Major function oriented zoning (MFOZ hereafter) is the guideline for optimizing the spatial pattern of regional development in China, which entails both theoretical and methodological innovation in the academic field of economic geography. This study analyzes the basic features of territorial function and puts forward a spatially equilibrium model for regional development. It argues that there exists a trend of regional convergence in almost any indicator measuring the average level of regional development status. Based on this finding, the study illustrates that the formation of functional zone should be conducive to the reduction of regional inequality and that free flow of resources across region is the prerequisite to spatial equilibrium. It also investigates the impact of territorial functional evolution on spatial processes of equilibrium and suggests that the benefit to be derived from zoning proposal is contingent upon the method of regional division and correct understanding of temporal change of territorial function. After that, this study goes to examine the scientific foundation of several issues concerning the reconciliation of contradictory functions of development and protection, the selection of indicators and the spatial and temporal features of MFOZ. It is then followed by an interrogation of the rationality of achieving dual goals of efficiency and equality simultaneously through three-dimensional flow and spatial equilibrium. The paper ends with a discussion of the position, implementation and coordination of MFOZ from the perspective of institutional arrangements of spatial governance including law, planning and government policy.
Spatial Development Regionalization is a great act to fulfil scientific viewpoint of development from the aspect of space control. This job is an extension of traditional regionalization, and it demands methodology innovation to upgrade the traditional regionalization theory based on equal region to a new one paying equal attention to equal region and functional region. Therefore, we design the spatial planning information system (SPIS) to solve the problem about the different types of gene evaluation and mark superposition, especially to achieve the spatial diffusion of different types and patterns and radius of public service with different scales and forms based on road network. On this basis, we put forward the index discriminance and index superposition, and make a case study of Yizheng city. Using the special procedure designed ourselves, the whole process is open and transparent. It is a dynamic process which can present the original data collection, disposal, analysis and comparison between different plans, thus it gives a sample of scientific, standard and profound method for spatial development regionalization.
Industrial structure is the base and core of economic structure, and its evolution relates greatly to the speed and quality of economic development. Based on use of the correlative methods in industrial economy, econometrics, GIS and statistics, Tibet's industrial structure evolution from 1951 to 2004 is quantificationally estimated. After pointing out the four phases of Tibet's industrial structure evolution and their different characteristics, this paper analyzed the dynamic evolution of the three industries and their internal structure, employment and production structure, and upgrade and conversion of industrial structure by indicators. Furthermore, it concluded the analysis on quantitative characteristics of the internal structure evolution in the three typical periods of 1975-1984, 1985-1994 and 1995-2004 by using the SSM method and also the transformation of industrial barycenter of farming, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery by using GIS technique. Then the main driving forces of Tibet's industrial structure evolution are summarized as follows: restriction of demand structure, diversity of resource gift, the guidence of government and policies which play a very important role in the industrial evolution and the rapid development of techno-innovation ability of burgeoning industries uniqueness in the plateau region. Finally, strategies aiming at "optimizing the tertiary industry's structure, ensuring the primary industry's advantages, and supporting the secondary industrial development specially" are brought forward.
Geomorphological environment is the most fundamental environment which sustains the development of human society. The mission of geomorphological environment research is to explore the most basic environment and features of our earth surface morphology. And its results can be applied to the resources evaluation, land use, environmental protection, and geological disasters reduction and prevention, hence it can serve sustainable development in an all-round way. This paper takes Shenzhen east coastal zone as a case which is strongly influenced by the urban expansion. Using the modern geomorphological theory and methods, along with the GIS and RS techniques, it can reveal the characteristics of geomorphological environment and landform classification. Furthermore, coastal ecosystem evaluation and the regional resources sustainable utilization can be put forward according to the corresponding geomorphological environment. Based on this study, it can be concluded that the modern geomorphological theory and methods supported by "3S" techniques including GIS, RS and GPS will play an important role in resolving the environment, resources and population problem and sustainable development which humankind is facing at present.
Along with the social economic development, urbanization has speeded up in China. Suburbanization has been taking place in large and super-large cities. In Beijing, suburbanization (mainly led by housing suburbanization) started from the late 1980s and early 1990s. By now suburbanization in Beijing has experienced three stages: beginning, inner suburbanization and rapid development. Housing suburbanization has been characterized by concentric outward expansion along ring roads, leading to rapid urban sprawl. But urban sprawl in Beijing differs from low-density sprawl in Western countries. New housings are mainly located along arterial roads. Distinct regional variations exist in housing types, showing some similarities to housing segregation in Western cities. This paper argues that housing suburbanization in Beijing and that in Western cities share both similarities and differences. Suburbanization in both settings is a necessary result of improving urbanization and establishment of an urban land market, and guided by urban planning. In Beijing, however, housing suburbanization is "passive" suburbanization, as most residents do not really want to leave the central areas but urban renewal and extremely high housing prices force them to purchase housing in suburban areas. Along with housing suburbanization, the issue of spatial mismatch between housing and employment has emerged in Beijing. Despite all the differences, this spatial mismatch shares similarities to that in American cities in several aspects: spatial separation of residences from jobs, social segregation, leading to increasing costs (in terms of both time and money) for low-income commuters and many social problems such as traffic congestion and social segregation.
The human settlement environment problem has become a new focus on urban studies at home and abroad. Sustainable development of urban human settlement is the ultimate target of modern city construction and development. The coordinated development of human settlement and economy is of vital significance to urban sustainable development and urban ecosystem health. It is necessary to review its development and evaluate its coordinating degree. Urban human settlements and economic systems exist in urban ecosystems, which are a structural complexity. Therefore the research is being challenged by some uncertain factors between human settlements and economic systems. More and more attentions have been paid to the researches and the applications of the research result to the human settlement, eco-city and urban sustainable development. However most of the researches were focused on its determinate objective aspects and qualitative analyses while less concern on the quantitative evaluation of coordinated development of urban human settlement environment and economy, especially little on its uncertain aspect. At present, the urgent task is to study the coordinated development of urban settlement and economy in terms of the effect of uncertainty. This paper analyzed the uncertain characteristics, which would be confronted at different stages, such as confirming the index categories, their bound values, and their construction rate, etc. According to the actual urban conditions, many construction principles based on uncertainties were put forward and an indicating system for human settlement and economic evaluation was established. Moreover, the application of fuzzy mathematics presented a new method and a calculation model for the comprehensive assessment of the coordinated development of urban human settlement and economy. The application of the method and model in Changsha city of Hunan Province showed that the assessment results could reflect not only the overall coordinating degree of the city, but also the model of interactive mechanism between urban economic systems and human settlement.
Under a diversity of impacts such as the industrialization of suburbs and economic globalization, China's urban socio-spatial structure has undergone tremendous restructurings in the 1990s. Using the 1990 and 2000 census of China, this paper examines the spatial differentiation residents working in different sectors of Guangzhou. It is found that industrial staff, high-level service workers, low-level service workers and governmental officials show quite different spatial patterns. First, the residential locations of industrial workers move from the central city towards the suburbs, especially Baiyun and Huangpu districts, while that of low-level service workers remain in the inner city, which is the traditional central business district (CBD) of Guangzhou; in contrast, high-level service workers accumulate around government buildings, universities and academic institutions, especially Dongshan District, Wushan of Tianhe District, etc; and governmental officials mainly live around their working places. In this sense, it is argued that one of the main features of Guangzhou's distribution of different workers' residence is the close connection between working places and residential areas. The underlying reasons are attributed to the sector restructuring of the inner city, the urban rapid sprawl, the infill of FDI within the suburbs, the adjustment of government development strategies and urban planning, land use as well as housing marketization, and the path-dependency of the 'work-unit' system. Using location quotient to analyze the residential differentiation of different professionals, it provided new research idea and method for further analyzing urban socio-spatial differentiation.
This paper analyzes the population change of Horqin in recent 100 years based on the Mongolian, Chinese and Japanese documents. The findings show that the population of Horqin has increased rapidly in recent 100 years. The average population density increased from 2.4 peosons/km2 during the period of the Republic of China to 39.72 peosons/km2 in 2000, 17 times that at the beginning of the 20th century. The increased population is mainly migratory people before 1949, the immigrants and their offsprings after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The study area has witnessed two population peaks in recent 100 years. One peak appeared in the planned migration period after 1949, and the other is the migratory people of the Puppet Manchuria State. The distribution of immigrants in Horqin was affected by the distance from agricultural area, natural environment condition of Horqin and its changes, urbanization and so on. Population density has turned out to be in gradual decline in terms of spatial distribution characteristics, from the periphery to the centre of Horqin, from agricultural area to agri-pastoral area and pastoral area, from city to village and pastoral area. The immigrants became the chief peasants of Horqin during the 20th century.
The Yangtze River Delta is one of the economically developed coastal areas. From the late 1970s, its urbanization process has been quickened greatly, which resulted in the number increase and the spatial expansion of urban areas. The Landsat MSS, TM/ETM satellite images, which were respectively acquired in 5 periods of 1979, 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005, were used to extract urban land information and analyze urban growth data with the help of remote sensing and GIS softwares. We analyzed the spatio-temporal characteristics including urban growth speed, growth intensity, fractal dimension and urban growth pattern. Additionally, dynamics of urban expansion in the Yangtze River Delta were also analyzed. The results are drawn as follows: (1) From 1979 to 2005, the growth speed of urbanization area was accelerating obviously. The quantities of increasing area of urbanized land were 37.66 km2, 112.43 km2, 274.86 km2 and 421.73 km2 in the past four periods (1979-1990, 1990-1995, 1995-2000 and 2000-2005), respectively. Meanwhlie, the growth intensities of urbanized land enhanced gradually. From 1979 to 1990, the growth intensity was only 0.03, then reaching 0.10, 0.24 and 0.37 in the following three periods. (2) The spatial structure of urbanization area in the Yangtze River Delta was fractal. The fractal dimension and stability coefficient of urbanized land structure fluctuated to a certain extent. From 1979 to 2000, the fractal dimension of urbanized land structure decreased yearly. The shape of urbanized land tended to be regular. After 2000, the area increase of urbanized land on a large scale led to more complicated shape of urbanized land. The stability coefficient also had similar characteristics to that of fractal dimension. So the change of urbanized land in spatial structure was relating to the growth process of urbanized land. (3) The growth process of urban agglomeration in the Yangtze River Delta was from one pole and two belts to five poles and five belts. From 1979 to 1990, Shanghai was the only first-grade growth pole of urbanized land and Shanghai-Nanjing railway and Shanghai-Hangzhou railway were the two first-grade growth belts of urbanized land in the Yangtze River Delta. At the latest period (from 2000 to 2005), the first-grade growth poles included 5 cities, i.e., Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Ningbo. Besides Shanghai-Nanjing railway and Shanghai-Hangzhou railway, Shanghai-Jingjiang railway, Hangzhou-Ningbo railway and the highway linking Nanjing to Gaochun also became growth belts of urbanized land in the Yangtze River Delta in that period.
The Yangtze River Delta is one of the economically developed coastal areas. From the late 1970s, its urbanization process has been quickened greatly, which resulted in the number increase and the spatial expansion of urban areas. The Landsat MSS, TM/ETM satellite images, which were respectively acquired in 5 periods of 1979, 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005, were used to extract urban land information and analyze urban growth data with the help of remote sensing and GIS softwares. We analyzed the spatio-temporal characteristics including urban growth speed, growth intensity, fractal dimension and urban growth pattern. Additionally, dynamics of urban expansion in the Yangtze River Delta were also analyzed. The results are drawn as follows: (1) From 1979 to 2005, the growth speed of urbanization area was accelerating obviously. The quantities of increasing area of urbanized land were 37.66 , 112.43 km2, 274.86 km2 and 421.73 km2 in the past four periods (1979-1990, 1990-1995, 1995-2000 and 2000-2005), respectively. Meanwhlie, the growth intensities of urbanized land enhanced gradually. From 1979 to 1990, the growth intensity was only 0.03, then reaching 0.10, 0.24 and 0.37 in the following three periods. (2) The spatial structure of urbanization area in the Yangtze River Delta was fractal. The fractal dimension and stability coefficient of urbanized land structure fluctuated to a certain extent. From 1979 to 2000, the fractal dimension of urbanized land structure decreased yearly. The shape of urbanized land tended to be regular. After 2000, the area increase of urbanized land on a large scale led to more complicated shape of urbanized land. The stability coefficient also had similar characteristics to that of fractal dimension. So the change of urbanized land in spatial structure was relating to the growth process of urbanized land. (3) The growth process of urban agglomeration in the Yangtze River Delta was from one pole and two belts to five poles and five belts. From 1979 to 1990, Shanghai was the only first-grade growth pole of urbanized land and Shanghai-Nanjing railway and Shanghai-Hangzhou railway were the two first-grade growth belts of urbanized land in the Yangtze River Delta. At the latest period (from 2000 to 2005), the first-grade growth poles included 5 cities, i.e., Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Ningbo. Besides Shanghai-Nanjing railway and Shanghai-Hangzhou railway, Shanghai-Jingjiang railway, Hangzhou-Ningbo railway and the highway linking Nanjing to Gaochun also became growth belts of urbanized land in the Yangtze River Delta in that period.
