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In the course of China's rapid urbanization, rural places are brought into urban areas, forming semi-urbanization. These semi-urbanized sites suggest a dual urban–rural structure in their form and management. With the slowing down of urbanization, the Chinese government adopted heritage tourism to boost the local economy. Local historic buildings and cultural resources were regenerated and restored in this process. This paper aims at examining the role of heritage tourism in blurring the boundary of rurality and urbanity, boosting local economy, and revitalizing the areas with cultural-led development. In this paper, we analyzed the Huangpu Ancient Village's regeneration process. We argue that the Huangpu Ancient Village integrates local historical and cultural resources to boost the local economy, simultaneously adopting urban renewal and rural revival strategies. This paper contributes to the body of literature addressing villages in urban areas, breaking the duality of urbanity and rurality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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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.)

This paper examines the influence of major events on urban development and change across two city contexts (i.e. Guangzhou and Birmingham). Considering cities as new international actors, a theoretical modal was proposed, and qualitative evidence was gathered to examine the cities' decision to bid for the hosting of the 2010 Asian Games and the 2022 Commonwealth Games respectively, the urban development–related pressures faced, and the ways in which urban development occurred as a result of event production. In response to intercity competition and globalisation, both cities fought for development opportunities and actively sought international and national attention through major events. However, urban governance becomes complicated, in terms of managing city–market–society relations; as such, particularly for Guangzhou, it led the city government to adopt an entrepreneurial approach to urban governance. This study suggests future research interrogating whether major events provide a sustainable means to achieve urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a development form of the creative industry, the Artist Village is a high concern of the Chinese government, and it has achieved rapid developments in China in recent years. However, many Artist Villages come to an untimely end a short period after their birth and fail to realize sustainable development. In this study, an empirical analysis on 80 Artist Villages in China was carried out. A field investigation and research on eight Artist Villages was implemented. Attention was paid to thoroughly analyze three typical Artist Villages of Guangzhou Xiaozhou Artist Village, Chongqing Gujianshan Artist Village and Beijing Songzhuang Artist Village. It has been found from studies that the development of Artist Villages in China has experienced initiation, development and maturity stages. The development of Artist Villages in China generally has many problems, such as an insufficient endogenous impetus, the excessive intervention of government, market capital "squeezing out" the original artists, and so on. This paper proposed a sustainable development model for Artist Villages during urbanization in China based on the findings and conclusions of this study. This study not only enriches research contents in this field, but can also provide meaningful references for the sustainable development of Artist Villages in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the largest carbon emitter in the world, China is facing increasing challenge to reduce CO2 emissions. Given this issue, exploring the influencing factors is of great significance for scientific low-carbon emission policymaking. Although previous literature has explored the effects of urbanization on CO2 emissions, the impact of the space of flow on urban carbon emissions have been less explored. Due to the increasing connection between cities, its impact on urban carbon emissions cannot be ignored. Thus, this paper takes the space of flows into account as an aspect of urbanization to supplement the existing literature and empirically examines the multiple effects of urbanization on CO2 emissions in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) urban agglomeration. By using a STIRPAT model, statistical data, and web crawler data, we examined impacts of different types of urbanization on CO2 emissions. Our empirical results show that: (1) Within the PRD urban agglomeration, urban linkage intensity is strongly connected to urban socioeconomic growth, establishing a geographical structure with Guangzhou and Shenzhen as the double core. (2) Our results show that urbanization exerts two opposite effects on CO2 emissions: positively connects carbon emissions with population urbanization, integrated urban linkage flow, and energy intensity, whereas economic urbanization and social urbanization are shown to be negatively correlated. However, spatial urbanization has no significant positive effect on urban CO2 emissions. (3) It is worth noting that urban linkage flows are the second most important factor affecting urban carbon emissions after economic urbanization. Our study could formulate effective planning suggestions for future CO2 emission reduction paths and development modes in the PRD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wholesale clearance and eviction that typify China's urban development have often resulted in discontents among urban residents, giving rise to what critics refer to as property rights activism. This paper is an attempt to critically revisit the existing debates on the property rights activism in China. The paper refers to the perspective of the 'right to the city' to examine whose rights count in China's urban development contexts and proposes a cross-class alliance that engages both migrants and local citizens. The alliance itself will have substantial political implications, overcoming the limited level of rights awareness that mainly rests on distributional justice in China. The discussions are supported by an analysis of empirical data from the author's field research in Guangzhou, which examines how local and non-local (migrant) residents view nail-households resisting demolition and forced eviction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rainfall and runoff relationship becomes an intriguing issue as urbanization continues to evolve worldwide. In this paper, we developed a simulation model based on the soil conservation service curve number (SCS-CN) method to analyze the rainfall-runoff relationship in Guangzhou, a rapid growing metropolitan area in southern China. The SCS-CN method was initially developed by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and is one of the most enduring methods for estimating direct runoff volume in ungauged catchments. In this model, the curve number (CN) is a key variable which is usually obtained by the look-up table of TR-55. Due to the limitations of TR-55 in characterizing complex urban environments and in classifying land use/cover types, the SCS-CN model cannot provide more detailed runoff information. Thus, this paper develops a method to calculate CN by using remote sensing variables, including vegetation, impervious surface, and soil (V-I-S). The specific objectives of this paper are: (1) To extract the V-I-S fraction images using Linear Spectral Mixture Analysis; (2) To obtain composite CN by incorporating vegetation types, soil types, and V-I-S fraction images; and (3) To simulate direct runoff under the scenarios with precipitation of 57mm (occurred once every five years by average) and 81mm (occurred once every ten years). Our experiment shows that the proposed method is easy to use and can derive composite CN effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interplay between key stakeholders in urban development is one of the key concerns in contemporary international theory on urbanism and planning. This paper seeks to contribute to this concern, addressing the interplay between three key stakeholders (the state, the market and society) in the bottom-up planning processes of Tangxia Village, a typical 'village in the city' in Guangzhou, China. The mosaic spatial structure of Tangxia Village has been produced and overlapped by different planning processes, each created by various key stakeholders. The socio-spatial structure of the traditional rural settlement formed the basic layer of Tangxia Village, while newly added layers have resulted largely from the intertwining of regulated city development and unregulated self-development. Recently, a bottom-up process has generated a wide range of attention, as it has functioned very well in reshaping the space in Tangxia Village. This paper concludes that the integration of bottom-up processes and micro-strategies would strengthen the performance and efficiency of redevelopment strategies for Tangxia Village. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now a substantial literature on various aspects of contemporary Chinese urbanization. There are, however, few recent studies of Chinese cities which examine social change and social interaction at the level of the urban neighbourhood. This paper seeks to fill some of this gap in current knowledge. It draws on a social survey of three contrasting neighbourhoods undertaken in Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta, one of the most economically dynamic and rapidly urbanizing areas in the world. The paper explores inter alia the meaning of neighbourhood, sense of local belonging and community, and patterns and incidence of mutual assistance. The paper reflects on the extent to which market reforms are transforming patterns of local social interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The middle class in metropolitan Chinese cities has become an important social group. With the rapid development of urbanization and constant advancement of suburbanization, the middle class has increasingly come to influence city traffic. Research into middle-class commuting activities thus has practical significance for improving traffic congestion and reducing the commuting burden in metropolitan cities. Based on a dataset formed by 816 completed surveys, this paper analyzes the commuting mode, time and distance of middle-class residents in Guangzhou City using the descriptive statistical method. The results indicate that private cars are the main commuting mode, followed by public transport. Meanwhile, middle-class residents mainly undertake medium-short time and medium- short distance commuting. The study subsequently uses multilevel logistic regression and multiple linear regression models to analyze the factors that influence commuting mode choice, time and distance. The gender, age, number of family cars, housing source and jobs-housing balance are the most important factors influencing commuting mode choice; housing, population density, jobs-housing balance and commuting mode significantly affect commuting time; and transport accessibility, jobs-housing balance and commuting mode are the notable factors affecting commuting distance. Finally, this paper analyzes what is affecting the commuting activities of middle-class residents and determines the differences in commuting activity characteristics and influence factors between middle-class and ordinary residents. Policy suggestions to improve urban planning and urban management are also proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing the trajectory and mechanism of rural industrial change is important for understanding urban–rural integration and facilitating rural revitalization. Based on the data of industrial enterprises in 1112 administrative villages of Guangzhou, China, from 1978 to 2020, we identify the evolution trend of rural industry by investigating the spatial–temporal dynamics of industrial changes in rural areas. An extended triple-process framework incorporating urbanization and greenization was employed to unravel the underlying mechanism of the trajectory of rural industrialization. The results highlight the transformation from rural to suburban industrialization. In the past twenty years, rapid urbanization has contributed to the establishment of development zones. The agglomeration economy has led to a higher concentration of manufacturing industries in these development zones rather than rural areas. The eco-friendly development has resulted in a green transition in rural areas, further restricting the growth of traditional rural industries. Our analysis provides a nuanced picture of Guangzhou's spatial–temporal dynamics of rural and suburban industrialization. Meanwhile, it emphasizes the importance of urbanization and greenization in explaining the recent transformation of industrialization in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new millennium signified a new phase in the development zone-oriented suburbanization of China. Spurred by a new round of urban development strategies, development zones in many large cities face a need for enormous transformations and re-development. These areas have often been compared with the Western concept of “edge cities”, although in this paper we argue that this “imported” concept, in practice, bears little resemblance to the actual development tendencies in China. Taking a comparative approach, this paper presents a critical examination of edge urban formations in the Chinese context, and identifies the major differences between the concept in China and the United States. Drawing upon a case study of Nansha in Guangzhou, the unique paths and underlying dynamics driving these transformations are revealed. It is concluded that Chinese edge urban areas are being transformed from mono-function development zones into new fully functional cities. A city in China like Nansha reveals the dynamics of both state interventions and local actions in boosting the polycentric economies of large city regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As with many cities in China experiencing rapid urbanisation, Guangzhou is undergoing a specific form of urban development characterised by the engulfing of rural settlements: a process resulting in the so-called village in the city. This paper uses three modes of economic integration (redistribution, market exchange and reciprocity) as a framework to examine the interrelationship of various development issues and conditions of these villages. It shows that the poor integration in the spheres of state redistribution and formal market exchange pushes migrants to focus on survival strategies that relate to the self-organisation of housing, employment and education. It also makes a critical review of several (re)development projects, each relating to one or more of the different modes of economic integration. This paper concludes that new project approaches that organise a productive interplay between market exchange, redistribution and reciprocity are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China has experienced and is experiencing expeditious urban expansion in the recent decades, especially in the coastal areas and big cities. Rapid urban expansion and dramatic changes of landscape have caused great economic, environmental and social impacts consequently. It is crucial to understand urban temporal, spatial expansion patterns and their related effects. In this paper, urban expansion of Guangzhou, a rapid growing city in south-east China, from 1979 to 2003 is studied temporally and spatially. Four time ranges including 1979-1990, 1990-1995, 1995-2000 and 2000-2003 are designed and the urban expansion area, expansion rate and the spatial expansion pattern are discussed by using remote sensing data and Geographical Information System (GIS) tool. Two transects are designed along two axes of Guangzhou expansion and the structural of urban expansion patches at different orientations are compared in order to quantitively understand the urban expansion of Guangzhou during the past 24 years. The gradient analysis integrating multi-temporal data is performed in order to analyze and compare the spatial and temporal dynamics of urban expansion. Two indices of compactness and fractal dimensional index are used to describe the urban developing pattern in the study time durations. And the influence of different types of traffic roads to urban expansion is evaluated using the buffer analysis of GIS. The results show that: (1) temporally, urban area of Guangzhou increase 296.54 km2 from 141.15 km2 in 1979 to 437.70 km2 in 2003 and the increasing rate is up to 210.08%; (2) spatially, Guangzhou has different urban expanding directions in different stages and the general expanding directions are towards northeast, north, southeast and north in four studied time ranges; (3) transportation lines play a very important role in urban expansion of Guangzhou, but different types of road have different impacts. National roads and highways exhibit stronger control to urban expansion than provincial roads; and (4) expansion of Guangzhou has gradually changed from a compact pattern to leapfrogging and disordering patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social and spatial patterns of ageing population in urban China illuminate the influence of the socioeconomic transformation associated with the dual economic system. Guangzhou, one of China's megacities, is used as a case study in this paper. Data from the 2010 National Census were used to examine the spatial differentiation and the related factors of ageing communities in Guangzhou. Using social area analysis, the study identified six categories of ageing communities: traditional inner-city communities, traditional danwei residential communities, commercial housing ageing communities, danwei compound ageing communities, immigrant ageing communities, and rural ageing communities. The paper analyses the reasons and processes leading to the clustering of the elderly population in each category of areas associated with distinctive spatial patterns of ageing differentiation. These patterns suggest that the socio-spatial differentiation of ageing communities is a joint outcome of urban development, housing policies, personal status and family relationships. The dynamics of both ageing in place and ageing with migration had a dual impact on the spatial, social and ecological patterns of ageing communities. The spatial differentiation of ageing communities in the study area should be taken into account when formulating urban planning and public policies. In addition, a dynamic public facility and service allocation system is also necessary to meet the needs associated with evolving socio-spatial urban restructuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With China’s rapid urbanisation driving its growing economy, the enlarging socio-spatial inequalities in the cities have received wide attention. Rather than following the largely studied residential spaces, this paper focuses on socio-spatial differentiation based on the spaces of one’s out-of-home activities. Using data of 1006 individuals collected by door to door questionnaires, this paper sets up the spatial and temporal autocorrelation GT coefficient to examine the spatial heterogeneity characteristics of high- and low income groups’ out-of-home activities in a continuous spatiotemporal framework. The factors and different mechanisms influencing the clustering of the activities are discussed to better understand social diversity in post-reform urban China. The results suggest that there is obvious spatial and temporal variation in high- and low income groups’ out-of-home activities, indicating that differing social spaces are not just limited to the macro-static residence-based living space, but also exist in the individual’s daily-activities space. Both high- and low income people have drastically different activity spaces and they may not interact much with each other. This is socially very significant because it means that there is considerable social isolation or segregation for both groups. The results also show that within the same income group there exists a divisive cluster with different formation mechanisms, including the job–housing relationship, the correlation of activity opportunities with those surrounding residential areas and the individual’s ability to access activities (that is, space–time accessibility). Structural transition can also impact on activities choices of various social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract With the deepening of housing reform, housing mobility and residential differentiation in urban China are on the rise. Extant studies on residential satisfaction and relocation intention tend to focus on rural to urban relocation, while little is known about their interactions in the context of urban China. This study attempts to fill this void by offering an updated and detailed account of intra-urban relocation, and by unravelling the complex mechanism and interactions between residential satisfaction and relocation against a general background of residential differentiation. Based on a questionnaire survey in three types of neighborhoods representative of the dominant residential patterns in contemporary Chinese cities, namely traditional inner city neighborhoods, urban villages and commodity housing estates, this paper examines determinants of residential satisfaction and relocation intention in each residential segment. The results from linear regression and multivariate logistic regression models show that residential satisfaction is influenced by different factors in the three types of residential neighborhoods, but is generally shaped by community attachment and the housing facilities. Relocation intention is generated by a combination of various factors that differ from neighborhood to neighborhood. In traditional inner city neighborhoods, residents are less likely to develop relocation intentions, and satisfaction levels tend to go down with the age of the housing estates. The situation is slightly different in urban villages, where residents with a weak sense of community prefer to relocate. The diversified determinants of relocation intention in the three types of neighborhoods are by no means incidental, being closely related, in fact, to the demographic composition, built environment and development history of the neighborhood. This study offers a multilayer explanation of intra-urban relocation and its interactions with residential satisfaction in post-reform urban China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the new appearance of ethnic congregation in a Chinese city that is intimately tied to the worldwide web of production and global commodity chains. Through an empirical case study, the paper examines how the formation of ethnic enclaves in urban China is driven by the global shift of international production and the interaction between global forces and locally-bounded attributes. Its proposition is that the ethnic enclave should be conceptualized as both part of a global system and a locally-constructed place. This study adds to the “global–local nexus” literature on urban transformation by showing transnational spaces are produced by both exogenous and endogenous forces under global shift of capital, production and people. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Environmental pollution from industrialization, urbanization and agriculture is a serious issue facing all countries during economic development. The Pearl River Delta in Southern China offers a unique case for study and documentation on the ecosystem changes during the fast economic development and urbanization over the past 40 years. This collection of papers from a conference on marine coastal pollution and ecotoxicology held in Guangzhou of China provide the current status on the environmental and ecological processes from the intensive urbanization and development. The research information available from this special issue can be used for both a comparison over time and with other locations and countries, and, in addition, for policy making to serve the long-term sustainable development of the region and the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers and policymakers have long called for a collaborative governance process for climate adaptation and flood resilience. However, this is usually challenging when urban planning is supposed to be integrated with water management. Using the Chinese city of Guangzhou as a case study, this study explores the long-term disadvantaged conditions of urban planning in flood governance and how this situation is shaped. The findings show that, in comparison to the increasingly dominant position of water management in flood affairs, the urban planning system has had weak powers, limited legitimate opportunities, and insufficient fiscal incentives from the 2000s to the late 2010s. Those conditions have been shaped by organizational structures, institutional rules, and financial allocation in urban governance, whose changes did not bring benefits to urban planning. The emergence of the Sponge City Program in China in 2017 and its implementation at the municipal level is deemed to be a new start for urban planning, considering the encouragement of nature-based solutions and regulatory tools in land use for flood resilience. Even so, the future of this program is still full of challenges and more efforts are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many cultural landscapes are undergoing inevitable urbanization. For these landscapes to attain sustainability, participatory planning processes are often required. However, different stakeholders may prefer different strategies and goals, making decision-making extremely difficult. This paper explores how three urbanization strategy options (based on lay stakeholders' willingness, historical landscape pattern, and land-use planning) and their possible trade-offs can affect cultural landscapes' sustainability. Specifically, it examines 1) how these strategies' varying adoption levels affect different landscape functions, and 2) how their different trade-offs affect sustainability perceived by different stakeholders. We conducted a case study in the Nansha District of Guangzhou, China. Based on interviews with lay and expert stakeholders, we developed an agent-based model to experiment with a range of scenarios reflecting different trade-offs of the three strategies. With 11 indicators and their stakeholder-weighted aggregation assessed in every simulation step, we analyzed the strategies' effects and compared five typical scenarios' sustainability on two timescales. The results showed that the scenario prioritizing lay stakeholders' willingness outperformed other scenarios in the sustainability assessment. Following historical patterns performed well in the ecological aspect and in the near term, but it may fall short in intensive urbanization from non-experts' perspectives. Land-use planning was plausible as a static destination but ineffective during the entire process. The findings suggest that sustainable rural development should prioritize local adaptations; landscape pattern preservation and land-use planning must consider place-specific processes based on stakeholder participation. They also suggest the usability of agent-based modeling and time-series analysis in cultural landscape and sustainability research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil microbes play important roles in many terrestrial ecological processes. Rapid urbanization causes drastic changes in land use and land cover, thus forming a heterogeneous environmental gradient and directly or indirectly affecting the composition and function of soil microbial communities. To investigate the effects of rapid urbanization on soil microbial community composition and function, we analyzed soil microbial communities by quantifying phospholipid fatty acids among the land cover categories (rural forests, urban low-impacted forest fragments, urban high-impacted forest fragments, and urban parks) in Guangzhou. We found that soil microbial communities differed across this urbanization gradients. Specifically, compared to the rural forest ecosystems, the biomass of Actinobacteria and gram-positive bacteria in urban high-impacted forest fragments ecosystems were 53.8% and 31.23% greater, respectively, while the biomass of Actinobacteria and gram-positive bacteria in urban park ecosystems were 67.8% and 37.45% greater respectively. Microbial communities of rural forests and urban low-impacted forest fragments, characterized by lower urbanization intensity, were dominated by the microbial groups, 19:0cy, i16:0, i15:0, 15:0, 18:0 (bacterial biomarkers), 18:2ω6c (fungal biomarkers), and 10Me17:0 (Actinobacterial biomarkers), whereas the urban park and urban high-impacted forest fragments, characterized by higher urbanization intensity were dominated by the microbial groups, 18:1ω5c, 18:1ω7c, cy17:0, i17;0, a17:0, 16:1ω9c, a15:0, i14:0 (bacterial biomarkers), 16:1ω5c (fungal biomarkers), and 10Me16:0 (Actinobacterial biomarkers). Fungal biomass was positively correlated with soil pH and the metal comprehensive index, whereas bacteria were only positively correlated with soil organic matter. Soil pH, organic matter, total nitrogen content and the heavy metal comprehensive index were all positively correlated with total soil microbial biomass and Actinobacterial biomass. These results suggest that rapid urbanization caused land use and land cover changes that significantly affect soil microbial community composition, and urbanization impacts soil properties which then affect soil microbes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid expansion of urban built-up areas in recent years, it has become particularly urgent to develop a fast, accurate and popularized urban built-up area extraction method system. As the direct carrier of urban regional relationship, urban built-up area is an important reference to judge the level of urban development. The accurate extraction of urban built-up area plays an important role in formulating scientific planning thus to promote the healthy development of both urban area and rural area. Although nighttime light (NTL) data are used to extract urban built-up areas in previous studies, there are certain shortcomings in using NTL data to extract urban built-up areas. On the other hand, point of interest (POI) data and population migration data represent different attributes in urban space, which can both assist in modifying the deficiencies of NTL data from both static and dynamic spatial elements, respectively, so as to improve the extraction accuracy of urban built-up areas. Therefore, this study attempts to propose a feasible method to modify NTL data by fusing Baidu migration (BM) data and POI data thus accurately extracting urban built-up areas in Guangzhou. More accurate urban built-up areas are extracted using the method of U-net deep learning network. The maximum built-up area extracted from the study is 1103.45 km2, accounting for 95.21% of the total built-up area, and the recall rate is 0.8905, the precision rate is 0.8121, and the F1 score is 0.8321. The results of using POI data and BM data to modify NTL data to extract built-up areas have not been significantly improved due to the fact that the more data get fused, the more noise there would be, which would ultimately affect the results. This study analyzes the feasibility and insufficiency of using big data to modify NTL data through data fusion and feature extraction system, which has important theoretical and practical significance for future studies on urban built-up areas and urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Amidst China's immense and rapid urbanisation, gentrification has spread from urban centres to peri-urban and rural areas. Employing an analytical perspective built from the literatures on counter-urbanisation, rural immigration and rural gentrification, this study examines the two-stage gentrification processes in Xiaozhou village, Guangzhou, China. Situating rural gentrification in Xiaozhou against broader backdrops – such as urbanisation in Guangzhou and the preservation regulations imposed by the local state – this article unveils the ways in which interplays between the aestheticisation of rural living and indigenous villagers' rent-seeking behaviour fostered rural immigration and gentrification. In Xiaozhou, grassroots artists' aestheticisation and colonisation of the village ignited an initial stage of gentrification. The subsequent commodification of rural land and housing, induced by increasing concentration of art students and middle class “elite artists”, led to deepened gentrification, studentification and eventually displacement of pioneer gentrifiers. In this process, local villagers' rent-seeking behaviour went hand in hand with aestheticisation and commodification of rural space. This finding questions the representations of victimised local rural residents in much of Western literature on rural gentrification. The special role played by the government policy and institutional arrangement in the stories of Xiaozhou also has the potential to add a new dimension to rural gentrification explanations. In sum, this paper shows that explanations of the perplexing dynamics of rural immigration and gentrification can benefit from more flexible and fluid conceptualisations of “gentrifiers” and “gentrification” as a whole. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Guangzhou has experienced a pattern of dual-track urbanization since economic reforms began in the 1980s. Industrialization and an increasing population have caused the city to relocate jobs and housing to the suburbs. Simultaneously, town governments have developed township and village enterprises (TVEs) and built affordable housing in villages. TVEs have become major industrial processing centers, and the towns that house them have seen the emergence of co-location effects whereby migrant workers become concentrated in urban villages and live near TVEs to optimize their commuting time. It is argued that these co-location adjustments are heavily influenced by institutional policies. This paper reports the results of two surveys, the first a questionnaire survey administered in Shijing Town and the second comprising a series of in-depth interviews carried out in two of Shijing’s urban villages. The results show that a high proportion of the respondents worked and lived in Shijing Town or one of the research villages. Most respondents spent a short time commuting to work. The results also suggest that the pattern of co-location among migrant workers and TVEs observed here reflects the desire to optimize commuting time. Some respondents noted that they had relocated to the research villages because they were ineligible to apply for public housing due to the hukou system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Urban ecosystem health assessments can be applied extensively in urban management to evaluate the status quo of the urban ecosystem, identify the limiting factors, identify key problems, optimize the scheme and guide ecological regulation. Regarding the multi-layer roles of urban ecosystems, urban ecosystem health should be assessed at different scales with each assessment providing a specific reference to urban management from its own viewpoint. Therefore, a novel framework of multi-scale urban ecosystem health assessment is established on global, national, regional and local scales. A demonstration of the framework is shown by using a case study in Guangzhou City, China, where urban ecosystem health assessment is conducted in the order of global, national, regional, and local scales, from macro to micro, and rough to detailed analysis. The new multi-scale framework can be utilized to generate a more comprehensive understanding of urban ecosystem health, more accurate orientation of urban development, and more feasible regulation and management programs when compared with the traditional urban ecosystem health assessment focusing at the local scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: China’s recent wave of rapid urbanization generated a specific form of urban development called the “village in the city” (ViC). It is characterized by the dual urban-rural structure and it accommodates, to begin with, the monumental housing needs of rural migrants. Although the issues of ViCs are very specific and enormous, they evidently have a lot in common with those of slum areas and dilapidated urban areas in developed and developing contexts, in which there already is a long experience with upgrading or urban renewal operations. Also in this specific context of upgrading and urban renewal, the strategic urban project approach is generally being advocated. It emphasizes vision development, the coproduction by stakeholders and the implementation of actions. Strategic urban projects are the cornerstone of this approach. This paper sketches a conceptual framework for the strategic urban project approach for the sustainable redevelopment of “villages in the city” (ViCs) in Guangzhou. It makes an attempt to translate the methodologies of the strategic urban project approach to the Chinese context. Adapting the method to deal with the multi-stakeholder environment and complex issues in ViCs is indeed necessary in order to obtain a sustainable redevelopment of ViCs. Consideration is given to the roles and partnerships of key stakeholders, visions at different levels, and specific actions that deal with opportunities and issues in strategic locations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Evaluation of plan implementation is very complex, and empirical study is scarce due to the methodological difficulties. Over the last two decades, there has been a great deal of urban planning activities and rapid city development in China, but there is a lack of evaluation of plan implementation. This research aims to help bridge this gap, and it explores to what extent a plan has been implemented and what factors have affected plan implementation, taking the Guangzhou city master plan as a case study. It adopts the grid overlay method and compares the land use plan and actual land use to obtain the result of accordance, deviation and unfulfilment. The discrepancy between the land use plan and actual land development is examined based on both land use type and the spatial planning management unit. By analyzing several cases at the site development control plan level, this paper explores why the land development is not consistent with the land use plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Based on Landsat remote sensing data and by means of specific extraction and supervised classification of remote sensing information, a dynamic study was carried out on urban expansion of the built-up area of Guangzhou City in different periods. A detailed analysis was made of the area, orientation and rate of variation of urban expansion of Guangzhou City in the period of 23 years lasting from 1979 to 2002, and a model for urban expansion was proposed in this paper. As demonstrated by our research results, urban expansion of Guangzhou City is very fast with high speed development of the economy. In the 23 years period, the built-up area of Guangzhou City attains a net increase of 325.5 km2, and reaches 397.4 km2 in 2002, which is nearly 4.5 times of that in 1979 and means an annual average expansion of 14.2 km2 and an annual growth rate of 19.7%. The model of urban expansion in Guangzhou City is basically characterized by radial expansion centered on the old city town, which takes the form of expansion in rings, in layers and along major traffic routes. Here the rate of urban expansion varies in different periods, and is the most outstanding in various periods in the east of the city. The built-up area of Guangzhou City is highly correlated with the gross domestic product (GDP), total population, urban resident income and urban traffic of the city, which are the dominating driving factors for expansion of the built-up urban area of Guangzhou City. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study examines the current prospects for and obstacles facing the implementation of social impact assessment (SIA) and participatory planning in the People''s Republic of China. During the past two decades, rapid urbanisation and the conversion of rural land for urban development have led to numerous social conflicts and tensions between the Chinese government and its people. SIA and public participation in development decisions have received increasing attention from the Chinese authorities as possible ways to tackle the problem. Based on a Guangzhou case study, this paper argues that the assessment and mitigation of adverse impacts on the community from urban development have been carried out with different objectives, core values and principles when compared with those in Western societies. It concludes that the poor prospects of SIA and collaborative planning in China lie not only in the weak framework for environmental legislation, but also in all institutions concerning state–society relations, the socialist governing ideology and traditional Chinese culture. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

With the continuous advancement of global urbanization and increasingly serious ecological problems, ecological space protection has gradually become one of the concerns of urban planning. Although some cities worldwide have relatively robust urban planning implementation systems, due to the different planning means and methods of ecological space protection, there lacks a set of standards for the evaluation and inspection of ecological spatial planning implementation, and the traditional evaluation method has some obvious shortcomings, such as low efficiency, poor accuracy, and one-sided comparison. Therefore, the content of this paper includes the following. (1) An evaluation framework for the implementation of ecological spatial planning is proposed, and was constructed from the following four dimensions: ecological index control, spatial form evolution, ecological reserve control, and policy implementation. (2) To verify the operability of the framework, the implementations of the ecological spatial planning of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, three cities in China characterized by rapid urbanization processes, were analyzed and compared. The results show that Guangzhou has the best implementation performance, followed by Beijing with a small gap, while Shanghai lags behind the former two with a large gap. The proposed evaluation framework provides a multi-dimensional and comprehensive evaluation method for the implementation of ecological spatial planning, as well as a certain reference for the evaluation of rapidly urbanizing areas worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of three-dimensional urban forms, especially building height, can have important implications for improving urban air quality and mitigating the urban heat island effect by optimizing urban planning and management policies. This study investigated building height evolution and its influencing factors over approximately half a century (1960–2017) in Guangzhou, China. The results indicated that the logarithmic declines in height, quantity, and area of urban buildings followed Zapfs law, which restricts the three-dimensional shape of the urban form. The urban building height decreased from the center to the periphery of the city and decreased with decreasing altitude and increasing distance from main roads. These characteristics constituted the three main spatial differentiation rules of building height in the central district of Guangzhou, and all exhibited a logarithmic decrease, which gradually strengthened over time. The development of a double-layered height structure of low-rise and high-rise buildings between 1990 and 2017 was a notable manifestation of the increase in vertical urban height over time. The three factors of city center, altitude, and accessibility, which represent centrality, low relief, proximity to water, and proximity to road networks, highlighted the roles of traffic accessibility and commercial attraction in building height evolution. The importance of location macroscopically depends on the combined effect of the geographical pattern, urban planning, and market forces of cities located on a plain near hill or by a river. The principle of profit orientation restricted spatiotemporal building height patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2014, China has formalised rural-to-urban hukou transfer as part of its people-centred approach to urbanisation. This article aims to examine how 'urbanisation of people', a hukou-based reform of rural populations, intersects with 'urbanisation of land', a crucial arena of capital and power accumulation for the state. Building on ethnographic fieldwork research in Fang village, Guangzhou, this article argues that strategies of social governance – public participation under the strengthened role of the state, using law to resolve conflicts, and the state's receptiveness to demands of an economic nature – hold the key to state-led urbanisation. Social governance depoliticises people's engagement in territorial politics by channelling villagers' challenges to state-led urbanisation into a pecuniary discussion of material gain and loss. This article also sheds important light on how China's people-centred planning provides a powerful discursive structure that normalises highly contested local land development practices by giving them national legitimacy and programmatic coherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the mechanism of urban village redevelopment in south China. Through a revised typology of place entrepreneurs based on the growth machine thesis and a case study of Liede village in central Guangzhou, it illustrates how land-based interests embedded in an imbalanced power relationship can (de-)activate urban village redevelopment. The study reveals that while urban villagers, as represented by the village collective, have entrenched interests in the redevelopment process, the city government – as monopolistic land manager and place entrepreneur – plays the deciding role in forging and halting a growth machine geared towards urban village redevelopment. Although developers are also part of the process, the (de-)activation of redevelopment growth machine/coalition in Guangzhou has largely been dominated by the city government. With a comparative view on the original growth machine model, it is hoped that this study would furnish both theoretical and practical thoughts for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the pollution of heavy metals in the sediments of park lakes in Guangzhou, which is a large city with rapid urbanization, industrialization, and dense population in South China. Thirty-two surface sediment samples were collected from seven lakes in different districts of this city. The concentrations and distributions of Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb were measured to assess the level of enrichment and toxicity in the sediments. The enrichment factor showed that Pb and Zn showed severe enrichment in all lakes except for the Dafu Shan Forest Park (DFS), and the geo-accumulation index (Igeo) showed that all lakes were polluted with Cu, Pb, Cd, Ni, and Zn in different levels. The results of risk assessment indicated that the DFS located in the suburbs represented moderate risks; however, other lakes in the city central represented high or very high risks. Moreover, Cd had the primary contribution to the risk of the sediments' environment in urban lakes. Multivariate statistical analyses are carried out to explore the correlativity between heavy metals and human development indices. This study indicated that the levels of heavy metals' contamination and ecological risk of urban lakes in Guangzhou have a close relationship with anthropogenic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the early twentieth-century China, the imperial court collapsed and modern cities emerged. How did a new form of governance become materialized, conceivable, and understandable? This article presents a case study of street building Canton (present-day Guangzhou) in the 1920s and 1930s. Drawing on discussions of material power, infrastructures, and governmentality, it attends to the role of material artifacts in creating the modern Chinese city. In particular, it illustrates the entangled emergence and development of modern streets and urban governance, a new form of governance essential to fashioning the Chinese nation-state and Chinese modernity. The unstable, evolving process of creating a new built environment provided specific, material reference points for various stakeholders to imagine and think about the modern city as governable space. This case analysis suggests an alternative perspective to urban history in China, and contributes to the broader discussion on the symbiotic relationship between urban politics and infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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China’s rapid urbanisation has created a special form of urban built environment known as ‘village in the city’ (ViC). Various governance approaches have been applied to redevelop ViCs, which are prevalent in big cities. However, owing to the specific conditions of ViCs and the diverse contexts of urban development within and across cities, those approaches remain largely case-specific and are hampered by a lack of guiding principles. This article presents a framework on modes of governance to understand the choice of and the differences between modes of governance as well as their positive and negative consequences for the regeneration of ViCs. Case studies of various types of ViC regeneration practices in Guangzhou and Shenzhen are used to illustrate the framework’s application. The article concludes that new modes of governance that are interactive, inclusive and collaborative are called for to achieve the sustainable regeneration of ViCs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Anthropogenic factors resulted from the urbanization may affect the groundwater As in urbanized areas. Groundwater samples from the Guangzhou city (South China) were collected for As and other parameter analysis, in order to assess the impact of urbanization and natural processes on As distribution in aquifers. Nearly 25.5 % of groundwater samples were above the WHO drinking water standard for As, and the As concentrations in the granular aquifer (GA) were generally far higher than that in the fractured bedrock aquifer (FBA). Samples were classified into four clusters by using hierarchical cluster analysis. Cluster 1 is mainly located in the FBA and controlled by natural processes. Anthropogenic pollution resulted from the urbanization is responsible for high As concentrations identified in cluster 2. Clusters 3 and 4 are mainly located in the GA and controlled by both natural processes and anthropogenic factors. Three main mechanisms control the source and mobilization of groundwater As in the study area. Firstly, the interaction of water and calcareous rocks appears to be responsible for As release in the FBA. Secondly, reduction of Fe/Mn oxyhydroxides and decomposition of organic matter are probably responsible for high As concentrations in the GA. Thirdly, during the process of urbanization, the infiltration of wastewater/leachate with a high As content is likely to be the main source for groundwater As, while NO contamination diminishes groundwater As. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Aedes albopictus is a very invasive and aggressive insect vector that causes outbreaks of dengue fever, chikungunya disease, and yellow fever in many countries. Vector ecology and disease epidemiology are strongly affected by environmental changes. Urbanization is a worldwide trend and is one of the most ecologically modifying phenomena. The purpose of this study is to determine how environmental changes due to urbanization affect the ecology of Aedes albopictus. Methods: Aquatic habitats and Aedes albopictus larval population surveys were conducted from May to November 2013 in three areas representing rural, suburban, and urban settings in Guangzhou, China. Ae. albopictus adults were collected monthly using BG-Sentinel traps. Ae. albopictus larva and adult life-table experiments were conducted with 20 replicates in each of the three study areas. Results: The urban area had the highest and the rural area had the lowest number of aquatic habitats that tested positive for Ae. albopictus larvae. Densities in the larval stages varied among the areas, but the urban area had almost two-fold higher densities in pupae and three-fold higher in adult populations compared with the suburban and rural areas. Larvae developed faster and the adult emergence rate was higher in the urban area than in suburban and rural areas. The survival time of adult mosquitoes was also longer in the urban area than it was in suburban and rural areas. Study regions, surface area, water depth, water clearance, surface type, and canopy coverage were important factors associated with the presence of Ae. albopictus larvae. Conclusions: Urbanization substantially increased the density, larval development rate, and adult survival time of Ae. albopictus, which in turn potentially increased the vector capacity, and therefore, disease transmissibility. Mosquito ecology and its correlation with dengue virus transmission should be compared in different environmental settings. Author Summary: Aedes albopictus has expanded its ecological habitat range throughout the world. Although Ae. albopictus was previously considered a rural vector, this species has adapted well to suburban and urban environments, and it has become the most important and sometimes the sole vector of dengue virus transmission in urban areas. Dengue is a vector-borne disease that has become a severe global public health problem during the last decade. We explored the effect of ecology in different ecological settings (urban, suburban, and rural) on Ae. albopictus larval habitat and mosquito development in Guangzhou, where recently dengue has caused serious public health concerns. The environmental changes caused by urbanization had a significant impact on the ecology of Ae. albopictus. Compared with rural and suburban areas, urban areas had more Ae. albopictus larval habitats, shorter larval development time, higher adult emergence rate, and longer lifespan. These results imply that urbanization significantly increases the potential for dengue outbreaks. Because urbanization is a global trend resulting from economic development, the elucidation of Ae. albopictus adaptation to different environments in China also reveals the potential for this important vector to colonize other parts of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature explains well how dual urbanization promotes land development and spatial expansion in China, but few studies have examined the emergence of state-led and village-led land development by measuring the urban expansion ratio from the perspective of institutional arrangements. To fill this gap, this study examines the spatial pattern and evolution of urban expansion and then explains the institutional dynamics in evolving different spatial forms of land development in Guangzhou. Among the findings of our research, two important points merit special attention. First, this study examines the emergence of collective-led and state-led development in Chinese cities from the perspective of institutions with the support of empirical evidence from Guangzhou. Herein, urban expansion intensity (UEI) was used to improve urban expansion as an evaluation index of urbanization speed. Second, the present study developed a theoretical framework based on land property rights from an institutional perspective to explain the two forms of land development in the dynamic urbanization process. From a broader theoretical perspective, diverse spatial forms of land development in Chinese cities contribute to the understanding of urban land expansion based on an institutional approach. The policy implication of this study is that the speed of urban expansion will gradually slow with the advancement of new urbanization, and growth in collective land in the urban area will gradually decrease. Land redevelopment policies and regulations should be taken into account for collective land in urban areas, which is necessary for sustainable urban development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban sprawl has been at the centre of current debate on urban structure. Compared to the rich literature on urban sprawl in Western cities, relatively little is known about the physical consequence and the causes of urban sprawl in China. In China, for peasant collective-owned land (COL), land use right cannot be sold, transferred or leased for non-agricultural construction'. COL could be developed until it is acquired and leased out by the government. Through the process of land acquisition, the peasants could only get the compensation for 30 years' average of annual agricultural production value in addition to compensation for attachments, crops and vegetables which sometimes could hardly support the life of peasants who lost their land. To compensation for the peasants'loss, the government would leave 10-15% of the acquired land to peasant collectives as Collectively Owned Economic Development Land (COEDL), allowing it used for industrial or commercial purpose. However, development of COEDL manifested to have low development density, quality and output. With a property rights approach, this research evaluates the development process of COEDL in Guangzhou. It has been revealed that high cost to obtain the permit of land use change (nongzhuanyong zhibiao), and to provide infrastructure and public facilities reduce the incentives of peasants to use COEDL legally and more efficiently. Furthermore, as COEDL is forbidden to transfer or mortgage, the financing ability of peasant collectives is thus impaired severely, allowing them only low investment on development. Use of COEDL thus contributes to urban sprawl in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition in subtropical metropolitan regions has increased greatly because of rapid urbanization, and such increase could lead to N-related changes in soil properties and plant diversity in remnant forests of urban ecosystems. To investigate the pattern of atmospheric N deposition along an urban-rural gradient in metropolitan Guangzhou, southern China, and to assess the potential influence of N deposition on soil properties and understory plant diversity in remnant forests, precipitation, and soil samples were collected and vegetation was surveyed from four forest sites between March 2010 and March 2011. The atmospheric inorganic nitrogen deposition (DIN) decreased with increasing distance from the urban center: DIN inputs were 43.3, 41.2, 35.2, and 30.1 kg N ha year in two urban sites, a suburban site and a rural site, respectively. However, forest soil N status (NH-N, NO-N, and total nitrogen) showed the opposite pattern. Understory herb-layer diversity was negatively correlated to DIN input and positively correlated to soil calcium (Ca) and potassium (K) concentrations and pH; with highest herb-layer diversity found in the rural site receiving the lowest amount of DIN input. These results indicated that higher DIN along with soil acidification and leaching of base cations (Ca and K) might change the current N status and increase nutrients leaching and thereby cause reductions in understory plant diversity. A regional policy linking atmospheric pollution and land protection is needed to protect the most N-sensitive herb species (e.g., forbs and ferns) in these remnant forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liu, Q.Y.; Xue, H.F.; Zhou, S.P., and Wang, H., 2020. Evaluation of the synergy level between water environment and urban development for the new smart city: A case study of Guangzhou. In: Bai, X. and Zhou, H. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources, Environmental Protection, and Sustainable Development. JournalofCoastalResearch,SpecialIssueNo.115,pp.543-548.CoconutCreek(Florida),ISSN0749-0208. Based on the connotations of water environment and urban development, the index system to measure the synergy level between the water environment and the urban development for the new smart cities is constructed. The combination model of entropy weight method, efficacy function, coordination index and coupling model is formed to evaluate the synergy level of the water environment and the urban development, which can provide a reliable decision support for the smart water resources module in the construction of the new smart city. Through the empirical analysis of Guangzhou City, the results and conclusions are obtained: the synergetic development process between the water environment and the development of Guangzhou City is consistent with the synergetic development law: imbalance, antagonist, grinding, synergy and the synergetic level of Guangzhou is in the higher synergy level in the synergetic stage. The combination model can be used to evaluate the synergetic level between the water environment and the urban development and the evaluation result is proved to be objective and accurate as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]