotal for China’s sustainable development goals. This study introduces a novel regression-based algorithm for assessing urbanization patterns. We delineated the urban boundaries of 335 cities and employed time-series nighttime light data from 2001 to 2020, shifting the analysis from a pixel-scale to an urban-scale perspective. Our analysis reveals distinct disparities within the 125 RBCs when compared to the national average, leading to their categorization. The key findings include: (1) Within Forest and Coal RBCs, numerous areas have stabilized after experiencing contraction. Geographically, a significant number of RBCs in the Northeast, North, and Northwest regions are experiencing or have experienced substantial urban shrinkage. The developmental status of RBCs exhibits a spatial positive correlation. (2) Although the government categorized RBCs based on their development level in 2013, findings suggest that this classification may no longer accurately reflect the current development status of RBCs in the context of urbanization. (3) Utilizing spectral clustering, we categorized RBCs into five types, identified 10 RBCs undergoing shrinkage and 30 cities trending towards stabilization post-shrinkage. This research offers a refined evaluative method for urbanization, providing insights beneficial for policy-making concerning RBCs’ sustainable growth..

In the context of ecological civilization construction, resource-based cities (RBCs) are tasked with the dual responsibility of national energy supply and transformation amidst complex social contradictions. These cities face the resource curse dilemma, characterized by resource depletion, conflicts in spatial production, in living, and in ecological spaces, and intertwined ecological–economic–social issues. Enhancing their ecological resilience is a crucial indicator of successful transformation strategies. This study focuses on Jinzhong City in Shanxi Province, employing Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA) to assist in the spatial analysis of urban ecological resilience. Additionally, Conefor Sensinode is utilized to identify key ecological sources that significantly contribute to urban resilience. A novel Risk-Connectivity-Potential (RCP) model is developed to construct a framework of indicators affecting the resilience of RBCs, which is used to assess the ecological resilience of Jinzhong City, particularly in relation to the spatial distribution of mining areas. The results indicate the following: (1) important ecological source areas within the city constitute approximately 39.47% of the total city area, predominantly located in woodland regions; (2) the overall assessment of ecological resilience reveals a heterogeneous pattern, increasing from west to east, with lower resilience observed in low-lying terrains and higher resilience in mountainous plateaus; (3) mines within significant ecological source areas are primarily situated in low-resilience zones near built land and agriculture land, while other mining areas are mainly found between high-resilience zones, posing risks of increased ecological resistance, reduced ecological connectivity, and potential ecological issues. This study explores the application of the ecological resilience framework in RBCs, providing a scientific basis and reference for the rational utilization of resources and urban transformation and development.The methodology and findings can be applied to similar cities globally, offering valuable insights for balancing resource management and ecological protection in the context of sustainable urban development.

Natural resource dependence and urban shrinkage: The role of human capital accumulation

Shrinking cities and resource-based economy: The economic restructuring in China's mining cities

Liveability and migration intention in Chinese resource-based economies: Findings from seven cities with potential for population shrinkage

The emergence of urban housing crises and responses by local authorities represent a complex, dynamic process involving various drivers. Among these drivers, demographic change (e.g. population growth or shrinkage) is a slow-burning but prominent catalyst to urban housing markets. As population shifts are hardly predictable, especially at the local level, they can be considered as a shock to a city’s inert housing supply. While the resilience of social-ecological systems seems to be a well-developed approach in research related to urban resilience, community resilience and regional economic resilience, few attempts have been made to apply this approach explicitly to housing market problems. Yet, policy makers already employ the notion of “resilient housing policy”, though its theoretical and empirical essentials remain unclear. In order to conduct empirical research on the conditions of transforming housing markets and policy from a resilience perspective, we seek to analyze existent resilience frameworks and indicator sets which already include housing aspects or can be linked to this issue. Some useful indicators can be drawn from these frameworks, while others are considered inappropriate for understanding resilience in housing policy from an evolutionary perspective. The structural potential, institutional capabilities as well as the interlacing of civic sector, public sector and private market actors have to be studied thoroughly. Proceeding from these basics, we present a preliminary set of factors that could promote housing market resilience in regard to demographic shocks. The overall aim is to provide a framework for a qualitative case study on housing policy in the city of Leipzig. Leipzig has seen extreme demographic changes over the past 30 years: urban shrinkage and severe housing vacancy, as well as unexpected rapid growth leading to a constricted housing market today. Besides the theoretic proposal, we can provide first-hand insights from the ongoing empirical study.

Does urban shrinkage equate to a decline in development levels? – Urban development measurement and influencing factors analysis

Resource-exhausted cities (RECs) are resource-based cities that have entered the late or end-stage of their natural resource extraction cycle. In practice, the term may also refer to cities where resources are not exhausted but where the development thereof is highly constrained by mining costs or environmental protection policies that might lead to economic or population shrinkage.

Accurate identification and trajectory simulation of urban shrinkage in resource-based cities

The urban shrinkage phenomenon is increasingly common. However, at the same time, it is accompanied by local growth within the region, and its complex impact mechanism still lacks in-depth research. This paper takes Daqing, a resource-based city, as an example and constructs a multi-dimensional urban growth/shrinkage type definition matrix. The random forest classification model is used to quantitatively analyze the relevant factors affecting the classification matrix by comparing different models. The results show that: (1) The growth/shrinkage of Daqing City leads to a concentric structure of intensive growth—expansion growth—expansion shrinkage—intensive shrinkage that gradually changes from the center to the periphery in space. (2) The random forest classification model can better explain the cause mechanism of urban growth/shrinkage. (3) The growth/shrinkage of resource-based cities in the transformation stage is mainly affected by economic factors, such as traffic accessibility and urban morphology related to the resource economy. This study provides an evaluation framework from qualitative to quantitative, providing useful references for research and planning policy formulation in related fields.