From the essential meaning of urbanization, this paper establishes a comprehensive evaluation index system, including four aspects changing: population, economy, society and land. Based on the method of entropy, the measure and evolution of China's urbanization are analyzed since 1981. The results show that China's comprehensive urbanization level continues improving. Economic growth and geographical landscape are the main features of rapid evolution of urbanization, followed by the population urbanization, and the medical care level of social urbanization is the least advanced. The evolution of all the four subsystems has unique characteristics. The analysis of multiple regression model shows that the driving factors have been diversified. The market force is the most powerful driving force of China's urbanization, followed by intrinsic force, administration force, exterior force. From different stages of urbanization, the effects of market force, exterior force and the administration force on urbanization are increasing, while intrinsic force is decreasing. China's urbanization is the main endogenous process, hence more policies should be formulated to strengthen the market economy reform and coordinate urban and rural development.
Based on a review on urban allometric equation, this paper analyzes the allometric growth relationship between urban area and urban population in China by using the data of the urban built-up area and the total population of cities and towns in 1990, 2000 and 2005. After an in-depth discussion of the standard value of the scaling factor, the paper concludes that urban growth in China is negative allometry in 1990 and positive one in 2000 and 2005. Sample cities in the eastern and western China also show the same law. In contrast to this, cities in central China maintain the original proportion of built-up land growth with population growth; however, they show positive allometry in 2005 because of the promotion policy for central China. The conclusion is closely related to the changes in migrant population, housing system reform and the rapid expansion of development zones.
The factors resources efficiencies (including Technological Efficiency, TE; Pure Technological Efficiency, PTE; and Scale Efficiency, SE) of metropolises in China in 1990, 2000 and 2006, and their changing trends in China during the period 1990-2006 are investigated using DEA model and Malmquist index model, respectively. Firstly, the DEA model results show the efficiencies were not too high, with the characteristics of almost decreasing from Eastern Coastal China to Western China, and only few metropolises were in DEA efficiencies. Secondly, the results also show the PTEs were correlated with the urban population sizes of metropolises negatively, and the SEs correlated with the urban population sizes of metropolises positively in 1990, 2000, 2006, that is, with urban population sizes getting larger the corresponding PTEs were decreasing accordingly, and the SEs were increasing consequently. Thirdly, the Malmquist index results display the TE changing trends were increasing weakly, the technological changing trends were decreasing, and the total factor productivity changing trends are decreasing more apparently during 1990-2006, in which they were all increasing during the sub-period 1990-2000, and all decreasing during the sub-period 2000-2006. Fourthly, the Malmquist index results also demonstrate the TE changing trend was slightly increasing in Eastern Coastal China, while it was decreasing in Central China, and decreasing evidently in Western China. And with the increase of urban population size, the increasing trends of SEs became weaker and weaker. And the main reasons for the relatively low urban efficiencies and their changing trends, as well as a slight increase of total factor productivity changing trends mainly lie in the technological degeneracy and a significant decreasing trend in PTE during 2000-2006. Finally, the analyses also shed some highlights on the importance and significances to develop some metropolises with a proper size of population in China through implementing intensive factor resources utilization mode based on sustainable development concept.
In the rapid urbanization of China, the phenomenon of urban sprawl is becoming more and more obvious. Firstly, this paper introduces the basic concept and characteristics of Western urban sprawl. Then it explains the difference of urban sprawl between Occident and China, which is closely linked with economic and social development. So it establishes an urban sprawl evaluation system with AHP on the basis of western experiences and approaches from the traditional perspective of spatial pattern. Then the coordinating degree between economy and society is used to amend the evaluation system. In order to get the value of the coordinating degree, a synthesized index system of economy and society which contains 10 indexes is built. In addition, the method of principal component analysis and fuzzy math is applied in the assessment process. In order to demonstrate the whole evaluation system, the data of Hangzhou city are used to conduct an actual assessment and analysis. The result indicates that the degree of urban sprawl is relatively great, which is accordant with the judgement from the spatial form of Hangzhou. Based on the result, we discuss the control mechanism of urban sprawl and some proposals are put forward from many aspects.
Currently, both rural development and urban development in China are experiencing a transition period. the transformation of a traditional agricultural society into a modern industrial and urban society, and the economy is changing from a traditional planned economy to a modern market system. As a result, regional development factors reintegration and followed industrial restructuring have changed the rural areas in eastern coastal China deeply. Different rural development types were shaped basing on a carrier, which is composed of different industries. Accordingly, this paper defines four rural development types, i.e. agriculture-dominated rural development type, industry-dominated rural development type, balanced rural development type, and rural development type focusing on business, tourism and providing services, and classifies the rural development types in eastern coastal China. Then, an indicator system was established to assess the rurality index (RI) of different rural development types in eastern coastal China. The results showed: (1) Relying on the advantages of location and national lean policies, 57.6% of the total territory of eastern coastal China belongs to balanced rural development type, and 18.64%, 11.99% and 11.75% of the total area is shared by agriculture-dominated rural development type, industry-dominated rural development type, and rural development type focusing on business, tourism and providing services, respectively; (2) 59.1% of the agriculture-dominated rural development type shows a strong rurality (RI > 0.5); (3) In the industry-dominated rural development type, the area with a weak rurality (RI < 0.4) and a moderate rurality (0.4 < RI < 0.5) takes up 33.4% and 42.8%, respectively; (4) In the rural development type focusing on business, tourism and providing services, the area with weak, strong and moderate rurality shares 42.7%, 27.3% and 30.0% of the total, respectively; (5) Almost half (45.8%) of the balanced rural development type with a moderate rurality, 17.2% of this type with a weak rurality, and 37% with a strong rurality. In some cases, the big difference of rurality index value among the same development types is due to the development of multi-functionality of current countryside and place-based rural development mode under globalization and socio-economic restructuring. Rural development depends on the change of its influencing factors. So, the rural development types classified in this paper can not always keep the same situation, at least the quantitative change occurs momently.
The wide application of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) has been argued to be critical to business success of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially to those in the developing countries. Such advances have initiated debates on the spatial implications of new ICTs. Existing literature is mainly concentrated on spatial impacts of new ICTs at urban and city level, while the spatial transformation at firm level has not yet been given enough attention by geographers. Drawing upon existing literature, this paper examines Shangyu clothing cluster in Zhejiang Province and PPG company in Shanghai City as case studies to look into the spatial impacts of ICTs on SMEs. The paper argues that application of new ICTs tends to lead to "dispersed concentration" of SMEs at local level, while "time-cost" plays an important role in transforming the spatial organization of firms under new ICTs.
Modeling consumer behavior has experienced from using aggregate models to individual-based models. During the latest decade, multi-agent technique has been extensively developed with the help of the ever-advancing computer technology. Currently, the method of combining individual-based consumer behavior models and multi-agent simulation systems has become the state-of-the-art method in related research and practical fields. The major advantage of such type of method is that it enables the related professionals to integrate the complexity of various aspects, predict the dynamic processes of the whole or part of the shopping space, and support planning and development based on the behavior of individual consumer. The paper introduces a multi-agent simulation platform developed by the authors based on NetLogo, including the construction of the platform and the procedures of the simulation. The core of the simulation system consists of four major consumer decision models: go-home decision, direction choice decision, rest decision, and store patronage decision, which are constructed differently from conventional choice models based on principles of bounded rationality. The simulation platform is applied to the study of consumer behavior in East Nanjing Road as a validation to the model system. A survey was carried out in the street in 2007. The data recorded the activity diary of consumers and were used for estimating the models. The simulation is carried out using the given distributions of consumers' entry locations and start time, to replicate the observed behavior. Aggregate consumer behavior is more concerned in practice. Therefore, after twenty times of simulation for reducing random fluctuations, individual agent behavior is aggregate. Three aspects of the aggregate simulated behavior are compared with the observed aggregate behavior. The first aspect is the number of consumers conducting different activities overtime, including the total number of consumers in the street, the number of consumers in the stores, the number of consumers taking rests, the number of consumers who are walking, and the number of consumers who have gone home. The second aspect is the number of consumers in street segments over time. The third aspect is the number of consumer visits and duration in individual stores. The results show that in general the simulation platform can predict the aggregate consumer behavior well. Particularly, the activity-time distributions are simulated very well except that the walking behavior is simulated poorly mainly due to the small number of observations. The number of consumers in street segments are simulated not well enough although the general trend in segments with a large number of observations are captured. This means the proposed model system can capture the aspatial behavior better than spatial behavior. This might be due to the fact that the complexity of consumer spatial behavior was affected by many environmental factors and personal variations, and however, it was only modeled using limited explanatory variables. Further studies are needed to be done on consumer behavior in relation with the environment.
Land use and land cover change (LUCC) is a major part and also a main cause of global environmental changes, and it has emerged recently as an important focus for land change studies. Based on the systematic summary of the progress of studies in LUCC in the latest decade, including its theories, methods and applications, a series of problems that should be urgently resolved in the study are put forward, and some important study directions and priorities for future are reviewed. Results show that LUCC model plays an important role and is an efficient tool to support the analysis of the causes, processes and consequences of land use systems and to support land use planning and policy. Second, spatio-temporal patterns of LUCC are the research core of LUCC models. The development of models has experienced an evolvement from single non-spatial to the combination of non-spatial and spatial models, however, at present most models are static models and ignore the temporal dimension of land-use change. Third, feedback is one of the important characteristics of LUCC; however, the majority of the existing LUCC models are very weak in analyzing and presenting the feedbacks of LUCC. In this regard, how to get a better understanding of the feedbacks at different time and space scales will be one of new tasks in LUCC models. Fourth, the objective of LUCC models is to study the dynamic relations of a coupled human-environment. Currently, most LUCC models are partial-equilibrium ones. Future LUCC models will focus on studies on the human-environment system from a systematic and holistic point of view. Fifth, multi-scale analysis in LUCC models is needed for a better understanding of land use change. Early LUCC models used to take a single scale or level of analysis into account. Recently, a number of LUCC models which implement multiple scales can be distinguished. The scaling will be a key issue in future LUCC models. Finally, although many methods of model validation are available, there is not a uniform standard and criterion of model validation. The weakness in reference data also limits the performance of model validation. All these will challenge the development of future LUCC models.
Based on the cost-income data of farm produce and the China Agricultural Yearbook, this paper divided the intensity of cultivated land use into labor intensity and capital intensity, then analyzed their temporal and spatial change at both country and provincial scale in the period of 1980-2006. The results showed that: (1) On country scale, labor intensity of food crop farming decreased from 398.5 day/ha in 1980 to 130.25 day/ha in 2006; and shows a continuous decrease with a steep decline in 1980-1986, a slower decline in 1987-1996, and another steep decline in 1997-2006. On the contrary, capital intensity shows an increasing trend from 1980. In the internal composition of capital intensity, the proportion of seed, chemical fertilizer and pesticide input decreased from 90.36% to 73.44% ; the proportion of machinery increased from 9.64% to 26.56% . The less emphasis on yieldincreasing input and more emphasis on labor-saving input are the main reasons for a slow increase of yield per unit area after 1996. (2) On provincial scale, the economically developed areas have lower labor intensity and higher capital intensity. The less developed areas have higher labor intensity but lower capital intensity. From the internal composition of capital intensity view, labor-saving input accounts for more proportion in the developed areas than other areas. That is because in these developed areas, as more and more labors engaged in off-farm work, labor input has become a constraint factor in food production. Farmers increase the labor-saving input for higher labor productivity. However, in less developed areas, the major constraint is the shortage of capital; food production is still depending on labor and yield-increasing inputs.
In China, there are standard per capita indicators for the land used for urban and rural settlements. Tender auction has been the major access to the acquirement of operating sites. Land used for transport facilities and water conservancy facilities is mainly influenced by important governmental and regional policies. However, there are neither corresponding standards for industrial land nor adequate mark transparency for its procurement. Therefore, how to improve the efficiency of industrial land use is of prime importance for land use planning and governance. We found that most of the existing research papers introduce a weighted indicator to evaluate land intensive use, without the guidance of economic principles. The exiting method cannot be well applied for the compilation of land use planning and the process of management and implementation. We propose a means named total factor productivity, simple and practical, to evaluate the economic efficiency of industrial land use and compare the effects of intensive use in different cities of Fujian province in China. Also, a variant TPF method is feasible in the absence of labor incomes ratio. It is unable to arrange the order of factor use efficiency, but it could indicate the input structures of capital and labor and regional differences of their use efficiencies. Furthermore, the case study shows that the longer distance from Xiamen and Fuzhou, the lower inputs and outputs the other cities of Fujian province have. It seems that Xiamen and Fuzhou analogize the city in Thunen's isolate country while other cities like the suburbs in the book. Therefore it is necessary to consider the impacts of location on land intensive use, and finding the reference atlas is the crux.
Nanjing is a major city in the Yangtze River Delta of China. Since the 1990s the city space has been expanding rapidly in relation with the fast economic development and urbanization. The policies of land saving and intensive land use has been emphasized by the government to protect the arable land from converting into urban land. After analyzing composition of present policy instrument in Chinese cities, this paper noted that urban planning and land use regulation were the regular basis. The effectiveness of urban planning control and administrative efficiency of growth management efforts were discussed. Firstly, the paper substantively studied the process of urban expansion along two transportation lines based on the remote sensing data of Nanjing obtained in 1986, 1996, 2002 and 2005, and assessed the effectiveness of urban growth management with the efficient index on newly converted urban land (Eg), the cumulatively efficient index (E) and the ratio of idle land area. The E of Nanjing master urban plans was about 70% in the first five years. The Eg was relatively low, being 0.29-0.7. Secondly, the logistic regression analysis with the data of 478 land parcels from the sampling sites revealed that the urban plan significantly decreased occurrence frequency of the idle land parcel (p < 0.001), and the administrative factors were significantly related with the frequency of idle land parcel. Concentration and reserve of rights in land use administration and urban plan management have negative effect on idle land frequency. Finally, some urban planning and land use policies such as enlargement of the urban planning area, rights reserve in urban plan administration and land use transformation approval have been suggested to improve the land use efficiency. The results and suggestions should benefit urban land management in land saving and intensive use of urban land, and the methodology of quantitative assessment on effectiveness of urban growth management should give examples for the similar studies in China.
Scientifically evaluating natural suitability for human settlement and defining function zones of population development will promote coordinated regional development between population, resources and environment. In this paper, Geographic Information System (GIS), integrated index analysis, correlation analysis and demonstration were employed to establish the spatial situation of nature suitability for human settlement in Shaanxi Province. Results showed that: the index of nature suitability for human settlement in Shaanxi Province was between 18.55 and 88.97. In general, nature suitability for human settlement increased from northwest to southeast and from mountain and plateau to plain and valley. Considering area, the common suitable region ranked first, accounting for about 63.28% of the total area of Shaanxi Province; and rather and comparatively suitable region ranked second, about 26.11% of the total; and the most desirable region ranked last, only about 0.35%. On the other hand the population of the province was concentrated in regions with higher nature suitability. About 68.92% of Shaanxi's population was concentrated in the most desirable region and rather and comparatively suitable region. Nearly 88.16% of Shaanxi's population was distributed in grade one of common suitable region and above that level. Spatial distribution of population was profoundly affected by nature suitability for human settlement in Shaanxi Province. Regions with maximal population density always were the ones with highest nature suitability for human settlement. The influence of span of climate suitability on spatial distribution of population was partly in Shaanxi Province. Surface water shortage was the bottleneck of nature suitability for human settlement in northern Shaanxi and northern Guanzhong, while high altitudes and wavy terrains were the bottleneck of nature suitability for human settlement in the Qinling-Daba mountains and Loess Plateau. Lack of water and sparse vegetation were the main natural restriction to human suitability in wind-eroded areas of northern Shaanxi.
