Neighboring Cities Research Articles

Has COVID-19 Altered the Air Quality Conduction Relationship in Beijing and Neighboring Cities?—A Test Based on Dynamic Periodic Conformance

The Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region is the most dynamic region and largest economy in northern China; however, the air quality is the worst in the country. The study of the air quality in the cities around Beijing is of great significance for air pollution control. Therefore, this study analyzed whether the COVID-19 pandemic altered the periodic pattern of the air quality in Beijing and its neighboring cities. The study employed continuous wavelet transform to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the air quality of Beijing and its neighboring cities. This method reveals the changes in the air quality from a periodic pattern perspective. The results showed that COVID-19 weakened the periodic changes in air quality in Beijing and five neighboring cities, and this effect was most pronounced during the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020. The cycle synchronization analysis showed that the pandemic weakened the cycle synchronization of air quality of the cities in the north of Beijing, while less impact was found on the cities to the south of Beijing. Moreover, the periodic patterns in 2020 and 2021 were compared with that in 2019 (before the outbreak of the pandemic), and it was found that the periodic patterns during the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 were significantly different from that in the same period in 2019. Therefore, COVID-19 weakened the periodic pattern of air quality in the cities around Beijing and altered the connection to air quality among them. The changes reveal the connections of inter-city air pollutants caused by human economic and social activities in cities around Beijing.

What are the roles of green technology innovation and ICT employment in lowering carbon intensity in China? A city-level analysis of the spatial effects

China is attempting to establish a feasible pattern for boosting economic structural transition, transforming energy structure, improving energy efficiency, and assuming responsibilities in the international community synchronously. This paper aims to investigate the nexus between green technology innovation (GTI), Information and Communication Technology (ICT) employment, and low carbon development. Drawing on the spatial Durbin model and panel data at the city level, I explored the impacts of GTI and ICT in lowering carbon intensity while considering spatial dependence from 2003 to 2017 in China. My empirical findings indicated that GTI and ICT not only play important roles in lowering local carbon intensity but also imposing positive and negative spatial spillover effects from the local cities to their neighboring cities. My examination of the transmission mechanism illustrates this concept except for the direct carbon mitigation impact. As a general-purpose technology, ICT also exerts an indirect effect in lowering carbon intensity via GTI. Heterogeneity tests reveal that both GTI and ICT have greater impacts on Eastern than Middle-Western regions to lower carbon intensity. Thus, policymakers should enhance the multi-dimensional region collaboration, the diffusion strength of informatization, and the absorptive capacity of technological innovation. The empirical evidence of this study also inspires confidence in accelerating industrial transition and optimizing energy structure toward carbon neutrality by boosting the expansion of ICT-related human capital.

Dynamic Systems with Fractional Derivatives Applied to Interagent Populations Problems

The present work has as main objective to investigate the use of fractional calculus in the modeling of epidemic outbreaks of interacting populations. In particular, we propose a generalization of the SIR model with fractional derivatives to describe the dynamics of the COVID-19 epidemic outbreak in two cities with interacting populations. In special, we consider the dynamics of COVID-19 in the municipalities of Pelotas and Rio Grande, which are neighboring cities and are relatively geographically isolated from the rest of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Government intervention, spillover effect and urban innovation performance: Empirical evidence from national innovative city pilot policy in China

Recently, research on government intervention and innovation performance has emerged in large numbers. However, the endogenous problems arising from the indirect investigations make the results open to discussion. Against this background, this study uncovers the impacts of innovation intervention represented by the national innovative city pilot (NICP) on urban innovation performance and innovation convergence within the causal inference framework considering the policy spillover effect. Results reveal that NICP has a long-term positive effect on innovation performance in local and surrounding areas, while the spillover effect only exists in cities within the provinces and geographical neighboring cities in surrounding provinces, and conforms to the distance attenuation law. Moreover, the positive impacts of NICP on innovation performance in local and neighboring cities continue to be amplified as the quantiles of innovation performance increase. Not only that, NICP plays a positive role in accelerating innovation convergence across cities, resulting from the yardstick competition of fiscal expenditures on science and technology and the spatial knowledge spillover, and low-level innovation club has a stronger late-mover advantage in innovation convergence. These findings contribute to accurately evaluating the innovation benefits of expanding NICP networks and provide an important reference for innovation-driven development strategy.

Traditional beliefs, culture, and local biodiversity protection: An ethnographic study in the Shaluli Mountains Region, Sichuan Province, China

Located on the southeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Shaluli Mountains Region (SMR) is an important conservation priority area in Southwest China’s highly biodiverse Hengduan Mountains. The SMR’s ecology is complex and topographically diverse, with unique composition of abundant flora and fauna. Historically and currently a majority-Tibetan region, Tibetan Buddhism has significantly affected most local people’s views on the natural environment. According to Tibetan religious theories and doctrines, the Shaluli Tibetans traditionally abstain from killing wild animals, believe in reincarnation (e.g., karmic cause and effect), the equality of all living beings, and the belief that everything has spirits. To understand how these beliefs and practices influenced the SMR’s ecology and biodiversity, and how modernization pressures affect them, we conducted a three-year ethnobiological field investigation in seven SMR counties and a neighboring city. The traditional worldview in this relatively remote region has profoundly shaped the lifestyles, customs, and behavioral norms of the local religiously-observant Tibetans. These beliefs have influenced their perspective on the natural world, having an overall positive role in the long-term protection of the local ecological environment and biodiversity. As the surrounding regions have experienced increasing development and modernization pressures that threaten this biodiversity hotspot, Shaluli’s Tibetan Buddhist temples and monks have assumed an active role promoting environmental protection, forest resource stewardship, and wildlife conservation. However, we found that modernization pressures and changing socio-economic conditions have negatively influenced these traditions, resulting in greater likelihood of biological invasions and pollution of the local soil and water sources.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE TRANSPORT FACTOR ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF URBAN AGGLOMERATIONS OF THE FERGANA VALLEY

Population in Uzbekistan has long been connected with transport routes. Settlements were formed in areas where different roads passed from any settlements and, on the contrary, different transport routes passed. Such geographical features are especially evident in the regions of the Fergana Valley, where the population and transport networks are densely populated and land resources are limited. With the development of modern urban planning, the creation of new settlements, new cities and towns, the "appearance" of the regions is changing, and agglomerations are developing. The agglomerations of Fergana-Margulon, Namangan, Andijan, and Kokan, formed in the Fergana Valley, where the network of cities is dense in Uzbekistan, are sharply different from each other, despite being located in the same region. These differences were primarily influenced by the transport network and configuration of the region. The article mainly evaluates the impact of the transport factor on the development of the Andijan agglomeration, and comments on the formation of the Andijan-Asaka-Shakhrikhan-Poitug quadrangle of Andijan and its neighboring cities are put forward.

Analysis on the pattern and driving factors of industrial wastewater discharge in the Wuhan Metropolitan area

Abstract As China's ecological civilization gains momentum and the ecological development of the ‘Yangtze River Economic Belt’ strategy pushes forward, the research on water environment protection and management in Wuhan Metropolitan Area (the central urban agglomeration) is of great significance. According to the data of the industrial wastewater discharge in the nine cities of the Wuhan Metropolitan Area from 2005 to 2015, the study will construct a decomposition model to analyze the pattern of the discharge with reference to the Kaya identity and the LMDI decomposition model. By doing so, the pattern and driving factors of industrial wastewater discharge can be cleared. The following conclusions on the industrial wastewater discharge of the Wuhan Metropolitan Area can be achieved. Firstly, industrial wastewater discharge in the Wuhan Metropolitan Area shows a decreasing trend year by year (684 million tons to 433 million tons) from 2005 to 2010, but rises sharply (504 million tons to 652 million tons) from 2010 to 2011, reaching a peak in 2011. After that, it witnesses a quick and stable drop. Secondly, the absolute differences in industrial wastewater discharge among cities are continuously narrowed, in which Wuhan (the highest value is 260 million tons, the lowest value is 155 million tons) and Ezhou (the highest value is 181 million tons, the lowest value is 0.25 million tons) show the most striking abnormal statistics. Thirdly, the discharge follows the trend of expansion from Wuhan as a center to its neighboring cities from 2005 to 2015. For spatial pattern, it presents a picture of decreasing from the center to the surrounding. Lastly, for all driving factors affecting the discharge, the contribution of economic growth is always positive, which can increase the discharge greatly (the average annual contribution reaches 0.64 billion m3). The population size has little effect. The industrial structure has an uncertain influence on it since it is decided by government policies. The influence of technological improvement is negative, which can control the discharge a lot. In the last part of this essay, the research will explore the ways to promote the saving and discharge reduction of industrial wastewater for future potential metropolitan areas, thus providing a reference for macro water environment protection and governance in the Yangtze River Basin and other regional urban areas.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the housing market at the epicenter of the outbreak in China.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 in January 2020 has had a profound impact on the global economy, so it is important to study the impact of the pandemic on the housing market. To investigate the impact of the pandemic on the housing market and the response of the housing market, this paper first uses the hedonic price model to compile the second-hand housing price index in Wuhan and its neighboring capital cities and then uses the difference-in-difference (DID) model to conduct a comprehensive study on new commercial housing and second-hand housing market. In addition, this paper also uses the VAR model to explore the housing market’s response to the epidemic situation. The results show that the negative impact of the pandemic on the housing market is mainly reflected in the volume and area of housing transactions, with little impact on housing prices. Second, the reported cases of COVID-19 have a negative impact on the housing market in the short term, which gradually weakens with time and disappears after three weeks. This paper’s findings indicate that the epidemic’s impact on the housing market is mainly due to the real estate enterprises stopping selling houses and local governments implementing home quarantine measures, which affect normal housing transactions. However, the COVID-19 pandemic did not greatly negatively impact consumers’ demand and confidence in buying houses, so the house prices remained stable overall.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43546-022-00225-2.

The spatial spillover effect of low-carbon city pilot scheme on green efficiency in China's cities: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment

To test the direct effect (impact on local) and indirect effect (spatial spillover) of low-carbon city pilot scheme (LCCPS) on China's cities' green efficiency, this paper first calculates and decomposes the green efficiency constrained with CO2 emissions and pollutants by using a range directional model (RDM) based on data envelopment analysis (DEA), then the global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) index of 285 China's cities' green efficiency is obtained. Through the GML index, it is found that the green efficiency of sample cities has improved by 29.56% evenly in 2003–2017, and the main driving force of green efficiency progress is technological innovation. The green efficiency progress of LCCPS pilot cities is significantly greater than that of non-pilot cities, and there is a significant positive spatial autocorrelation in the green efficiency of 285 sample cities. According to the test results of the spatial difference in differences (Spatial-DID) model, LCCPS can positively promote the green efficiency of local and neighboring cities, and this result can pass the placebo test, and remain robust when using an alternative green efficiency index (without CO2 emissions) or a spatial-economic weight matrix. The use of propensity score matching (PSM) and instrumental variable method further shows that the above results will not change substantially even if the selection bias and endogeneity are eliminated. The mechanism analysis shows that: First, LCCPS improves the local green efficiency by promoting the aggregation of innovation resources, but the resulting siphon effect inhibits the aggregation of innovation resources and the green efficiency progress in neighboring cities. Second, LCCPS improves the local green efficiency of pilot cities by inhibiting the industrial activities and industrial energy consumption, but it can inhibit the green efficiency progress by increasing industrial activities and industrial energy consumption of neighboring cities. Although the above mechanism cannot completely reverse the beneficial space spillover effect of LCCPS, it can also effectively point out the future improvement direction of the policies in LCCPS.

Iron production along the Great Wall Belt of the Han Empire: A metallurgical study of an iron smelting site in the Northern Shaanxi, China

AbstractIronworks of the Han dynasty in Yangqiaopan ancient city are so far the only discovered iron smelting site in Northern Shaanxi. A total of 27 slag samples from the site were analysed. The results of metallographic and elemental analyses suggest that both cast iron smelting and the fining process were employed at the site. In addition, this paper suggests that under the iron monopoly policy, iron production was carried out in prefectures along the Great Wall Belt where iron offices (tieguan) were not set up, and iron industry not only satisfied the local demands but also supplied iron to the neighbouring cities.

Can digital financial inclusion affect CO2 emissions of China at the prefecture level? Evidence from a spatial econometric approach

This study adopts a spatial econometric model to explore the impact of digital financial inclusion on CO2 emissions covering 284 prefecture-level cities in China. The results demonstrate that digital financial inclusion positively impacts CO2 emissions of local cities, but negatively impacts neighboring cities. In addition, we analyze the effect of the three dimensions of digital financial inclusion on urban CO2 emissions, suggesting that the breadth of coverage and depth of use significantly correlates with CO2 emissions. Specifically, the direct effect of digital financial inclusion is significantly positive in China of the eastern, western and northeastern cities. By analyzing the mediation impact mechanism, we confirm that digital financial inclusion have an influence on city-level CO2 emissions through industrial structure and economic growth, respectively. Overall, these findings help in the evaluation of the social benefits of digital financial inclusion policies and in effectively addressing environmental problems.

Political competition, spatial interactions, and default risk of local government debts in China

AbstractThe paper investigates the institutional mechanism behind increasing local government debts and default risk in the last decade in China. Using prefectural‐level data from 2010 to 2017, we study the default risk on local government debts through the lens of spatial interactions. Empirical results identify positive spatial interactions of default risk among political neighbouring cities, but not for merely geographic or economic neighbours. Moreover, the spatial interactions vary with local leader's political incentives. These findings altogether suggest the spatial interactions of default risk is driven by political competition among local leaders. The study also rules out alternative explanations such as resource flow effects.

Does the opening of China railway express promote urban total factor productivity? New evidence based on SDID and SDDD model

As a new path for the Chinese government to deepen reform, expand opening up and promote economic development, the opening of CRE may have an important impact on urban total factor productivity. Based on the panel data of 276 prefecture level cities in China from 2006 to 2018, the SDID and SDDD models are used to empirically test the impact of the opening of CRE on urban total factor productivity. The results show that the CRE significantly promotes the total factor productivity in both opening and neighboring cities. The mechanism test shows that the CRE promotes the total factor productivity of the opening cities through external effects and synergy effects, and promotes the total factor productivity of neighboring cities through spatial spillover effects and synergy effects. Regional heterogeneity shows that the improvement effect of the CRE on total factor productivity is mainly reflected in coastal opening cities, inland opening cities and inland neighboring cities. Therefore, this paper suggests that domestic cities should seize the development opportunities of the CRE and fully release the scale effects and spatial spillover effects. At the same time, the CRE should accelerate the formation of efficient collection and distribution system, and enhance the external effects and synergy effects on urban total factor productivity.

Modeling Greek city-states’ territories with Least-Cost Site Catchment analysis: A case study of Lato, Crete

Least-Cost Site Catchment (LCSC) analysis is a common tool to model the territories of polities of homogeneous size in a Geographical Information System (GIS) environment. With coexisting very small and larger city-states, the context of Hellenistic (323–66 BC) Crete, Greece, does not allow to model directly city-states’ territories with LCSC analysis. This paper proposes to model subunits of equivalent size within the Hellenistic territories with LCSC and combine them to delimit city-states’ territories. Based on the Normalpolis model, which describes early Greek city-states as autonomous villages that can grow and integrate neighbor cities as secondary centers, the archaic city-states of the 7th century BCE are tested as subunits of later Hellenistic city-states. The city-state of Lato (eastern Crete, Greece) appears to be a valuable case study to test such a modeling approach because late 2nd century BCE epigraphical documents provide information on its borderlines. Various cost functions from the archaeological GIS literature are tested to find the most suitable to model Greek city-states’ boundaries. The results of this study indicate that LCSC analysis applied to archaic city-states is an efficient tool to model the territories of Hellenistic city-states. This paper also suggests that the borders of city-states in the 2nd century BCE followed borders that delimited the territories of independent polities in the archaic period. Territorial units delimited at the birth of the city-state organization appear then to remain mostly in place until the end of the Hellenistic period, former archaic city-states becoming subunits of Hellenistic city-states assembled depending on successive conquests.

History in the language of “Levoča Formulas of Oaths” from the 16th–19th centuries

The article examines the changes caused by historical events in the language of oaths created in the Eastern Slovak city of Levocha for several centuries. These events include the transfer of several neighboring cities as collateral to the Polish Kingdom, the increasing importance of Western Slovakia after the inclusion of most of the Hungarian Kingdom into the Ottoman Empire, the Reformation and recatolization of the population. At the same time, the language of the monument demonstrates that the trends in the development of its language, despite the deviations, generally coincided with the general Slovak ones, which led to the unification of the written language according to the Southwestern Slovak model, although with minor regional differences.

Clean energy substitution: The effect of transitioning from coal to gas on air pollution

Air pollution from energy represents a global challenge. China, in particular, is facing a trade-off between growing demands for energy and worsening energy-related air pollution. Energy transition policies were adopted in mainland China in an attempt to reduce air pollutant emissions. This study investigated the causal impact of coal-to-gas (CTG) policies — programs that substitute “dirty” coal for “clean” natural gas — on air pollution. Using a spatial difference-in-difference analysis, we found that the implementation of CTG policies was strongly associated with reduced air pollution. On average, cities that transitioned to gas witnessed a 5.9 and 1.2% drop per year in SO2 and PM2.5 emissions, respectively. Having a neighboring city adopt a CTG policy was also beneficial as it led to a 7.0 and 3.8% reduction in SO2 and PM2.5 emissions. Sensitivity analysis confirmed that these effects were due to the expansion of natural gas use. Further, our study found that the effects of CTG policies on air pollution levels varied by region. CTG policies reduced both SO2 and PM2.5 levels in Southern cities but had no meaningful impacts on Northern cities. Our findings provide a strong rationale for local governments and decision-makers to enact reasonable urban clean energy substitution policies that reduce coal consumption.

SPATIAL EFFECT OF MARKET SENTIMENT ON HOUSING PRICE: EVIDENCE FROM SOCIAL MEDIA DATA IN CHINA

Market sentiment has become more easily spread between cities through social media. This study investigates the spatial effect of market sentiment on housing price in a social media environment. In order to extract home-buyer sentiment from social media, we use text sentiment analysis techniques and build a novel housing market sentiment index. A spatial econometric model of housing price volatility is subsequently constructed and the housing market sentiment index is included as an independent variable in the model. Using panel data from 30 large and medium-sized cities in China for 20 quarters from 2016 to 2020, the spatial effect of market sentiment on housing price is empirically analyzed by calculating direct and indirect effects. The results show that market sentiment had a significant positive effect on housing prices in the local and neighboring cities over the research period. However, the impact of market sentiment on housing price was heterogeneous in terms of geographical region; the direct effect was stronger in the eastern region than in the central and western regions, and the indirect effect was significant only in the eastern region. These findings can provide references for government to formulate housing market regulation policies and measures based on market sentiment.

Did Polycentric and Compact Structure Reduce Carbon Emissions? A Spatial Panel Data Analysis of 286 Chinese Cities from 2002 to 2019

Curbing carbon emissions by restricting economic growth could decrease human well-being across the world and especially in developing countries, suggesting that we need to find alternative approaches to reducing carbon emissions. Against this background, this paper investigates the relationship between urban spatial structure and carbon emissions in the Chinese context from 2002 to 2019. Specifically, urban spatial structure of 286 Chinese cities, represented by the two dimensions of polycentricity and compactness, are calculated based on the gridded (1 km × 1 km) LandScan dataset on population, while carbon emissions of these cities are aggregated from the gridded (1 km × 1 km) Open-source Data Inventory for Anthropogenic CO2 (ODIAC) dataset on carbon emissions. The empirical results based on different regression models find that overall (1) more dispersed and less monocentric (i.e., less compact and more polycentric) cities are often associated with lower levels of carbon emissions, ceteris paribus; (2) the impact of polycentricity on carbon emissions could be moderated by the economic development levels of Chinese cities. For cities with gross domestic product of more than 173 billion yuan, a more polycentric spatial structure is usually associated with a higher level of carbon emissions; (3) a city’s urban spatial structure could have positive spatial spillovers on carbon emissions of its neighboring cities.

Micro mobility development and its challenges for Porto

In the past years, people have become more and more aware of the climate change crisis and cities have become more crowded. Also fueled vehicle transportation has become much more expensive, inefficient and bothersome as fuel has become much more expensive as well as cars, roads used by cars have to be maintained more often and also air and sound pollution caused mostly by cars has changed the idea of transportation for the general public. To address that, governments and municipalities all over the world have been searching for solutions to give its citizens different possibilities to replace the car with other types of transportation, like giving more space to pedestrians, public transport or micro-mobility transportation. In this article, we will be focusing our attention to micro-mobility and especially to its situation in Porto as coming from other countries, we have been puzzled about the lack of bike lanes and friendliness of the city towards micro-mobility. Being ourselves mostly users of bikes in our home cities, we wanted to understand why micro-mobility wasn't developed as much in Porto as other cities in Europe or even like its neighboring cities like Aveiro. Apart from that, the societal benefits of increasing micro-mobility and its improvement on not only the economy of the city but also the quality of life of its citizens were highlighted by cities all over Europe and using them as an example would help Porto develop a secure and healthy urbanistic infrastructure that would very highly improve the city of Porto in all its senses.

Research on the Evaluation Index System and Methodology for the Construction of Ecological Civilization Model Cities <br/>—Yancheng City as an Example

The structure of this article is as follows. This topic takes the construction of ecological civilization in Yancheng City as the research object, conducts a comprehensive evaluation study on the development of ecological civilization in Yancheng City, examines its main achievements in ecological civilization construction and the level of improvement under the relative mechanism, and studies the effective measures for Yancheng to become a model city of ecological civilization with high quality development. This paper firstly combs the relevant literature and examines the development status of ecological civilization in Yancheng City. Secondly, data such as energy consumption per unit of GDP, vegetation coverage and protected area are explored and analyzed to compare the indicators of Yancheng City with the top ten ecological civilization cities in China and the neighboring cities. Next, a scientific evaluation index system for the construction of ecological civilization demonstration cities is constructed, and principal component analysis, cluster analysis and time series analysis are used to comprehensively evaluate the development of ecological civilization construction in the city from 2015-2019. Finally, through the analysis of the current situation and overall situation of the development of ecological civilization industry in the city, scientific countermeasures and suggestions are proposed in combination with the requirements of high-quality development.