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Abstract Regional collaborative development mainly emphasizes the relationship and degree of connection between cities. Linkages among cities are more complex and diversified in the age of globalization, so that regional economic collaborative development has become even more important than ever. Domestic and foreign competition must be dealt with to enhance the comprehensive strengths of urban agglomeration. This study takes the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) as a representative case to analyze and evaluate the economic synergistic development capacities of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA). Location quotients and industrial structure similarity coefficients show that cities with high levels of economic development provide advantages for secondary and tertiary industries, while cities with relatively low economic development levels provide clearer advantages for primary industries. Regarding the movement of the economic barycenter from 2001 to 2016, the overall directional trend was towards the northwest cities. The strength of economic linkages between cities is closely related to distance, population, and levels of economic development. The degree of economic development directly affects the capacity of collaborative development among cities, which then influences the extent of regional collaborative development. Highlights • Yangtze River Delta (YRD) collaborative economic development is progressing. • Economic linkage strength is dependent on distance, population, and economic development levels. • Cities vary depending on primary, secondary, and tertiary development levels. • Development of tertiary industry is key to urban agglomeration. • Coordinated and integrated economic development is essential across industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable communities have been a substantial issue for urban studies worldwide. Population ageing is a major challenge for community development considering China's rapid urbanisation, which calls for the re-evaluation of the newly emerging trend of urban communities in China. This study aims to systematically investigate China's increasing focus on the older adult community through the practice of construction and governance, with an emphasis on how these new-type communities create a balanced multi-subject co-governance under the transformation of land use. Considering the Xiuye community in Songjiang District, Shanghai, as a case study, we innovatively introduce a general matrix of community spatiality to progressively propose the spatial production mechanism of community governance, thereby combining critical theory with human practice on the nature of space. The findings indicate that the triple concept of absolute, relative and relational spaces plays a vital role in understanding gated communities under uncertainties such as the recent pandemic. The historical residual problem of the nature of community industrial land is a key factor in producing multiple social contradictions; moreover, the agents of power and capital often exhibit evasive and immoral behaviour in major community affairs, and party member volunteers and authorised suppliers have made important contributions to the fight for residents' rights at all levels. The implications of this study are of great value for rethinking community space in the context of ageing, and governments and enterprises must undertake the required actions along with residents to reshape the current unstable multi-subject co-governance relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The space in the process of urbanization is undergoing a great transition from physical space to social space. The relations between society and space become more important and complicated than ever. As a critical social theory, production of space means that urbanization has been reshaped by social factors or forces like capital, power and class, so that the urban space finally becomes their production and process. Based on socio-spatial dialectic, the main methodology of spatial production, urban space (re)shapes social relations and processes. The different spatial scales have and continuously produce the different social relations. In the researches about production of space, little work has been done on the index system to assess the extent of production of space and to analyze middle-scale region. This article designs a set of simple index system to reflect the spatial influences of capital, power as well as class, and chooses Jiangsu Province as a typical case because of its rapid and differential urbanization to indicate the process of spatial production from 2000 to 2015. In this index system, capital is represented by fixed-asset investment, real estate investment and foreign direct investment; power is represented by the index of the constructed urban land area; the index reflecting class is the urban-rural income ratio. Based on the analysis of these changing indexes, this paper finds that urbanization in Jiangsu is hybrid process: the forces from capital and power greatly contribute to rapid urbanization and high urbanization level, however, the gaps among the three sub-regions in the province and rural-urban income inequality have not decreased accordingly. Conversely, these gaps enlarge in some periods. This kind of urbanization pattern is characterized by large-scale spatial expansion, and is driven by capital and power, but there are many latent social risks and spatial inequality. In the process of spatial production, space and society interact, entangle and (re)shape the pattern of urbanization in the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization, especially in many developing countries, is accompanied by the decline of rural populations and rural culture. Tangwan village in Shanghai in China is a typical case. Based on the theory of production of space, this article presents spatial production of rural culture from three dimensions: ideological space, superficial space and everyday life space, and analyzes the reasons for the gradual decline of rural culture. The development of rural culture in China is seriously affected by the national and local policies. The formal power of a place which is mainly represented by the administrative level, dominates many cultural changes. With the decline of Tangwan's position to a village in an urbanized Shanghai, its local rural culture is declining. Under the pattern of production of space dominated by power and capital the village is challenged to maintain its rural culture and to develop a new culture. The traditional rural culture cannot be protected, however, the new rural culture has not matured. The lack of everyday life space for village residents to express and develop culture is partly to blame. The culture is the root of the rural development. The lost culture leads to the lost village. Adequate everyday life space is important for rural culture to flourish and though those spaces need careful planning to accommodate and grow local cultural needs. • The revival of rural culture is the key to China's rural revitalization. • Rapid urbanization is accompanied by the decline of rural culture. • Under the pattern of production of space dominated by power, the village often lacks inheritance of rural culture. • The lost culture leads to the lost village. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]