Cities have been greatly influenced by the wave of globalization during the past half century, which has made the World City and Global City into a world popular research heat topic. Most existing research has focused on the about 50 cities on the top of the world city system before the end of the 1980s, only very recently extended to the 220 major cities, while most cities in the developing countries are neglected out of the World City Map. Regarding the driving forces of the World City/Global City, the economic function, particularly the producer services of these cities at the global level, in which the roles transnational corporations play, have been over emphasized. The questions are naturally and automatically arising: Are the other cities besides the top ones influenced by globalization? Are those average cities also experiencing the process of globalization? In which ways and at what levels are those general cities globalizing or globalized? In order to seek answers to these questions, Taking all the cities in China at prefectural level and above as research objects, we constructed an evaluation indicator system, and explored the change of the urban globalization levels of each Chinese city based on the data covering the years of 1984, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2004 and 2007. We found that: (1) all China's cities has witnessed the rise of their urban globalization levels during the last more than 2 decades. (2) The major cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou have seen the most rapid development of urban globalization. So not only the world top cities but also the average Chinese cities have been experiencing the process of globalization. We have also found that manufacturing function has been a very important driving force of many world factory cities in the course of their globalization process in China.
High-density urban area is the core of urban region and the source of urban sprawl. Its precise identification and expansion simulation are receiving more and more attention. This study used Landsat image data of 1979, 1990, 2000 and 2008 in the Haizhu Distrit of Guangzhou city as basic data sources, in combination with Vegetation-Impervious-Soil Model and Normalized Mixing Spectral Analysis Model. It was also aided with the Land Surface Temperature data inversed by mono-window algorithm as modification to extract highly precise percent impervious surface and to represent the high-density urban area by setting an appropriate threshold for the impervious surface fraction. We ran the SLEUTH Model to simulate and predict the high-density urban sprawl of the study area from 1979 to 2050 in four scenarios, then used the landscape indices method to analyze the spatial and temporal patterns for the 70-year time series of high-density regions. The major conclusions can be drawn as follows. The SLEUTH model is suitable for simulating the sprawl of small-scale region. The excluded layer parameters of the SLEUTH model based on the natural and social dynamic mechanism of urban expansion and other conditions produced more accurate simulation results. The SLEUTH model simulation analysis results show that Haizhu District has been developed at a rapid rate of high-density urban expansion since 1979, particularly in the period from 1990 to 2004 when it witnessed a much faster growth change. In the next 20 years (from 2008-2030), its growth rate would be relatively low. In the 2030s, there would be a stabilized situation in the study area and the sprawl pattern would be closely related to the factors of industrial structure, economic policy and land planning.
Market reform and opening-up policies stimulate the rapid and sustained growth of the foreign trade in some coastal cities of China, and bring a large number of foreigners into China for business. Japanese transnational migrants, especially, is an important group in this trend. This paper focuses on the Japanese expatriates in Guangzhou, taking Garden Hotel, Guangdong International Hotel and CITIC Plaza as study spots. It mainly makes efforts to shed light on the features of their living space as well as the underlying mechanism. After a short description of Guangzhou's exporting economy, the booming of Japanese-funded enterprises is examined. Under a macroscopic lens, based on the data sourced from real estate agents, eight Japanese 'spots agglomeration' were identified: Huadu, Baiyun-Liuhua, Huanshidong, Tianhebei, Zhujiang New Town, Ersha island, Panyu and Zengcheng, where at least hundreds of Japanese are living in the relatively agglomerated areas. On the other hand, under a microscopic and experience scale, this study uses both questionnaires and semi-structured interviews as the main methods. Questionnaires target on Japanese expatriates and their wives (housewives) who are now living or working in the foregoing three study spots, inquiries range from living conditions, daily consumption, commuting, and education to social intercourse. A total of 34 questionnaires have been collected and available. Moreover, 14 semi-structured interviews in total have been conducted. It is shown that Japanese expatriates in Guangzhou, whose characteristics are reflected by the typical individual daily life, have been transforming into an isolated ethnic group. There are two pivotal factors for this result: one is due to the institutional restrictions which originated from the lack of multi-language environment, policy/law and social welfare system for immigrants, which hinder the social integration of Japanese expatriates in China. The other is owing to the differences in cultural identity originated from the habits/customs and national characteristics of Japanese, which forces them to form their own "small community", and retards the social assimilation to the host society.
With the rapid increase of the number and influence of floating population in China, it is urgent to understand the regional types of China's floating population and their spatial characteristics. After reviewing the current methods for identifying regional types of floating population, this paper puts forward a new composite-index method and its further modification method consisting of two indexes simultaneously: the net migration rate and gross migration rate. Further, those methods are empirically tested by using China's 2000 Census data at county level. The results show: (1) The composite-indexes method is much better than the traditional single-index method because it can measure the migration direction and scale of floating simultaneously and in particular it can identify the unique regional types of floating population with large-scale immigration and emigration. (2) The modified composite-indexes method, by using the share of a region's certain type of floating population to the total in China as weight, can effectively correct the over- or under-estimated error due to the rather large or small total population of a region. (3) The spatial patterns of different regional types of China's floating population are closely related to regional differentiation of their natural environment, population density and socio-economic development level. The three active regional types of floating population are mainly located in the eastern China with lower elevation, more than 800 mm precipitation, rather than in the region with higher population density and economic development level.
According to the developing process of urban space of Changchun, this paper reveals the evolution characteristics of socio-spatial structure before the Puppet Manchuria Period. At that time, Changchun had formed a socio-spatial structure of China-Russia-Japan tri-polar division. After the Puppet Manchuria was established, in the context of city property of capital, economic function of consumption, urban space expansion, immigrants inflows, urban social space of Changchun started to show an overall Sino-Japanese divided pattern, and central axis became the spatial label of the pattern. Generally speaking, during the Puppet Manchuria Period, social space of Changchun was divided into many social areas such as Puppet Manchuria senior government area, Japanese residential area, national commercial area, residential area for Chinese poor farmers, etc. The model of spatial structure presented a combination pattern linked with Solitary Island at the edge of city and the concentric circles and the fan-shaped structure around the city center. The historical base of urban spatial development, the abnormal development of urbanization, the colonial nature of urban construction and urban planning of Hsingking are the primary mechanisms for the formation of Changchun socio-spatial structure during the Puppet Manchuria Period.
Regional spatial imbalance is the result of the mismatch between the developing state and the location supply capacity in the view of income increase and ecological improvement. This is because when we make regional resources division and allocation, the regional socio-economic development is lack of consideration of the exploitation-supply comparative advantage. When the scale and degree of regional development surpasses the possible supply capacity, it would be over development, otherwise it is insufficient development. Taking counties in Jiangsu as the study units, exploitation intensity and other indexes reflecting the spatial supply capacity are applied to determine and assess the spatial imbalanced state, such as ecological significant index, environmental sensitive index, scale aggregation index, resource insurance index and transport economic index. In the meantime, the imperfect price market of resource environment, the unreasonable administrative allocation, and the development-oriented finance, tax, cadre assessing systems are all the institutional reasons for spatial imbalance.
This paper explains industrial agglomeration by combining industrial attributes and provincial characteristics. Based on data from the first economic census in 2004, this study found that industrial agglomeration significantly varied by industry and across province. Overall, industrial agglomeration in the western provinces is much higher than that in the coastal provinces. Indidvidual industries however show significant different patterns. Statistical analysis indicates that provincial characteristics such as per captita GDP, road and raiway density, ratio of non-state-owned economy, ratio of governmental expenses to GDP, number of development zones, social capital and law enforcement, and trade barrier indeed influence the extent of industrial agglomeration. Controlling for provincial dummies, industrial attributes such as agricultural input intensity, labor input intensity, average enterprises size, industrial linkages, ratio of foreign capital in total capital, ratio of exports in gross output, ratio of profits and value added taxes in total sales, ratio of state capital in total capital, transportation input intensity and planned key industries are associated with industrial agglomeration. The significance of many interactions between industrial attributes and provincial characteristics suggests that industrial agglomeration is not only industry-specific but also province-specific. The policy implication is that local governments shall carefully choose industries to develop industrial clusters.
The actual food provision of China is calculated by using production data (survey data and statistical data) of cropland, grassland and aquatic ecosystems as well as import and export food data. Through the food-nutrition converting formula, we can calculate the total food nutrition production of China during 1998-2004. Taking the year of 2004 as an example, China can provide 1.601 × 1015 kcal (kilocalories) of food energy, 6.163 × 104 million kg of protein and 2.717×104 million kg of fat, in which 1.454×1015 kcal of food energy, 4.996×104 million kg of protein and 2.074×104 million kg of fat are from the terrestrial ecosystems-- cropland, grassland and inland-aquatic ecosystems. Productions of food energy, protein and fat from terrestrial ecosystems amount for 32.46% , 38.33% and 41.12% of their potential respectively, implying that there will be some increasing space of actual food provisions. China could supply food energy, protein and fat for 1912 million persons, 2084 million persons and 1103 million persons respectively under full well-to-do life in 2004. According to the nutrition goal and the forecasted population of 2010 and 2020, provisions of food energy and protein are theoretically sufficient, while food fat is deficient, implying that production of fat and oil food needs enhancement. It is also found that a majority of the total food is supplied by cropland, although the proportion has a decreasing trend, from 84.66% in 1998 to 74.72% in 2004. Food supplied by the grassland and aquatic ecosystem accounts for 4.83%-5.80% and 6.02%-7.51% , respectively. The proportion of net-import food has an increasing trend, from 4.04% in 1998 to 13.82% in 2004. Food-population-provision model and nutrients-balancing model are used to calculate the population that China can support. Results show that if foods on the first trophic level such as grain, beans and oil-crops were appropriately converted into foods on the second trophic level such as meats, China can supply food for 1.534, 1.500 and 1.411 billion people under primary well-to-do life, full well-to-do life and well-off life respectively in 2004. This means that China's food supply is sufficient if food planting and food consumption would be restructured.
Creative products are considered as the outcome of a series of interactive processes, covering creation, production, distribution and consumption. The role of intermediary organizations such as distribution channels in establishing the linkages between creators and consumers are valued highly. With a primary purpose of examining whether or not it is true in design industry in developing countries like China, the authors take the design industry of Shanghai as an example, collect data from questionnaires and in-depth interviews which were carried out in nine creative industrial agglomerations in 2007 and 2008 respectively, and use SPSS as an analysis tool to explore the effects of networking relationship on the creativity of design firms. The results show that the design industry in Shanghai does tap into creative energies of other industries through inter-industrial division based on input-output relationship. Undoubtedly, companies from the downstream industries are the key actors in the networking, and their effects on creativity depend more on content of linkages than on intensity of linkages. A couple of universities in Shanghai are also important actors on the basis of the commercial tradition with strong entrepreneurship. Actually, they are incubators of creative firms and sources of talents rather than just providers of professional services. However, unlike developed countries, there are relatively few intermediary organizations linking creators with consumers in China, and the importance of cooperation between design firms cannot be overemphasized.
Ecological compensation is a hot subject in academic studies, and the determination of spatial allotment standard is the key point in the research of ecological compensation. There are two kinds of thoughts in the determination of regional spatial allotment standard at present: "Evaluation of ecological construction cost" and "Evaluation of ecosystem services value". This paper analyzes the relationships between social ecological compensation and regional socio-economic development, and established an econometrics model with the data of 2007 from various provinces in China. Through this model, the impacts of geographical factor endowment on the regional socio-economic development in various provinces were analyzed from the angle of social justice, and the concept of "Equivalent value of Geographical factor Endowment" (EGE for short) was proposed. On this basis, we analyze the application prospect of EGE in the policy decision making of regional ecological compensation. The results show that: (1) The implementation of the social ecological compensation is not only an effective guarantee for each region to obtain the equal rights of survival, development and decent environment, but also an essential assurance to the coordinated, balanced and sustainable development among various regions; (2) the regional difference of geographical factor endowment is an important cause for the regional spatial variation of socio-economic development, so the geographical factor endowment is an important basis for the determination of social ecological compensation standard; (3) based on the EGE, we can determine the spatial allotment standard of social ecological compensation scientifically, and avoid the "sweeping approach" phenomenon in the policy making of ecological compensation effectively.
With rapid urbanization and motorization, urban transport congestion poses a challenge to the cities in China. Cars have reshaped the urban structure and urbanization progress. As this transport/land use system is involved in distance and space, not much progress has been made in model building. This paper introduces an urban equilibrium model with a bimodal transportation system and analyzes modal choice and modes of urbanization in China. We extract the key parameters from China's cities, then make simulating and sensitive analyses based on the model. Moreover, we explain the hypothesis of the model in terms of the impacts of income, land rent, price of transportation and supply of land on transport congestion, city size and density. Finally, based on the results we give some suggestions for policy making.
Container traffic flows reflect the economic linkages inter-cities. Hubs play an important role in regional economic network, which reversely dominates the development of logistics. Based on the graph theory, this paper designed a model, which considered both the direct and indirect economic linkages inter-cities, to identify the hubs. As a result, 21 container hubs were found in China, and most of them are seaport cities. Moreover, the container traffic flow system around the hub shows an obvious region-gateway spatial structure. Then, this paper analyzed the distance decay rule of main container hubs such as Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing using Pareto and Newling model respectively, and defined main decay parameters of the models. The decay coefficient b in Pareto model shows that if its value is higher, the container hub will be more limited in a short distance. The increment coefficient b1 in Newling model is positive, which demonstrates that there is a low value area near the hub. Therefore, the area which is influenced most by the container hub is really not close to it. Meanwhile, this paper explored the spatial agglomeration and diffusion rules of container transport based on the O-D flow matrix. Hubs' radiation and attraction capability shows obvious spatial imbalance. Adjacent areas have lower values, and the main influenced areas are found in a certain distance away from the hubs. Although the largest radiation value and attraction value of each hub is different from the others, their agglomeration and diffusion corridors are almost in accordance with each other.
Since some limitations existed in the current accessibility method, integrated method of network analysis and cost weighted raster analysis were designed and applied to generate city isochronous rings after the operation of high-speed railways. The valuation of accessibility was conducted with three indicators, i.e. daily accessibility, potential model, and weighted average time. After the valuation, differences between accessibility patterns with scenarios with and without high-speed railways were analyzed, and influences of the high-speed railways on center cities' accessibility were discussed. Changes in hinterlands of the center cities were also calculated with field intensity model. The results indicated that high-speed railways would expand the isochronous rings, and realize significant optimization of urban daily accessibility and form uneven time convergence space. Sites along the high-speed railways became the biggest beneficiaries of time convergence, as the variability of their weighted average time and potential values were high. In different geographical scales, the high-speed railways reduced the equilibrium of weighted average time, and their influences on the equilibrium of potential values are inconsistent. The high-speed railways would expand the hinterlands of Beijing and Shanghai, and strengthen their regional influences. As accessibility changes differed in different regions, the industrial structure should be adjusted in regions with high accessibility variability, while regions with low accessibility variability should improve rapid transit networks, and increase accessibility by strengthening their links with high-speed railways.
The economic links between ports were the most important index of spatial structure. Researches on the ports spatial structure evolution over a long period were not extensively conducted on the late-imperial China and the Republic of China. In this paper, the ports spatial structure of foreign and domestic trade including 46 cities was analyzed based on the Chinese Maritime Customs trade data. The results were obtained as follows: (1) Due to domestic political instability, institutional factors played a key role in the changing process of ports functions. The characteristics of the hinterland determined the ports function. (2) Based on the analysis of Net Total Foreign Imports and Total Exports of Local Origin, the small cities below the average level had an export-oriented trend and those above the average level tended to be balanced in trade. (3) The Herfindahl index of spatial structure on foreign trade was relatively high. The inter-ports trade network was at a moderate level of concentration, and it was also stable in the 50-year period. With the trade expansion in space and quantity, the direct transports between small cities took the place of the transit hub. However, there was an opposite trend during the Sino-Japanese War. (4) There was a huge difference between southern and northern China concerning the ports spatial structure. The inter-ports trade network in the Yangtze River Delta developed well but it was less developed in the Pearl River Delta. As to the Bohai Rim region, it could not present a basic exchange networks (in terms of the part under customs inspection). (5) The ports spatial structure in eastern coastal China since the 19th century went through three stages and reached its peak before the war. The structure was characterized by a Hub-Spoke network.
