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Through a questionnaire survey and semistructured interviews, this paper adopts a structural equation model to analyze the impact of official hospital WeChat accounts on urban residents' spatial perceptions and interactions with technology in Guangzhou, China. We find that official hospital WeChat accounts have a significant remodeling effect on urban residents' spatial behaviors and perceptions, mainly affecting the improvement in medical efficiency and the expansion of medical scope and convenience. Such accounts also reduce the psychological distance between urban residents and hospitals. Furthermore, online medical service platforms restructure urban residents' physical spatial movement, which is characterized by spatiotemporal compression and technical interaction. Spatiotemporal compression is manifested in the reduction in invalid time for residents in urban medical spaces and the expansion of the scope of medical treatment. Technical interaction is reflected in the mutual consultation and promotion between urban residents and technology. This paper aims to improve our understanding of the influence of technology on urban medical space and residents, and provides a reference for the optimization of urban space governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of South Architecture / Nanfang Jianzhu is the property of South Architecture Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Tactical Urbanism is a growing movement across the world in which individuals, communities, and municipalities are improving their cities by using short-term, lowcost, and small-scale interventions and policies to catalyze long term change. The aim of this paper is to test the principles and the approach of tactical urbanism to solve Guangzhou’s local public spaces problems by showcasing two tactical urbanism projects which have been completed in the Guangzhou urban context. These two cases reveal the opportunities that bottom-up approaches like tactical urbanism can build a bridge to conjunct with long term planning efforts and complete the top-down mechanisms. In the Zhusigang community case, we examine the spontaneously unplanned practices in the local community, which resemble “Tactical urbanism” principles, and their spatial appropriation and utilization of marginalised community spaces. We assess how and where daily activities are happening and what other amenities could be provide by temporarily introducing these activities into a local gallery space. In the former textile factory case, we present examples that make the case for temporary, flexible and experimental responses to urban vacant land, then conclude by outlining the potential benefits and drawbacks of this temporary use model. This paper explores the existing practices of appropriation and the potential of temporary occupation in the city and concludes with thoughts on how tactical urbanism, an international movement, might gain a foothold in the context of local Chinese communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canton (present-day Guangzhou) has long flourished as a port city. As the city expanded in the nineteenth century, the risks of conflagrations increased; streets became more crowded, buildings were more often made of wood, and there was more use of open fires. The reconstruction of Canton after conflagrations provides an excellent way to observe the resilience of urban space, understood here as the result of interactions among different stakeholders. This paper explores how authorities, local communities, foreigners, and Hong merchants addressed fires and rebuilt through laws, regulations, technologies and cooperation, and how responses to fire destruction shaped urban space. Divers stakeholders affected the reconstruction of buildings and streets. The government made laws to widen streets, communities built watchtowers, and foreigners made new plans for Thirteen Factories, a neigbhorhood along the Pearl River. At the same time, conflicts between communities and foreigners obstructed plans for urban transformation and maintained the stability of urban structures. The communities kept the traditional local community organizations the 'Kaifong' (local organization in street) who opposed the widening streets and fought against proposed fire zones around Thirteen Factories, thus pitching local interests against those of the foreigners in a complex social, political, and cultural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Guangdong Architecture Civil Engineering is the property of Guangdong Architecture Civil Engineering Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ecological Science is the property of Ecological Science Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Acta Scientiarum Naturalium Universitatis Sunyatseni / Zhongshan Daxue Xuebao is the property of Sun-Yat-Sen University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we measured the amount of urban green space (UGS), defined here as park greenery and street greenery, in the Guangzhou Beltway region using remote sensing image data and the green view index (GVI) based on human visual images. We also evaluated the benefits of UGS comprehensively considering park greenery and street greenery within the Guangzhou Beltway region. We then calculated the urban green space score (UGSS) by assessing the amount of street greenery and park greenery and then juxtaposing the score with the population distribution of the region. The results show inequities in the spatial distribution of UGSS values within the Guangzhou Beltway region. The benefit score of street greenery is low. The service area of parks can't cover the whole study area. The comprehensive benefit score of UGS is composed of two parts, the park greenery score and the street greenery score, but the spatial distribution of UGSS values remains uneven. The UGS benefits enjoyed by one-half of the population of the study area are low, and the UGSS values of the more densely populated areas are not high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of South Architecture / Nanfang Jianzhu is the property of South Architecture Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Geography & Geographic Information Science is the property of Geography & Geo-Information Science Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Contrary to existing literature analyzing how public spaces are strategic mobilization resources for activists, we focus on the inconspicuous constraints placed by the state on public spaces that limit their utility as mobilization resources. Employing the spatial dimensions of social movement theory and Althusser's state power theory analyze an activism case in Guangzhou, China, we argue that through everyday spatial governance by the state, public spaces in China are also forms of ideological state apparatuses that latently disrupt activists' attempts to engage in contentious spatial practices to gain resources through media coverage. We further propose the concept of 'spatial inertia', which are durable, routine, and diversified spatial meaning-making practices mediated through media coverage that affect the success of social movements. This paper complements social movement scholarship by examining how the state, through latent processes exercised using public spaces as ideological state apparatuses, competes with and subverts activists' efforts to use these spaces as strategic resources for collective mobilization, especially in authoritarian contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In public places, even if pedestrians do not have their mobile devices connected with any WiFi access point (AP), WiFi probe requests will be broadcast, so that WiFi sniffers can be employed to crowdsource these WiFi probe packets for use. This paper tackles the problem of exploiting the passive WiFi sensing approach for pedestrian flow analysis. To be specific, a passive WiFi sensing model is first established based on a probabilistic analysis of interactions between WiFi sniffers and the moving pedestrian flow, capturing the main factors affecting pedestrian flow characteristics. On that basis, a sequential filtering algorithm is proposed based on the Rao-Blackwellized particle filter (RBPF) to produce simultaneous and efficient estimates of the pedestrian flow speed and pedestrian number utilizing the real-time sniffing results. In order to validate this study, an experimental pedestrian surveillance system using WiFi sniffers is deployed at the transfer channel of a metro station in Guangzhou, China. Extensive experiments are conducted to verify the passive sensing model, and confirm the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed algorithm. The pedestrian flow estimation not only helps to improve the safety and facility management and customer services, but also paves the way for introducing other novel applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Guangdong Architecture Civil Engineering is the property of Guangdong Architecture Civil Engineering Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In contemporary China, public spaces are often sites for group leisure activities. In the last ten years, the most notable group leisure activity is Guangchangwu (广场舞) which translates as dancing in the public squares. It has become a unique leisure practice mainly for older women's participation in urban China. Guangchangwu (GGW) is a new form of daily leisure activity which has been overlooked by leisure scholars. By means of studying this unique leisure activity, this paper explores the spatial practice of older women engaged in GGW in the city of Guangzhou. Results reveal that older women engage in GGW to cope with the scarcity of public spaces, the commercialization of leisure spaces, the alienation of urban life, and the pervasive sense of meaninglessness amidst urbanization. Moreover, China's grooving grannies acquire many benefits from their participation in GGW, such as health benefits, self-actualization, intergenerational communication, and happiness; not to mention that, as a result of GGW's inclusivity, there is an increase on the sense of community, carnival atmosphere, and acceptance of diverse performers. Therefore, this study contributes to both leisure research and public research from a cross-cultural perspective, and shows that older women use GGW to practice and reconstruct their identities by embedding themselves within public spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Civilisations is the property of Institut de Sociologie - ULB and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While urban redevelopment has been a global phenomenon for many decades, the redevelopment of urban villages (villages-in-the-city or c hengzhongcun) in China has attracted increasing scholarly attention in recent years. However, few studies focus on urban planning forces and their impacts on the redevelopment of urban villages, especially the transformation of open spaces. This paper therefore examines how urban planning transforms the space of urban villages through a case study of Yangji Village in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province. The large increase in public spaces related to the transformation of Yangji results from collaborative governance driven by trends in urbanization and the work of urban planners. The latter are empowered by their strategic use of state support, professional knowledge and public interest incentives. However, in the Yangji redevelopment, as a state-hegemonic project, such planner-led collaborative governance remains limited in scope amid the exclusion of migrant tenants from decision-making. Although rarely regarded in the literature as playing a key role in redeveloping urban villages, this paper highlights urban planners as a salient force in the morphology of urban villages. Without challenging the hegemonic substance of urban village redevelopment, planners can coordinate with and occasionally manipulate other stakeholders to legitimate and facilitate negotiation during physical planning. Hence, redeveloped urban forms, rather than stakeholders' economic profits in short-term redevelopment, may influence urban lives in the long term due to planners' efforts. • Multiple stakeholders form collaborative governance in the physical planning of Yangji Village redevelopment to increase much open space. • The collaborative dynamics in the physical planning are built upon stakeholders' trust, fostered through informal meetings, led by planners, and fundamentally driven by urbanization. • Such collaborative governance is limited, largely due to the exclusion of migrant tenants. • Planners define the field of urban form beyond economic profit to improve redevelopment without challenging neoliberal and authoritarian hegemony. • State support, professional knowledge, and public interest ensure planners' leading role in collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban village regeneration has been considered an effective way to achieve the vision of transforming the arrival cities in China to affordable cities. However, the existing research into urban village regeneration does not pay enough attention to the group of rural migrants, and the dynamic process of their participation is indistinct. With a theoretical underpinning of the conception of Arrival City and Affordable City and the ladder theory of participation, this paper attempts to understand the practices of rural migrants' participation in urban village regeneration and, more importantly, to unpack the underlying mysteries of the transition process from arrival cities to affordable cities in China. The paper finds that rural migrants are involved in urban village regeneration indirectly, as opposed to directly or not participating at all. Before a regeneration project take places, they are expelled and ostracised by the alliance of "government-developer-villager" because of their informal identities. After the project, middle-class migrants lived in the regenerated urban villages but suffered from social exclusion. Most of the migrants gather in the newer urban villages or form new arrival cities in the urban periphery, resulting in potential social conflicts and a vicious cycle of "regeneration – migration – regeneration – migration". The vision is realised only in the environment and discourses from the alliance, but not in terms of rural migrants. China's urban transition from arrival cities to affordable cities is incomplete and one-sided. This transition, guided as it is by the existing mechanism of urban village regeneration, undermines social equity and causes social conflicts, which is not sustainable. These findings and proposed corresponding suggestions can serve as valuable references for the practices of public participation in urban regeneration that are underway in developing countries or where there is eagerness to transition effectively from arrival cities to affordable cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the quality of public space has become significant for urban development, the creation of high-quality public spaces is becoming increasingly important. Since the implementation of urban renewal policies, an increasing number of buildings have emerged, creating new types of public spaces. Compared to original public spaces, new public spaces are more open, flexible, and diverse. The design of public spaces is closely related to users and the flâneur can precisely serve as a user and observer to conduct in-depth research. So, our study was conducted under the identity of the flâneur, focusing on two cases in Guangzhou. The flâneur completes the data collection through two methods. Static research involves observing and taking photos, whereas dynamic research involves interviews and questionnaires. This study analysed three aspects: the group category, behavioural diversity, and activity time and evaluated the public space using the NPS scale. The study found that the recommendation rate of new urban public spaces is higher than that of original public spaces. The study also found that original public spaces need to be improved in four ways: equipping furniture facilities, improving traffic congestion, increasing blue-green spaces, and establishing artistic spaces. New urban public spaces need to make efforts to create more interactive spaces and increase stagnation points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The public participation process in the renovation of urban villages should not only ensure procedural justice but also guide the affective integration of residents. This paper explores the public's perception of the participation space and the process of affective construction based on a visual study of the Luofeng village renovation in Guangzhou. The aim is to elucidate how the space can be employed to create an affective atmosphere as a strategy for the renovation. The study reveals that participants focused on visual symbols carrying the narrative of daily life, evoking a positive emotional response to these elements. The public participation space successfully establishes a homey atmosphere and achieves the affective reproduction of residents through the creation of its physical environment, residents' embodied practices within it, and negotiated interactions among different subjects. Drawing on the case study, we advocate for the public participation process in urban village renovation to consider residents' embodied affective experiences. It provides a practical model that surpasses mere representation, with the intention of offering a reference for sustainable urban renewal. • The renovation of urban villages needs the affective integration of the residents. • Affective atmosphere creation provides a strategy for public participation. • Residents focus on the visual symbols that carry the narrative of everyday life. • To provide a practical pattern of public participation for urban renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Guangzhou’s experience of hosting the 2010 Asian Games to illustrate Guangzhou’s engagement with scalar politics. This includes concurrent processes of intra-regional restructuring to position Guangzhou as a central city in south China and a ‘negotiated scale-jump’ to connect with the world under conditions negotiated in part with the overarching strong central state, testing the limit of Guangzhou’s geopolitical expansion. Guangzhou’s attempts were aided further by using the Asian Games as a vehicle for addressing condensed urban spatial restructuring to enhance its own production/accumulation capacities, and for facilitating urban redevelopment projects to achieve a ‘global’ appearance and exploit the city’s real estate development potential. Guangzhou’s experience of hosting the Games provides important lessons for expanding our understanding of how regional cities may pursue their development goals under the strong central state and how event-led development contributes to this. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Urban green spaces provide very important environmental and social services. Their dynamic changes are driven by a combination of natural and socioeconomic factors. However, the coupling mechanism of these factors has not been systematically studied. In this study, we examined dynamic characteristics of green space in Guangzhou from different zoning perspectives and explored the regional heterogeneity of the individual and interactive effects of driving factors using the geographic detector. The results showed that (1) from 2000 to 2020, the annual change rate of green space area in the central area was more apparent than that in the suburban areas. The fragmentation of green space in the near suburbs had increased. (2) Changes in green space were influenced by the combination of topography, climate, and socioeconomic development. From 2010 to 2020, the expansion of built-up land and GDP growth gradually had a substantial effect on the change in green space in the central area and the near suburbs. (3) The q-values of the interaction detections of the geodetector showed that the explanatory power of most factor interactions exceeded that of individual factors. Green space in the central area was primarily influenced by the interaction of economic and built-up land expansion. In contrast, green space in the near suburbs was mainly influenced by the interaction of urban expansion and topography and climate. Green space in the far suburbs was mainly affected by climate factors and human activity intensity. The results and methods of this study can provide decision support for the zoning planning of urban green space system in other cities or regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographically-distributed urban environment contexts affect human psychological wellbeing through the real-time interactions between individuals and their surroundings. Recent field experiments have become particularly interesting in using wearable devices for tracking episodic changes in wellbeing outcomes. However, most research primarily contribute to correlate unconscious physiological arousal with single environmental feature, ignoring the contextualized environment neural psychological effects at the brain level. This paper studies the effects of walking exposures to various urban environment contexts on neural physiological and psychological parameters relevant to mental health in women cohorts. We measure neural physiological parameters using a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) monitoring approach to detect brain activity variability during a journey-based field experiment, and perceived psychological wellbeing outcomes are measured through emotional questionnaires. A group of 10 healthy women walked across dense and diverse urban settings in Guangzhou, China. We have identified the beneficial effects of blue-green spaces and open spaces on psychological wellbeing, as well as their underlying neurophysiological mechanisms that exhibit localized context differentiation. Additional results quantify evidence in support of spatial typology and travel sequence-based uncertainties as underlying channels at work. Our study provide a walking-oriented investigation model of locally contextualized mental health effects, and expand explanatory method for walking mental health. It also suggests the importance of conceptualizing landscape complementarities in planning policies that help to improve the interaction between wellbeing and localized environmental exposures. • Experiment is applied through a combination of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) monitoring devices and questionnaires. • Significant increases in physiological and psychological responses when exposing to urban green and open spaces. • A locally contextualized channel is observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of South Architecture / Nanfang Jianzhu is the property of South Architecture Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Spatial heterogeneity is an essential feature of land use change. It is important for cellular automata (CA)-based urban expansion modeling to consider the spatial heterogeneity of neighborhood effect. According to the first law of geography, there exists a distance decay effect in the neighborhood space of the urban CA models. But no research has ever been able to accurately quantify the neighborhood decay effect and apply it to models. In this study, we propose a methodology to accurately quantify the neighborhood decay effect of CA models with large neighborhood size, including the design of neighborhood configuration and the selection and optimization of decay strategies. Taking Wuhan and Guangzhou as examples, we show the implementation process of the methodology and simulate urban expansion of two areas for the periods 2000–2010 and 2010–2015 by CA models with distance decay neighborhood to reveal the advantages and characteristics of modeling the neighborhood decay effect. The results show that the simulation accuracy of CA models with the spatial heterogeneous neighborhood and the hybrid neighborhood (HYN) is higher than that of CA models with homogeneous neighborhood, and in most cases, the HYN can more accurately describe the neighborhood decay effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the mechanism of public perception and behavior towards environmental goods provision is essential for effective sustainable governance. This paper studies how citizens' self-reported environmental knowledge affects their trust in public service providers and subsequently their decisions about accepting the provision of a pollution management facility in their neighborhood. Utilizing unique survey data on the siting of a facility for waste incineration in Guangzhou, China, we find that the public's perceived environmental knowledge damages their trust in the operator, which lowers their acceptance of the facility siting, while damage to their trust in the government is negligible. In addition, we find that citizens' preferences for the type of information disclosed and the channels used for disclosure can affect public trust and thus acceptance of the facility siting. Therefore, policy suggestions for urban planning for sustainability are that the urban planner and policy maker can mitigate the negative consequences of bounded environmental knowledge by ensuring there is appropriate information disclosure. This study broadens our understanding of public recognition and acceptance of environmental goods provision and provides practical suggestions for sustainable development. • Bounded knowledge damages public acceptance on MSW facility sitting. • Citizens' environmental knowledge affects their trust in public service providers. • Public trust mediates the relationship between knowledge and facility acceptance. • Citizens' preferred information type and channels affect the public trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban green spaces (UGSs) can meet the spiritual and cultural needs of citizens and provide various ecosystem services. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the utilization of UGSs has been affected in various countries worldwide. This study considered 13 UGSs in Guangzhou, China, as examples. It obtained user check-in data by sampling the check-in pages of Sina Weibo locations using a Python-based web crawler program. The study was conducted for 731 days from 1 October 2019 to 30 September 2021, during different phases of the pandemic. Based on automated Chinese corpus recognition technology, statistical results were obtained after periodization and sentiment calculation. The study assessed the pandemic's impact on the use of UGSs by analyzing the time, frequency, and emotions of residents visiting UGSs. The study concluded that the emotions of UGS users during COVID-19 tended to be positive. They tended to choose UGSs with low expected population density and visited UGSs on weekdays. Additionally, the religious attributes of UGSs also influenced their utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused panic and chaos that modern society has never seen before. Despite their paramount importance, the transmission routes of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 remain unclear and a point of contention between the various sectors. Recent studies strongly suggest that COVID-19 could be transmitted via air in inadequately ventilated environments. The present study investigates the possibility of the aerosol transmission of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and illustrates the associated environmental conditions. The main objective of the current work is to accurately predict the time duration of getting an infection while sharing an indoor space with a patient of COVID-19 or similar viruses. We conducted a 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based investigation of indoor airflow and the associated aerosol transport in a restaurant setting, where likely cases of airflow-induced infection of COVID-19 caused by asymptomatic individuals were reported in Guangzhou, China. The Eulerian–Eulerian flow model coupled with the k-Ɛ turbulence approach was employed to resolve complex indoor processes, including human respiration activities, such as breathing, speaking, and sneezing. The predicted results suggest that 10 minutes are enough to become infected with COVID-19 when sharing a Table with coronavirus patients. The results also showed that although changing the ventilation rate will improve the quality of air within closed spaces, it will not be enough to protect a person from COVID-19. This model may be suitable for future engineering analyses aimed at reshaping public spaces and indoor common areas to face the spread of aerosols and droplets that may contain pathogens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban public space is a product of contestations by various actors. This paper focuses on the conflict between local level government and beggars to address the questions: How and why do government actors refuse or allow beggars access to public space? How and why do beggars appropriate public space to receive alms and adapt their strategies? How does this contestation contribute to the trends of urban public space in today's China? Taking the Southern metropolis of Guangzhou as a case study, I argue that beggars contest expulsion from public space through begging performances. Rising barriers of public space require higher investment in these performances, taking even more resources from the panhandling poor. The trends of public order are not unidirectional, however. Beggars navigate between several contextual borders composed by China's religious renaissance; the discourse on deserving, undeserving, and dangerous beggars; and the moral legitimacy of the government versus the imagination of a successful, "modern," and "civilised" city. This conflict shows the everyday production of "spaces of representation" by government actors on the micro level where economic incentives merge with aspirations for political prestige. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is woven into the fabric of territorial demarcation between rural and urban space, which shapes people's life chances. Grounded in the study of rural-urban and local/non-local inequalities, we explore the identity constructions of people-in-between – rural local villagers (commonly named "urban villagers") in chengzhongcun (villages-in-the-cities). Based on in-depth interviews and participant observations in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, we found stereotypes of rural local people's as ill-mannered and lazy; yet economically well-off. Women and men who considered themselves rural locals challenge the stereotype by drawing upon the gender- and class-appropriate understandings of their identities. Rural local women crafted a "model woman discourse" by emphasizing their traditional Chinese feminine traits, othering rural migrants for manipulating sex for upward mobility, and criticizing urban women for being too assertive in relation to men. Some rural local men, in contrast, created a subculture that defined their version of success; others embraced urban masculinity. In any case, the processes of identity construction often reinforce stereotypes based on rural/urban and local/non-local divide, class, and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rich literature has examined the impact of the built environment on commuting distance. Linear models assume that the influence of the built environment is spatially homogeneous. However, given the spatial heterogeneity of urban space, conclusions might be different or even be contrary. The influence of the built environment might also be different by home and work locations. To explore the spatially heterogeneous effect of the built environment from both home-based and work-based perspectives, this study applied large-scale cellular cellphone data in Guangzhou, China. Commuting was measured by decay parameters of probabilistic distributions of commuting distances. Geographically weighted regression models were applied to examine the spatially heterogeneous effect, differentiated by home-based and work-based perspectives. Results confirmed that the impact of the built environment on commuting distance is spatially heterogeneous. The urban space is classified into clusters of central areas, inner suburbs, and outer suburbs. Results also revealed the double-edged effect of the built environment. Residential population, recreation facilities, and mixed development are residence-attractive factors that increase the home-based commuting distance and decrease the work-based commuting distance. Work population and transport facilities are work-attractive factors that decrease home-based commuting distance and increase work-based commuting distance. The results further provide evidence to support area-based policies in urban planning practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exponential growth and shrinkage of cities are two opposing trends in urban development. In this study, we analyze spatial growth and shrinkage at the regional level. We use the Guangzhou–Foshan region to identify the pattern and process of growth and shrinkage in the region with particular focus on cross-border areas. Specifically, we focus on how addressing shrinkage led to changes in urban planning with an in-depth discussion of its formation mechanism and the introduction of planning strategies. From the changes in light results during the period from 1985 to 2017 of the Guangzhou–Foshan region, stable areas are mainly concentrated in the old urban areas built before 2000, the largest urban area is of continuous growth type in line with the characteristics of urban expansion, and the area of shrinkage is small but concentrated in the cross-border areas. Particularly, since the 2008 financial crisis, extensive changes have been noted in the cross-border areas where such growing and shrinking areas coexist. Regional integration and the optimization of urban space would be effective methods to confront shrinkage. The findings may provide some reference for the urban shrinkage phenomenon that occurs in cross-border areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the social interactions and social relations generated by older women in the urban public leisure spaces of Guangzhou, China. The intent is to explore the identity of older women in daily leisure spaces. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and non-participatory observation and then were analysed to explore the relation among identification, leisure spaces, and interaction. The study shows the older women's need for self-fulfilment and social interaction, as well as the need to fill emptiness are generally unfulfilled because of the alienation of urban life – the citizens share a common sense of loneliness and senselessness. Nevertheless, the inclusiveness, openness, and group honour of urban public spaces offers a good complement to the sense of isolation. In the specific socio-cultural background of Guangzhou, older women reshape or strengthen their identities through multiple factors to achieve a strong sense of belonging in daily leisure spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential mobility can be conceptualized as an outcome of a choice process exercised under complex institutional and personal constraints. China's rather unique pattern of housing market segmentation under market transition impinges directly on residential location and relocation. Drawing upon data from a sample survey, this paper analyzes the pattern of residential moves resulting from commodity housing construction in a major Chinese city, Guangzhou. Most moves are of short distance, although the general direction is towards the urban periphery. Danweisand the municipal housing bureau, rather than the market per se, are the primary driving forces behind suburbanization in China today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: According to the partial smoke-free legislation implemented on 1 September 2010 in Guangzhou, China, smoke-free did not cover all indoor areas. Some places have a full smoking ban (100 % smoke-free), other places have a partial smoking ban, and homes have no ban. This study aimed to compare the smoking behaviors before and after implementation of a smoke-free legislation.Method: A repeated cross-sectional survey was conducted on smoking-related behaviors with a total of 4,900 respondents before, and 5,135 respondents after the legislation was instituted. For each wave of the survey, a three-stage stratified sampling process was used to obtain a representative sample. Pearson's Chi-square test was used to determine differences of smoking prevalence and quit ratio between the two samples. Logistic regression models were used to examine the associations of a smoke-free legislation with smoking behaviors.Results: The overall daily smoking rate declined significantly from 20.8 % to 18.2 % (p < 0.05), especially among those aged 15-24 years. The quit ratios increased significantly (from 14.5 % to 17.9 %), but remained low among 15-44 year olds. The overall self-reported smoking behaviors in locations with a full smoking ban decreased significantly from 36.4 % to 24.3 % with the greater drops occurring in cultural venues, public transport vehicles, and government offices. Smoking in places with partial smoking bans remained high (89.6 % vs. 90.4 %), although a slight decrease was observed in some of these areas. The implementation of a smoke-free legislation did not lead to more smoking in homes (91.0 % vs 89.4 %), but smoking in homes remained high.Conclusions: These findings highlight the urgent need for a comprehensive smoke-free legislation covering all public places in Guangzhou, simultaneously educational interventions and campaigns promoting voluntary changes in home smoking need to occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the issues of emplacement, displacement, dichotomy, and process in urban spaces of Guangzhou, China. The author recommends that the notion of "displacement" must be reexamined in the context of entrenchment and volatility in the village enclaves in Guangzhou. Rural-urban spatiality and cultural diversity among villagers, migrants, and urbanites are discussed.

Numerous studies have been devoted to uncovering the characteristics of resident density and urban mobility with multisource geospatial big data. However, little attention has been paid to the internal diversity of residents such as their occupations, which is a crucial aspect of urban vibrancy. This study aims to investigate the variation between individual and interactive influences of built environment factors on occupation mixture index (OMI) with a novel GeoDetector-based indicator. This study first integrated application (App) use and mobility patterns from cellphone data to portray residents' occupations and evaluate the OMI in Guangzhou. Then, the mechanism of OMI distribution was analyzed with the GeoDetector model. Next, an optimized GeoDetector-based index, interactive effect variation ratio (IEVR) was proposed to quantify the variation between individual and interactive effects of factors. The results showed that land use mixture was the dominating factor, and that land use mixture, building density, floor area ratio, road density affected the OMI distribution directly. Some interesting findings were uncovered by IEVR. The influences of cultural inclusiveness and metro accessibility were less important in factor detector result, while they were found to be the most influential in an indirect way interacting with other built environment factors. The results suggested that both "hardware facilities" (land use mixture, accessibility) and "soft facilities" (cultural inclusiveness) should be considered in planning a harmonious urban employment space and sustainable city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]