Search

Most existing studies on shrinking cities focus on identifying and characterizing population contraction at the city scale and lack an in-depth exploration of the mechanisms of population contraction and daily life scenarios at the street scale. To fill this gap, this study employed semi-structured interviews and participant observation to analyze the street vitality and mechanisms of operation of Dongda Street in Rugao County of Jiangsu Province in China. The study found the following. First, the interspersed urban renewal has allowed residents to retain their original lifestyles and time-space routines, and they continue to enact an endogenous street ballet. Second, new residents gradually develop new lifestyles and time-space routines in the streets, showcasing an exogenous street ballet. Third, both groups jointly perform hybrid street ballets in their daily lives through close public interactions. These findings suggest that while Dongda Street is an aging neighborhood, the survival of the original street pattern and old buildings has allowed the neighborhood to retain its historical flavor. Additionally, the moving in of creative industries and merchants injects new vitality into the neighborhood. These findings examine daily street life in the context of population contraction and help break the stereotypes of population contraction. • The interspersed urban renewal has allowed local residents to retain their original endogenous street ballet. • New residents gradually develop time-space routines in the streets, showcasing an exogenous street ballet. • Both groups jointly perform hybrid street ballets in their daily lives through close public interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential mobility has become an increasingly important issue in China, where urban families participate frenetically in the commodity housing market leading to soaring property prices. Applying place dependence approach and logistic regression models, this paper examines the association between residential mobility intentions and place dependence for employment and education in Beijing. The results reveal that people's intentions to move homes are driven by place dependence on the access to high-quality schools for their children, while the dependence for employment is rather weak. The findings indicate children's education has emerged as a new driving force that shapes urban space in contemporary China and therefore should be a focal point for planners and policy makers in urban resource distribution. This paper provides evidences to further our understanding of the high premium of properties that enable access to good schools. The needs for other spatial utilities and sentimental attachment to a place also encourage residential mobility intentions, which deserves further research. • Residential mobility intention was analyzed in Zhongguancun area in Beijing. • Influences of children's education and parents' employment were measured. • Children's education has emerged as a new driving force affecting residential choices. • Place dependence provides a useful lens to comprehend housing mobility in contemporary cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rust belt cities are a special but important phenomenon in the world's industrialization landscape and city development trajectory. This profile analyses the struggling process and revitalization initiatives of Harbin, which was the first city established after the liberation of China, featuring the largest land area and highest latitude among all Chinese cities. The remarkable history of urban and industrial development once made Harbin the cradle of manufacturing in China, strongly supported by national government with concentration of SOEs. The city however has been suffering during the transition to a market economy. Its transition is painfully challenged by the strong socialist legacies of SOEs. This paper emphasizes that the new initiatives of Harbin, based on local endowments, cold climate condition and geolocation, demonstrate great potential for successful revitalization. Such strategic choices provide experiences and alternatives for other rust belt cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic clusters have been recognised as important elements of urban and regional economic strategies, but their role in spatial planning is under-appreciated. This paper examines the initiatives and outcomes of economic clusters in relation to urban spatial planning in the periods of planned and market economies in China. Through an examination of the planning and development practices in Beijing, the effect of economic clusters in facilitating local growth and shaping urban spatial structure is revealed. The significance of economic clusters in achieving synergy between economic and spatial policies is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Although the scale and speed of China’s urban and economic transition is well acknowledged, a detailed account of the transformation of a single city’s development in this context is quite rare. This paper provides an insight into the recent dynamics of China’s capital city, Beijing. In the early 1980s, China’s transition process from a planned to a market economy started to deeply affect the urban economy of Beijing, so much so that the city is on its way to become one of the world’s leading cities. This article focuses on this development by looking at Beijing’s institutional context and its economic-spatial dynamics over the past 30years. Economic Clusters (ECs) are also discussed because they have contributed significantly to Beijing’s rapid growth and change. The city’s development is however under increasing pressures of ecological deterioration, limited water resources, high living costs and uncertainties regarding the future urban policy orientation of the city region. These current challenges and responses in planning are assessed and discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The notion of path dependence provides a useful perspective to understand the dynamics of industrial space. However, it is much developed on institutional and technological aspects. This paper proposes the idea of spatial path dependence, arguing that previous spatial distribution of economic activities and associated factors in a given industrial space shall affect current and future ones. Availing of big data technology, the spatial distribution is quantified, and spatial path dependence is examined by means of standard deviation ellipse and machine learning method for information service and its sub-sectors in Beijing during the periods of 2008 and 2013. The analysis shows an existence of spatial path dependence for those industries in the two periods. The dominant factors are screened out, which are differ in different sub-sectors and in different periods, but contribute to the same or similar spatial path. The findings call for the attention of the existing situation for industrial spatial planning, and new emerging "people-oriented" factors in influencing the spatial layout of information services industries. • Spatial path dependence is suggested. • Big data technology (BDT) offers new opportunities for industrial space analysis. • Uses case study of Beijing's information services industry development, 2008–2013. • Shows spatial path dependence in industry as whole, and among individual industry types. • Demonstrates value of BDT in identifying and examining spatial path dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the dynamic agglomeration economies through matching channel between human capital agglomeration, regional economic development, and housing prices. Using data from 31 Chinese provinces from 1999 to 2015, it employs a panel vector auto regression model to study the interactive relationships among these factors. Overall, the results show that human capital agglomeration has a positive long-term influence on housing prices and economic development, and has become a determinant of regional economic growth. Housing prices have a negative long-term influence on economic development. However, human capital accumulation responds positively to housing price in regions other than municipalities. These findings suggest that vie for talent through housing policy might not be effective in underdeveloped regions and could lead to misallocation of government fiscal resources. • Relations among human capital, housing price and economic growth are examined by panel VAR model. • Human capital affects regional economic through labor market effects. • Regional economic affects human capital through its agglomeration and matching. • Housing price affects human capital through wealth effects or crowd-out effects. • Housing price affects regional economic through industrial agglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the built environment and travel behavior has long been a hot research topic. However, most existing research focus on aggregate measures of the patterns of daily travel (e.g. vehicle miles travelled, total distance travelled), while the mechanisms and processes that lead to these outcomes are much less researched. We therefore propose an activity-based model that simulates people's detailed decision making in daily travel and the influences of the neighborhood-scale built environment throughout the process, using Beijing as the study case. More specifically, it deals with eight activity types, eleven most common activity plans, 652 traffic analysis zones, six time slots and four travel modes. The model is then applied to simulate how people's travel behavior would change in response to changes in the built environment. The simulation is implemented by changing the built environment conditions. The major advantage of the model lies in its ability to 'trace back' the influence of the built environment on aggregate travel outcomes to detailed travel aspects, such as activity frequency, travel distance for various purposes, mode choice, etc. The simulation results show that although compact design generally reduce VMT, the mechanisms of influence by different built environment variables vary, e.g. through a major impact on the mode choice or through distributed impacts on several travel aspects. • Propose an activity-based model that simulates the detailed influences of neighborhood-scale built environment on travel • The model can 'trace back' the influence of the built environment on aggregate travel outcomes to detailed travel aspects • Although compact design generally reduces car use, the mechanisms of influence by different built environment variables vary [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]