Urban Sprawl In China Research Articles

Spatial imbalance in the digital era: how the digital economy affects urban sprawl in China

ABSTRACT Economic and social activities in the digital age have changed business forms and spatial relations, and identifying evolution of the urban form in the digital age is the key to sustainable urban governance. Based on data from prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2021, this study explores the impact of the digital economy on urban sprawl and the path to its realization, thus providing policy implications for urban governance in the digital economy era. The empirical results show that the digital economy significantly promotes urban sprawl and that the urban sprawl effect caused by the digital economy has regional and scale heterogeneity. Western and medium-sized cities show greater sprawl trends under the influence of the digital economy. Digital economy development can significantly affect residents’ lifestyles and lead to urban sprawl, such as encouraging green, digital, and suburban lifestyles. In addition, the digital economy significantly affects the demand for urban land space, such as the industrial division of labour patterns, urbanization processes, and industrial virtual agglomeration, which are indirect factors leading to urban sprawl.

Spatiotemporal dynamics of urban sprawl in China from 2000 to 2020

ABSTRACT Accurately and timely quantifying the dynamics of urban sprawl is essential for improving land use efficiency and land use planning. However, existing research mainly focused on the sprawl of a single city or urban agglomerations in China, while national scale studies mainly used short-term remote sensing data to quantify urban sprawl. Therefore, we still lack a long term and most up-to-date understanding of urban sprawl in China, especially in different regions, cities of different sizes. Here, we quantified the spatiotemporal dynamics of urban sprawl using urban sprawl index (USI) based on the latest population census, and analyzed its driving force in China during 2000 ~ 2020 using the optimal parameters-based geographical detector. The results showed that in the past two decades, Chinese cities were still experiencing urban sprawl, with an average USI of 3.04, indicating that the average annual growth rate of urban lands was 3.04% higher than that of the urban population. Overall, the sprawl showed a slowdown, with the USI dropping from 3.55 in 2000 ~ 2010 to 2.53 in 2010 ~ 2020. Among regions, urban sprawl was more severe in the western region, where the USI was 5.33 during 2000 ~ 2020 and 89.3% of the cities exceeded the national average sprawl speed. Recently, the driving force of transportation on urban sprawl substantially increased. In the future, the Territorial Spatial Planning should pay attention to confining excessive sprawl of small- and medium-sized cities in the western region of China.

Deep Learning Analysis of Urban Growth Boundaries: An Evaluation of Effectiveness in Mitigating Urban Sprawl in China

Deep Learning Analysis of Urban Growth Boundaries: An Evaluation of Effectiveness in Mitigating Urban Sprawl in China

Analysis of Urban Planning Methods for Urban Villages: A Case Study of Liede Village in Guangzhou

Urban sprawl in China has become a common trend in urban history, thus, urban villages form during the process which contains both urban and rural characteristics. Among all the urban village management cases in China, Liede Village, Guangzhou, seems to be typically outstanding. It experienced regeneration from a poor urban village with chaos to a prosperous financial and retailing center in Pearl River New Town. The government followed ne-oliberal urbanism by decentralizing the central power and letting the market determine the urban plans. Public, private firms, and the village committee all played an important role in decision-making, helping Liede Village to build a new success in the 21st century. However, these approaches also had disadvantages in terms of tokenism of public participation and postponing information from mainstream media. Overall, some parts of the urban village management methods are acceptable, but they can never be copied without further consideration.

Fully automatic training sample collection for detecting multi-decadal inland/seaward urban sprawl

Accurate and timely monitoring of urban sprawl using remote sensing provides valuable insights for urban management and sustainable development. While existing studies have explored methods for large-scale monitoring of urban sprawl, most of them rely on the collection of manually labeled training samples for supervised classification. Additionally, previous studies generally focused on inland urban sprawl, neglecting the process of urban sprawl towards sea areas, known as seaward urban sprawl, which has profound ecological implications for coastal ecosystems. Here we develop a fully automatic algorithm for detecting urban sprawl, named Fully Automatic Detection of Urban Sprawl (FADUS), using the time-series Landsat imagery without manually collecting training samples or existing urban maps for reference. FADUS automatically generates initial samples through a sequential binary unsupervised clustering technique and then updates them by removing the spectral outliers to obtain a high-quality training set for subsequent supervised classification. A tidal module is included in FADUS to avoid pseudo-urban changes caused by tidal fluctuations so that both inland and seaward urban sprawl can be detected. By applying the algorithm to 75 coastal cities in China, the most rapidly urbanizing region in the world, we uncovered a neglected but dramatic seaward urban sprawl process that has converted sea areas to urban space since 1985. Our results indicate that 9904.36 km2 of coastal wetlands and nearshore seawater areas have been converted to land area, of which 44.83% is currently covered by built-up area. With our method, the fully automatic detection of urban dynamics is now possible for both coastal and inland cities worldwide. Our derived map of seaward urban sprawl in China provides valuable references for coastal land-cover change monitoring, wetland protection and restoration, and integrated coastal management.

Characterizing Sprawl Development in Urban China: A Perspective from Urban Amenity

Urban sprawl in China presents unique characteristics that differ from those commonly studied in Western contexts, an aspect not fully explored in previous studies. Therefore, taking Wuhan, Hubei as an example and integrating population data, remote sensing data, and POI data, this research offers a perspective on sprawl development in urban China. By incorporating population, urban land use, and urban amenities, this study measures their dynamics to classify urban spaces and employs spatial regression models to identify the characteristics of sprawl development with spatial effects controlled. It further applies geographically weighted regression to examine the underlying spatial heterogeneity. The findings indicate that population growth and urban land expansion do not align perfectly, and further exploration identifies the various trends of sprawl development in urban core and periphery areas. On the other hand, some suburban areas show compact development trends, but the growth of local amenities may be limited due to the historical sprawl development legacies. Regression results reveal specific characteristics of this sprawl development. Key findings include the following: (1) shaped by the triple process of sprawl development of urban renewal, suburbanization, and rural revitalization, Wuhan shows a significant core-periphery structure with the trend of polycentricity; (2) overcrowding in central urban districts is the primary driver of sprawl development; (3) most traditional suburbs in Wuhan have emerged as a consequence of rapid urbanization with a legacy of sprawl development; (4) spatial heterogeneity across urban spaces highlights the necessity for locally tailored approaches to regulating sprawl development.

The Spatiotemporal Pattern and Driving Mechanism of Urban Sprawl in China’s Counties

Cities in China do not constitute a few global metropolises, but are characterized by heterogeneity. Studying counties can give us a comprehensive picture of urban sprawl in China. This study measured the sprawl index of 1880 counties in China from 2005 to 2020 for the first time and then revealed the evolution of their spatiotemporal characteristics and driving mechanisms. The results revealed the following. (1) China’s counties had a noticeable sprawling trend from 2005 to 2020, and their evolutionary process was characterized by spatiotemporal heterogeneity. (2) From 2005 to 2020, the counties’ sprawl gradually evolved into a spatial distribution pattern of high in the east and low in the west. The spatial distribution of sprawl in county and municipal districts had the characteristics of an interlocking distribution. (3) High–high cluster areas of CSI are mainly distributed in plains, and hilly, basin, and plateau areas tend to be low–low cluster areas. High–low outliers were distributed in a “point–line” pattern along the railroad lines and a cluster pattern near railroad intersections and central cities. Low–high outliers had the trend of encircling the high–high cluster areas. (4) The coefficient of the natural drivers was higher but tended to decrease, while the coefficient of economic and spatial drivers was lower but gradually increased. This study is the first to refine the study of urban sprawl to the county scale, which provides a reference for decision making to optimize the spatial structure of counties and thus promote high-quality development.

The impact of urban sprawl on green total factor productivity: A spatial econometric analysis in China

The rapid expansion of Chinese cities has led to serious urban productivity and eco-environment changes, and has therefore attracted considerable international academic attention. The main objective of this study is to investigate the theoretical mechanisms and practical effects of urban sprawl on green total factor productivity (GTFP), in order to provide a reference for optimizing the spatial layout of cities and promoting high-quality economic development. Realistic urban land area and population characteristics are extracted using DMSP/OLS and NPP/VIIRS nighttime lighting data, and LandScan global population dynamics statistics to measure the urban sprawl index. GTFP is measured using a super-SBM model that considers undesirable output. Based on the panel data of Chinese cities from 2006 to 2020, a spatial Durbin model was constructed to carry out the empirical analysis. The results show that, overall, urban sprawl in China is detrimental to its own GTFP, while contributing to the GTFP of neighboring cities. The impacts of urban sprawl vary markedly across cities of different sizes and across regions.

Impact of the Built Environment on Residents' Health: Evidence from the China Labor Dynamics Survey in 2016.

In the process of China's rapid urbanization, the health level of residents has been improved to a great extent. However, with the expansion of urban scale and spatial restructuring, a series of urban environmental problems have posed new challenges to public health. However, the impact of the built environment on residents' health is controversial, and the applicability of the conclusions based on western urban sprawl in China is not clear enough. In addition, the exploration of the impact path of the built environment on health is still not comprehensive and in-depth. Based on the China Labor Dynamics Survey (CLDS) in 2016 and relevant statistical yearbook data, this study explored the impact of the built environment at community and urban scale on residents' health and its age heterogeneity and further explored the mediating role of physical exercise, neighborhood support, and community safety. According to the research, the urban and community-built environment has significant impacts on residents' health, and the impact is significantly different at different scales. In addition, there is a significant difference in the impact of built environment factors on residents' health among populations with different life cycles. From the perspective of the impact path, greening coverage can improve residents' self-rated health by enhancing the perceived safety of living in the community. In contrast, the high community population density will not only weaken the degree of neighborhood support but also reduce the perception level of community residential safety, thus damaging residents' health. In short, from the perspective of environmental intervention, the previously mentioned results put forward possible suggestions on strengthening the construction of a healthy living environment so as to maximize the health effectiveness of cities and communities.

Unveiling the Regional Differences and Convergence of Urban Sprawl in China, 2006–2019

There is an obvious imbalanced regional development among eastern, central, and western China. This is also a fundamental problem that policy makers and planners need to address. Specific to urban development, we wondered whether there were regional differences in urban sprawl and whether this trend was under control. By using the urban sprawl index (USI), this paper investigated the spatiotemporal pattern of urban sprawl from 2006 to 2019, and its regional difference and convergence among eastern, central, and western China. It finds that the cities with high, medium, and low sprawl in the east and west regions are distributed with a clear geographical pattern, while the distribution in the central region has no intuitive geographical features. Also, the proportion of cities with high sprawl in the eastern region is more than that in the other regions, with low sprawl in central China and medium sprawl in the western region. Moreover, urban sprawl in all three regions showed a downward trend, but this process was fluctuating and had obvious phase characteristics. It can be concluded that there is a convergence trend in urban sprawl in China over the research period, and the club convergence effect exists in the eastern, central, and western regions.

Distortion of government behaviour under target constraints: Economic growth target and urban sprawl in China

To gain promotion advantages, municipal governments usually set higher growth targets than higher level governments to show loyalty and to signal ability in China, thereby forming growth target constraints. There is still a lack of research linking targets with urban development models. This paper contributes to this by examining the impact of economic growth target constraints on urban sprawl. We found that municipal governments are facing obvious economic growth target constraints, especially top-down overweighting constraints. The urban growth target constraint has significantly promoted urban sprawl, and that the impact is more obvious for cities that use hard constraint vocabulary to set growth targets, small and medium-sized cities and cities that failed to achieve their growth targets as scheduled last year. The mechanism is that the growth target constraint will lead to the local governments placing emphasis on land, ignoring population and investment bias in their emphasis on construction, and ignoring public services, which will lead to low density and decentralisation of cities. Our main novel empirical findings provide important clues for understanding the evolution of urban spatial morphology and urban development models in China. This will provide new policy insights for the transformation of urban models to more sustainable development.

Spatiotemporal Pattern and Driving Factors of Urban Sprawl in China

Urban sprawl is a complex phenomenon related to abnormal urbanization, and it has become a key issue of global concern. This study aimed to measure urban sprawl in China and explore its spatiotemporal patterns and driving factors. Based on 343 Chinese cities at the prefecture level and above, remote sensing-derived data from 2000 to 2017 were used to calculate the urban sprawl index (USI). The evolutionary trend and spatiotemporal pattern of urban sprawl in China were then analyzed using trend analysis and exploratory spatiotemporal data analysis, and Geodetector was applied to investigate the factors driving the changes. The results show the following. ① Moderate or high urban sprawl development occurred in China from 2000 to 2017. In terms of spatial distribution, the USI was high in northwest China and low in southeast China. ② The local spatial stability of the USI gradually decreased from southeast to northwest and northeast. USI had strong spatial dependence. No significant spatiotemporal transitions in urban sprawl were observed, and the spatial pattern was stable with strong spatial cohesion. ③ The gross regional product (GRP) of the tertiary industry, the total GRP, and investment in real estate development have been the most important factors affecting sprawl in cities at the prefecture level and above in China.

How urban sprawl influences eco-environmental quality: Empirical research in China by using the Spatial Durbin model

Rapid urban sprawl in China has caused serious eco-environmental changes, and thus attracted significant attention of the international academic circles. However, the mechanism of influence of urban sprawl on eco-environmental quality has not been addressed adequately. The main objective of this study was to fill this gap by theoretically and empirically studying how urban sprawl influences eco-environmental quality, based on the Spatial Durbin model and on a panel data covering 30 provinces of mainland China during the period 2003–2018. The results show that China’s urban sprawl has significantly decreased the eco-environmental quality under both geographical and economic weight matrices. Moreover, the spillover effect played an essential role in investigating the influence of urban sprawl on eco-environmental quality. From the perspective of regional differences, the direct accumulation effect and the spatial spillover effect involved in the impact of urban sprawl on eco-environmental quality varied across the central, western, and northeast regions. The results of decomposition of urban sprawl into its component parts indicate that population sprawl, socio-economic sprawl, transportation sprawl, and land use sprawl can explain the change of eco-environmental quality in China to varying degrees. During the study period, land use sprawl exhibited the greatest effect on eco-environmental quality, followed by socio-economic sprawl, population sprawl, and transportation sprawl. The government should actively coordinate the development of different types of urban sprawl, thus increasing eco-environmental quality across different regions.

The Influence of Urban Sprawl on Air Pollution and the Mediating Effect of Vehicle Ownership

Based on the panel data of 224 prefecture-level and above cities in China from 2003 to 2016, this paper empirically studies the impact of urban sprawl on air pollution and introduces a mediating effect model to test the mediating role of vehicle ownership concerning the impact of urban sprawl on air pollution. The research in this paper arrives at three conclusions. First, urban sprawl has a significant positive effect on air pollution, and this conclusion is still valid after solving the endogeneity problem and conducting a robustness test. Second, the results of mediating effect test show that urban sprawl indirectly affects air pollution through the partial mediating effect of vehicle ownership. By removing the mediating effect, urban sprawl has a significant negative impact on air pollution, indicating that the mediating effect of vehicle ownership is higher concerning the impact of urban sprawl on air pollution. Third, further panel quantile regression results show that the higher the level of air pollution, the weaker the mediating effect of vehicle ownership and the stronger the direct effect of urban sprawl on air pollution. These conclusions can provide some empirical support for solving the air pollution problems caused by urban sprawl in China.

Land use and travel burden of residents in urban fringe and rural areas: An evaluation of urban-rural integration initiatives in Beijing

Accessibility to the job market and public facilities in the urban fringe and surrounding rural areas is a vital issue in relation to sustainable land use in large cities. Urban-rural integration initiatives have been addressed in China’s land use planning in order to reduce the gap in the quality of life between the urban and rural population. This paper aims to examine urban-rural integration initiatives from the perspective of travel burden in the urban fringe and rural areas by looking at Beijing as a case study. By analysing the data from 76,761 questionnaires, residents’ travel burden in the urban, urban fringe and surrounding rural areas is compared quantitatively, and land use characteristics leading to the difference of travel burden are discussed by regression. The results show that there are significant differences in travel burden among residents living in different areas. Travel time and cost in the urban fringe areas are significantly higher than both the urban and rural areas. Fewer employment opportunities and lack of public service facilities in urban fringe areas are the main factors in this difference. In addition, those who live in the urban fringe have a higher proportion of car ownership than urban residents. Thus, there may be a phenomenon of “forced car ownership” among urban fringe residents, as low accessibility to jobs and public services (including public transit services) necessitates owning a car. It seems that the current urban-rural integration initiatives play a limited role in promoting accessibility to the job market and public facilities in the urban fringe. Stronger land use policies are needed to enhance the quality of life in the urban fringe within the context of rapid urban sprawl in China’s cities.

Regeneration Strategy on Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) Based on Case Study

The background of this thesis is that Italy’s large cultural heritage overlaps extensively with urban constructions. Research and practice on this issue have achieved successful results and examples worth learning from. This study contains a systematic review of the development process of Italian urban cultural heritage conservation, and a brief description of the historical urban landscape (HUL) concept and method, and the notion of “regeneration” under the premise of inserting “dynamic”, “activation” and “sustainability” in heritage conservation. The research method of this paper is to analyze several successful cases of Italian cultural heritage regeneration, three strategies of Italian landscape heritage regeneration under the HUL theory were summarized: “landscape” layering of urban and historic elements under the strategy of connecting sections; “activating” the historical landscapes using heritage as the catalyst; driving the sustainable use of historic urban landscapes with the power of community. In addition, Facing many problems of Chinese cultural heritage，three important points are provided for the development of HUL regeneration strategies dealing with urban sprawl in China including focusing on the historical and cultural “layering”, establishing a multi-criteria assessment system about heritage and promoting public participation as a long term driving force of urban renovation.

Simulating Urban Sprawl in China Based on the Artificial Neural Network-Cellular Automata-Markov Model

In recent years, China’s urbanization rate has been increasing rapidly, reaching 59.58% in 2018. Urbanization drives rural-to-urban migration, and inevitably promotes urban sprawl. With the development of remote sensing and geographic information technologies, the monitoring technology for urban sprawl has been constantly innovated. In particular, the emergence of night light data has greatly promoted monitoring research of large-scale and long-time-series urban sprawl. In this paper, the urban sprawl in China in 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017 was identified via night light data, and the Artificial Neural Network-Cellular Automata-Markov (ANN-CA-Markov) model was developed to simulate the future urban sprawl in China. The results show that the suitability of urban sprawl based on the ANN model is as high as 0.864, indicating that the ANN model is very suitable for the simulation of urban sprawl. The Kappa coefficient of simulation results was 0.78, indicating that the ANN-CA-Markov model has a high simulation accuracy on urban sprawl. In the future, the hotspot areas of urban sprawl in China will change over time. Although the urban sprawl in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River delta, and the Pearl River delta will still be considerable, the urban sprawl in the Chengdu-Chongqing city cluster, the Guanzhong Plain city cluster, the central plains city cluster, and the middle reaches of the Yangtze River will be more prominent. Overall, China’s urban sprawl will be concentrated in the east of Hu’s line in the future.

Effects of urban sprawl on haze pollution in China based on dynamic spatial Durbin model during 2003–2016

Abstract As one of the undesirable outcomes in the process of urbanization and industrialization, haze pollution in China would undoubtedly be affected by urban sprawl. Hence, studying the effects of urban sprawl on haze pollution at the national level has great theoretical and practical meanings for the sustainable development of Chinese cities in the long run. Based on the panel data of 285 prefecture-level and above cities during 2003–2016, this paper has tried to employ a dynamic spatial Durbin model under the space-and-time fixed effect to analysis how haze pollution is affected by urban sprawl in China. The results revealed that the relationship between urban sprawl and haze pollution shows a U-shaped curve in large cities but an inverted U-shaped curve in small and medium-sized cities, which provides a clear evidence for the spatial shift risk of haze pollution caused by urban sprawl amongst different sizes of cities. Furthermore, the spatial and temporal dependences have significantly deteriorated the haze pollution in China, while the spatiotemporal dependence has to some extent inhibited the concentration of haze pollution, thus the effective control of haze pollution should rely on the joint governance in space and the cyclic accumulation in time simultaneously.

Dynamics of urban sprawl and sustainable development in China

Compared with the rich literature on urban sprawl in Western cities, relatively little is known of the driving factors, processes, and future trends of urban sprawl in China. This research analyzes the socioeconomic forces behind two parts of urban sprawl in China: urban decentralization and urban renewal, and reveals two basic characteristics of Chinese urban sprawl: de-densification and expansion of urbanized areas. It uses the term “urban sprawl” to consider the reasons behind urban transformation on a regional level in China. This research begins with definitions of sprawl in Western and Eastern countries, and follows with a dynamic analysis of the social, political, and cultural aspects of sprawl. Three case studies focus on three urban regions in China: Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. This research provides a comprehensive definition of “urban sprawl” in China, identifies the patterns of urban sprawl and growth, and indicates possible alternative strategies for urban expansion. Finally, it offers suggestions on how to effectively control urban sprawl in China, and provides a pathway to achieving sustainable development.

Spatiotemporal characteristics and driving forces of urban sprawl in China during 2003–2017

Abstract As for the academics and policymakers, more attention has been given to the issue on urban sprawl in China, while in-depth study at the national scale was relatively limited. Based on the 285 prefecture-level and above cities in China from 2003 to 2017, this paper has adopted the remote sensing derived data from the LandScan Global Population Database to examine the spatiotemporal characteristics of urban sprawl, and to investigate its driving forces among different sizes of cities at national and regional levels. The results revealed that small and medium-sized cities sprawled most significantly, followed by large cities, while mega cities sprawled the least. In addition, some new findings have been unearthed compared to the existing literature. For example, the siphon effect was greater than the spillover effect among different sizes of cities at the national scale, indicating that the competition of development resources has to some extent hindered the deterioration of urban sprawl in China; when the spatial heterogeneity was considered, the driving forces of urban sprawl exhibited differentiation among different regions and urban sizes. Furthermore, the spatial spillover effect of urban sprawl has exacerbated its intensity, which highlighted the importance and necessity of joint governance in space. The research concludes with future policy implications necessary for a more sustainable, compact, and coordinated urban development.