Abstract
An emerging polycentric spatial structure in China’s mega cities has been confirmed in the literature, but few studies have addressed the linkage between the change in spatial structure and urban development policies. Using Beijing as a case study, this paper examines the role of urban polycentric planning in the polycentric evolution process from a morphological perspective. We observed that urban polycentric planning significantly promoted the emergence of a polycentric urban form in Beijing’s metropolitan area from 2001 to 2010. Firstly, most of the planned subcenters were identified as real employment subcenters by a relative threshold method in 2001 and 2010 and comprised the majority of the employment subcenters. Secondly, the planned subcenters significantly increased their employment share and influence on employment and population distribution from 2001 to 2010, and their performances referring to these aspects were much better than the unplanned subcenters. Thus, our findings provide evidence that changes in urban spatial structure can be strongly affected by urban development policies, although it is determined by market forces in theory.
Highlights
Changes in urban spatial structure are a critical issue because of the social, environmental, and economic impacts involved [1]
Using Beijing as a case study, this paper aims to investigate the role of urban polycentric planning in the process of emerging polycentric spatial structure by answering the following two questions: Have the planned subcenters evolved to real subcenters? And how have the planned subcenters performed, especially compared with the unplanned subcenters? To achieve this objective, we first identified employment subcenters in 2001 and 2010 and analyzed the spatial match between the identified subcenters and the planned subcenters
The recent literature showed that a polycentric spatial structure has been emerging in China’s mega cities, few have investigated the role of these plans in the evolution processes
Summary
Changes in urban spatial structure are a critical issue because of the social, environmental, and economic impacts involved [1]. Urban planning, the main carrier of urban development policies, in many large and mega cities has adopted a polycentric spatial development strategy, that is, planning a number of urban subcenters in the suburban areas. With the establishment of the land market in the 1980s, the land price in the city center has been soaring, which forced many industries to move to the suburbs [2]. These planned subcenters have supplied development space for these decentralized firms, which significantly promotes the employment growth in suburbs
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