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Airport-related development raises important city-regional planning and governance issues. The paper examines the development of a new Chinese airport and associated changes in nearby cities. Ezhou Huahu Airport was initiated by one of China's largest delivery and logistics companies. The analysis focuses on the development patterns, growing visions, and changing governance around the airport as well as how the provincial government plays a crucial role in governing the airport region. Furthermore, the study highlights regional coordination manifested in various institutional forms, which warrants solid implementation through regional plans and regional institutions for dispute settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reservoir classification is an important content of reservoir evaluation, and has significance for the optimization of favorable areas and the formulation of development plans. Aiming at the characteristics of low and ultra-low permeability sandstone reservoirs in Jidong Oilfield, this paper selects sedimentary facies, sand body width, mean effective radius and effective percolation coefficient as evaluation parameters. Through conducting the macro qualitative analysis and microscopic quantitative evaluation, the classification boundary is determined by cluster analysis, a comprehensive evaluation system of low and ultra-low permeability sandstone reservoirs is established. The reservoirs are divided into four types, the physical properties get worse in turn of type I to III, and type IV is small sand body. The sedimentary facies of type I to III reservoirs are mainly bar host and fluvial channels, the inner edge of the bar, the outer edge of the bar and shoal in turn. The sand body width of type I to III is more than 300 m,and it is less than 300 m of type IV reservoirs. Based on the classification results, the feasibility analysis of water injection was carried out, and corresponding development policy recommendations are put forward for four types of reservoirs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterogeneous enterprise agglomeration is an important perspective in understanding urban exports and reshaping the new advantages of urban openness. This paper considers data from China's industrial enterprises and municipality-level panel data from 192 cities to systematically examine enterprises' heterogeneity, agglomeration patterns, and urban exports. The results reveal that: (1) the heterogeneity in enterprise productivity exhibits a significant promotional effect on urban exports in China's central and northeastern regions, but not on its western regions; (2) specialized agglomeration positively affects exports in the central and western regions and in small and medium-sized cities, while diversified agglomeration significantly and positively impacts the eastern and northeastern regions and small and large cities; and (3) thresholds exist in determining the effects of agglomeration and sequencing on urban exports and their sequence by considering heterogeneity in enterprises' productivity. This work provides important policy implications for the development of export trade in cities and countries by suggesting a focus on rational planning and adjustments to regional industrial policies, improvements to talent flow mechanisms, and construction of social infrastructures. HIGHLIGHTS Heterogeneous enterprise agglomeration can shape exports from city-based businesses A new simultaneous model determines how to increase urban exports Heterogeneity can have various impacts in different Chinese regions and cities Increasing productivity and exports requires strategic planning for optimization [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Originally proposed by the former president of Kazakhstan in 1995, Eurasian integration progressed into the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which was launched in 2015. From an international development perspective, the EAEU can be seen as an attempt to boost the international competitiveness of its partners by reorienting them from currently prevailing yet inherently unstable resource-based economic models into more sustainable ones, based on domestic industries structured around common markets for goods, services, capital and labour. In reality, however, the project is yet to prove its viability and development potential, particularly vis-à-vis its powerful neighbours, China and the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's city regionalization aims to remedy the negative effects of territorial fragmentation in search of coordinated development across various jurisdictions. Scant research systemically examines fragmentation in China with particular reference to its mechanisms and solutions. This article formulates a conceptual framework capable of dissecting China's territorial fragmentation based on three institutional designs, namely—the central-dominated administrative system, the pro-growth cadre evaluation system, and the twofold tax-sharing system. Under this framework, this article deciphers territorial fragmentation in China from the perspectives of the centrally initiated political selection, cadre reward, and socioeconomic regulatory mechanisms. These three aspects help coordinate pro-growth-induced political decentralization which, at the same time, reveals the path dependence of Maoist state authoritarianism to solid regulatory powers of the central state. The framework allows us to pinpoint clearly three administrative solutions to mitigate the negative effects of fragmentation for future institutional design: the adjustment of jurisdictional boundaries, setting-up of interjurisdictional partnerships and regional institutions, and formulation of a regional spatial plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late 1990s, there are growing studies on the development of cellular automata (CA) as a simulation tool for assisting urban and regional planning in China. Rapid urban development is the main reason that this country has become one of the best places to test the methodology of CA and analyze the effectiveness of using these models. This paper attempts to summarize the experiences and issues of using CA to solve various environmental and planning problems in China. The analysis is based on the literature review using the search engines of ISI Web of Science and Google Scholar. These experiences could be important for those who want to apply CA in developing countries. For example, which environmental and ecological problems can be solved by using this bottom-up approach? What are the data inputs to these models and how can they be calibrated? Our analyses indicate that CA have the great potential to support land-use planning and policy analysis for fast-growing regions. Some specific features of using CA in China are also identified in the literature review, including delineation of urban growth boundary, prevention of illegal development and formulating zoning schemes. The CA studies in this fast-growing country provided valuable experiences for other developing countries to solve a series of simulation and planning problems by using this bottom-up approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Data for the Chinese province of Hubei are used to assess the performance of Kronenberg's Cross-Hauling Adjusted Regionalization Method (CHARM), a method that takes explicit account of cross-hauling when constructing regional input–output tables. A key determinant of cross-hauling is held to be the heterogeneity of commodities, which is estimated using national data. However, contrary to the authors’ findings for Finland, CHARM does not generate reliable estimates of Hubei's sectoral exports, imports and volume of trade, although it is more successful in estimating sectoral supply multipliers. The poor simulations of regional trade are attributed to the fact that Hubei is a relatively small region, where there is a large divergence between regional and national technology and pattern of final demand. The simulation errors are decomposed into components reflecting differences between regional and national technology, final demand and heterogeneity. The third component is found to be the least important of the three sources of error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In geographical analysis, spatial simulation and optimization are usually separate processes tackling different problems. It is, however, increasingly necessary to integrate them. Particularly in a fast developing area, the development to be simulated is seldom inertial (i.e., strictly following the historical trend); instead, it is likely to be interfered by new planning measures. Meanwhile, in such an area an optimization plan might not be even meaningful if it only addresses a snapshot of a highly dynamic landscape. In this study, we explored the possibility of integrating cellular automata (CA), a widely used method for simulating urban development and land use changes, and ant colony optimization (ACO), an advanced technique for solving complex path optimization problems. We named the resulting integrated system the geographical simulation and optimization system (GeoSOS) and applied it to a case study concerning finding the optimal path for a planned expressway in Dongguan, a fast-growing city in one of the most economically active regions of China. In the case study, the CA component of the GeoSOS generated simulations of the industrial land use changes for some years in the next decade. The ACO component of the GeoSOS, which had been revised from the conventional ACO to work on raster surfaces, took the simulations as input and completed raster-based path optimizations. In terms of the cumulative utility, a measurement used to evaluate the performance of the optimization, the coupling method surpasses the noncoupling method by 10.3 percent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yangtze River Delta Area (YRDA), especially Metropolitan Shanghai, is undoubtedly the leading economic region in China, and it has become one of the most important population convergence areas. It is also widely considered as the sixth largest urban agglomeration in the world. Concluding that migration is the most important aspect of population dynamics in YRDA, the author studies two important forms of internal migration: migration into or out of YRDA, and migration among different cities within YRDA. The paper explores how both forms of migration jointly influence the population distribution among cities and determine the changes of the city-region structure. Furthermore, the paper makes a demographic projection of the future evolution of the area based on estimates of urban-specific fertility, mortality, and net migration. The author suggests that it is necessary to adopt migration-led development strategy and polices in YRDA, in the context of the national population redistribution and achieving a balanced urban-rural development. The author also suggests that it should strike a good balance between migration and regional sustainability. Furthermore, the author suggests that differential development strategies should be advocated for different cities within YRDA, and it is necessary to strengthen regional coordination system for achieving an integrated regional development strategy in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last half of the 20th century, China experienced a period of extraordinary growth and change. In just over 50 years, the country has been transformed from a semi-feudal society dominated by foreign interests to an economic superpower wielding authority throughout the world. A particularly feverish pace of intense urbanization has been underway since the 1980s when the Chinese government instituted a program of economic reforms under the direction of Deng Xiaopeng, Mao Zedong's successor. This 'fever' is causing an increasing pace of physical change to the nation's urban landscape. While many industrial cities in western countries developed over a period of two centuries, China's cities have been radically transformed or established in just two decades. This paper frames the socio-economic and political context within which China's urban landscapes are now being modernized; its focus is on the post-Mao transitional period. Through a set of field observations the paper comments upon the effects of international design influences on the nation's urban landscapes. These observations raise important questions concerning the present development of the contemporary Chinese urban fabric. While it is possible to find examples of sensitive and appropriate approaches to the development of urban landscape design supported by enlightened policy-makers, such examples are rare and the norm is a 'cosmetic' approach to the formulation and implementation of local planning and design activities. Critical issues are raised and suggestions are made to help curb these activities that are increasingly destroying the ecological, socio-cultural and historic urban fabric of China's cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delineates some aspects of the PRC's recent perceptual policy shifts in dealing with Taiwan and Cross-Strait relations from the perspective of China's overall foreign policy orientation under Hu Jintao's leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the revival of regional planning as a form of planning action and policy discourse, particularly across Europe, but also attracting global interest as displayed recently by the USA and China. Whilst the UK statutory planning system has always stood out within the European planning paradigm for its centralized nature and plan-making rooted in local government, significant changes have taken place in recent years. Advocates of regional planning can cite the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act in the UK as a milestone achieved with the arrival of statutory regional planning and the preparation of Regional Spatial Strategies. The paper identifies the factors behind the revival of regional planning, examines the longstanding legacy of regional planning in Wales and the UK, and concludes on the significance of the official rediscovery of regional planning at an international level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes in a Geographic Information Systems environment the multiscalar patterns and emerging clusters of regional development in Zhejiang Province and Wenzhou Municipality in China. These analyses illustrate that regional inequality is sensitive to regional trajectories and that emerging clusters of regional development have a tremendous impact on regional inequality. Since the late 1970s, China has been undergoing economic reforms, introducing market mechanisms and opening its economy to the outside world. The reform process, however, is spatially uneven and has traditionally emphasized coastal development.

The 2003 SARS epidemic created a significant negative impact on tourism development in China. This paper reviews the effects on tourism of different short-term crises, analyses the effects of SARS and explores the possibility of tourism businesses being buffered from such short-term crisis and the possible new motivations derived from the crisis. Tourism's lack of resistance but high resilience to short term crises provides tourism and regional planning challenges. These characteristics suggest diversification and partnerships can minimise community vulnerability to crises and rapid economic recovery is possible based on tourism's resilient nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's agricultural reforms and open door policy adopted since 1978 have had impact on the country's economic structure, population characteristics, and urban development. This paper examines the spatial implications of such changes in the light of the development of Zhujiang Delta located in the coastal region of South China. Market-oriented agricultural production, rural industrialization, migration of surplus farm labor, and the spread of small towns in the rural areas are some of the consequences of the reforms and are placed in the perspective of the coreperiphery theory of regional development. It is argued that the hybrid ’center-downward’ and ’periphery-upward’ approach in spatial development was adopted because it was politically more adaptable to the Chinese objectives of economic development, which continue to uphold Marxism, Maoism and Communist Party leadership. Through careful control of the destination of the rural migrants in conjunction with the policy of small town development, China hopes to establish a new spatial relationship between the core and the periphery on more equal footing. Currently the spatial structure of Zhujiang Delta displays a well-integrated network of towns of varying sizes being established to fill in gaps in the settlement hierarchy to effect spread of benefits from the core to its periphery. But contrary to expectations, spatial inequity in development persists as the core has advanced at a much faster pace than its periphery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on rural development in China. With the deepening development of reform and openness, rural commodity production and circulation flourish more and more every day. While under the socialist market economy the peasants show the best of their abilities and get rich first, they also demand to be able to change their traditional way of life and production and go to urban areas to engage in economic activities. This demand for themselves and their family members to migrate to and register in urban places has become a big problem. Under these circumstances, Liaoning Province liberalized its migration registration policy, and, in a planned way and with certain preconditions, arranged the some peasants to migrate to and register in urban places, under the principles of local need, local benefit, local responsibility, and local validity. In order to make a distinction from the original urban registrations, a blue cover and a blue stamp were employed, hence the name registration with blue cover and blue stamp. Such blue registrations cannot be transferred at will between urban places, and therefore they are also called locally valid registrations.