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As a result of rapid urbanization in China, the spatial restructuring of towns and cities has significantly impacted urban compactness. The study of the spatio–temporal characteristics and driving mechanisms of urban compactness in central China is a strategic imperative and conducive to promoting regional sustainable development that is based on easing the contradiction between land resource supply and demand and reducing energy consumption. Therefore, this study focused on 80 prefecture-level cities in central China, utilizing barycenter model and GTWR model, among others, to analyze the spatio–temporal evolution pattern of urban compactness from 2006 to 2020 and its driving factors, with the aim of uncovering the intrinsic mechanisms behind enhancing urban compactness in the area. The results show the follows: (1) The urban compactness in central China has generally shown an upward trend, with a pronounced spatial clustering around provincial capital cities and the spatial changes in compactness predominantly concentrated in the north–south direction. (2) Various factors have influenced urban compactness, where government intervention and population aggregation present as bi-directional driving factors, while the effective use of land resources and high-quality industrial development, among others, present as positive driving factors. The spatio–temporal heterogeneity and agglomeration features of each driving factor are significant. (3) Further analysis indicates that the effective use of land resources is the primary factor in enhancing urban compactness, followed by technology. Therefore, we should adhere to the concept of compact cities and gradually promote the compactness of cities in central China based on the impact of the driving factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient urban land use plays a crucial role in promoting regional development and ensuring economic growth. Analyzing the spatio–temporal pattern of urban land high-quality use (ULHU) and identifying its key influencing factors and pathways can contribute to enhancing land use efficiency and achieving high-quality development. This study established a comprehensive measurement indicator system for evaluating ULHU using the entropy method and investigated the spatio–temporal evolution pattern of ULHU in the Greater Pearl River Delta (PRD) urban agglomeration in the years 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020. Furthermore, a multi-period fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method was adopted to explore the concurrent driving mechanisms that impact ULHU from the configuration perspective. The findings reveal that the level of ULHU has exhibited a significant improvement, increasing from 0.1150 in 2005 to 0.2758 in 2020, with an annual growth rate of 8.739%. The spatial pattern in the PRD region exhibits an incremental distribution, characterized by higher values in the central region and lower values in the peripheral area, as this pattern reveals significant heterogeneity across the region. The configurations for ULHU in the PRD were identified, such as Population-industry-talent driven, Openness-fiscal-talent driven, Population-led, and Population-industry driven. Among these configurations, population density and industrial structure were identified as the core driving factors, while the role of talent resources is gradually diminishing. This study provides practical guidance for promoting the ULHU and optimizing national spatial planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments in China have decision-making authority over urban land use, and their level of environmental attention influences the green use of urban land. However, the impact of local government environmental attention on urban land green use efficiency and its mechanisms remain unclear. This study utilizes panel data from 284 cities from 2003 to 2020 in China and employs fixed effects models and mediation analysis to investigate the pathways through which local government environmental attention affects urban land green use efficiency. The main results are as follows: (1) Through a series of significance tests, local government environmental attention has a significant positive influence on urban land green use efficiency in cities. (2) Further research suggests that both the quantity and quality of industrial structure upgrading act as intermediaries between local government environmental attention and urban land green use efficiency, while the rationalization of industrial structure plays a partial masking role rather than acting as an intermediary. (3) Furthermore, a regional heterogeneity analysis indicates that the impact of local government environmental attention on urban land green use efficiency is significant in the central region but not in the eastern and western regions. Based on these research findings, this study provides valuable policy insights aimed at contributing to green land use and sustainable development in Chinese cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The employment inequality between males and females in the context of land expropriation is not conducive for land-expropriated farmers to earn a sustainable livelihood. In this study, based on the data of two waves of household surveys, the "Chinese Family Panel Study" in 2016 and 2018, the PSM-DID method is used to test the effects of land expropriation on the employment behavior of the rural labor force, and the heterogeneous results of men's and women's employment behaviors are analyzed. The following conclusions are drawn. Land expropriation significantly reduces the employment probability of the labor force, encouraging the rural labor force to withdraw from the labor market voluntarily; land expropriation significantly shortens the employment distance of the labor force overall, promoting the urbanization of the rural labor force in the vicinity; land expropriation has a greater impact on the unemployment of the female labor force than that of the male labor force, and it increases the employment distance of males and reduces that of females, promoting the return of females' labor to the family. The policy significance of this study is to attach importance to the long-term sustainable livelihoods of rural households and the employment equality of males and females in urbanization. Findings suggest family–friendly compensation for land expropriation should be formulated, rural construction land should be allowed to enter the market instead of being expropriated, and cooperation between county and developed regions should be encouraged for the creation of more jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern cities require urban compact development to be sustainable. The evaluation of urban compact development may help create more accurate and realistic policies. The spatio-temporal dynamic evolution of urban compact development efficiency and its regional differences in China are examined in this study. This paper analysis uses 282 cities from 2005 to 2021. The unexpected output super-efficiency SBM model measures urban compact development efficiency. In this study, the urban compact development efficiency's spatial and temporal patterns are also examined using kernel density estimation (KDE) and the Theil index (TI). The average efficiency of urban compact development in China has decreased slightly. However, compact efficiency disparities are decreasing. Eastern cities have a relatively stable compact efficiency, while central and western cities vary more. The compact efficiency polarisation has not changed fundamentally. The compact city growth model's spatial agglomeration is poor, limiting its spatial spillover impact. Thus, compact urban development is necessary to speed up planning, facilitate inter-city production factor movement by creating a comprehensive transport network, and maximise co-location benefits with the regional integration strategy. This method will gradually reduce regional urban development disparities and push Chinese cities towards more refined and sustainable compact development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper establishes an evaluation system based on the low-carbon intensive land use in Jinan city from 2010 to 2017 and uses a multi-attribute approach named grey fuzzy integral to build the evaluation model. In this model, based on the Mobius transformation coefficient of subjective and objective weights of index factors and the interaction degree between index factors, 2-additive fuzzy measures can be obtained; therefore, evaluation of low-carbon and intensive land use in Jinan city is processed by combining the grey correlation degree and Choquet fuzzy integral. The results show that in the study period, land input intensity, land use degree, land output benefit and land sustainability in Jinan city all show a good upward trend, but the low-carbon land use level of has been in a declining state. Although there is a good development trend of low-carbon and intensive land use in Jinan, the state is not stable. A Low-carbon and intensive land use pattern will not be achieved completely overnight, and it is bound to be a dynamic game process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests China's three-dimensional intergovernmental competition in terms of land leasing. Using the land-leasing data of China's prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2019 collected from China Land Market, and with the help of the dynamic spatial Durbin model, we show that in the land-leasing behavior of prefecture-level cities in China, three-dimensional government competition does exist and that the influence coefficient from high to low is the government competition of different periods in the same region, shown as horizontal government competition and vertical government competition, respectively. In particular, China's government competition and regional economic development show a clear correlation. We find obvious heterogeneity: in the eastern region, the government competition for land leasing started earlier and has now begun to transform. However, the three-dimensional government competition in the western region lags behind the national level. Therefore, urban development should emerge from the mindset of blindly focusing on the expansion of urban areas, paying more attention to the guiding role of urban planning in urban development and promoting cities on the path of sustainable development by improving the efficiency of land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]