The spatial restructuring and determinants of industrial landscape in a mega city under rapid urbanization

Abstract

we analyzed the evolution of industrial land use in the Shanghai's central city since 1947, with a more detailed analysis of determinants of change in the expanded city area since the economic reform for 2002–2009 and 2009–2016. Relying on land use data extracted from satellite images, air photos, and historic land use maps produced by local experts, we find that industrial land in the central area of Shanghai increased from 1947 to 1993 but declined from 2002 to 2016. The spatial form was transformed from scattered small industrial land pieces interspersed with other types of urban land within the urban core to a polycentric pattern of large patches with greater distances between patches. Using a binary spatial logistic regression on data from 2002 to 2009 and 2009–2016 for an extended area beyond Shanghai's central city, we found that major spatial determinants contributing to the recent conversion of Shanghai's industrial land include land price, the existing industrial land, and the planning policies for both periods and additionally distance to main transport station and economic development level for the period of 2009–2016. Moreover, patches affiliated with different sizes of industrial areas were driven by different sets of spatial determinants. Both large-size patches (>0.1 km2) and small-size patches (<0.05 km2) seem to be very sensitive to all spatial determinants, i.e., distances to major roads and to major station, economic development level, existing industrial land, land price, and planning policy, except economic development level for large patches for 2002–2009 and for small-size patches for 2009–2016. Our study provides valuable insights for planners as it highlighted important variables that land use planning can focus in order to achieve effective industrial land conversion. Our study also offers an example of utilizing different sources of data and methods for analyzing a specific type of urban land use change.