Territorial Resilience of Metropolitan Regions: A Conceptual Framework, Recognition Methodologies and Planning Response-A Case Study of Wuhan Metropolitan Region.

Mengjie Zhang,Yingzi Lin,Chong Peng,Jianfeng Shu

doi:10.3390/ijerph19041914

Abstract

As the key link and spatial form of urbanization in China, metropolitan region development has become a strategic frontier issue in the field of regional planning and territorial resilience. This paper defines the essence of territorial resilience of metropolitan regions, analyses the capacity of the system and its elements, and builds a regional planning framework. An evaluation indicator system is constructed to evaluate the territorial resilience level and identify the limiting factors in the Wuhan metropolitan region by utilizing the grey correlation model and the obstacle degree model. The results show that the resilience of Wuhan metropolitan region forms an overall pattern of one core area and four sub-regions in the east, west, north and south. According to the different limiting factors of resilience, cities can be divided into three types: cities limited by both policy and spatial resource factors, cities with lagging socioeconomic factors, and cities with insufficient innovation factors. This paper proposes planning response strategies to enhance resilience from two spatial levels. At the regional level this can be done by building a gradually balanced urban system, establishing three areas based on the degree of resilience factor agglomeration, while at the urban level it can be accomplished by maintaining ecological security, promoting economic agglomeration development and constructing innovation networks.

Highlights

At present, China’s urbanization process is entering a new stage of pursuing highquality development, resident living and governance
Under the background of spatio-temporal compression, the highly frequent flow of factors in metropolitan regions, the spatial isolation caused by administrative barriers, and the lag in the construction of emergency response have resulted in a series of resilience and safety issues
This paper aims to establish a conceptual framework of territorial resilience and identify the characteristics and key limiting factors of territorial resilience in metropolitan regions

Summary

Introduction

China’s urbanization process is entering a new stage of pursuing highquality development, resident living and governance. The CPC Central Committee’s proposal on formulating the 14th five-year plan for national economic and social development and the long-term goals for 2035 highlights important measures to promote new-types of urbanization, such as building resilient cities and modern metropolitan regions. China has a total of 34 metropolitan regions (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), with a total area of about 2.324 million square kilometers, accounting for 24% of the national proportion, and carrying 59% of the national population. Those metropolitan regions are highly dense regions of production. The Wuhan metropolitan region, as one of the typical metropolitan regions along the Yangtze River

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