Compared with the increasingly obvious humanistic tendency in foreign human geography, China's human and economic geography still follows Academician Wu Chuanjun's theory, with human and economic geography as an interdisciplinary subject which is the study of the formation and evolution of the distribution pattern of human activities under the interaction of natural circle and human circle. And China's mainstream school on human and economic geography has been formed with studies on spatio-temporal rule of sustainable development on territories with different space scales, territories with important production and living, and territories with typical geospatial patterns as the main research points. "Territorial System of Human-environment Interaction", developed by Academician Wu Chuanjun, is the important theoretical foundation not only for human and economic geography, but also for the comprehensive research on geography. The essence of the theory, which includes territorial functional, system structured, orderly process for spatio-temporal variation, and the difference and controllability of human-environment interaction system effect, is entirely harmonious with the forefront of thought of the "Future Earth" studies program. In recent decade, with scientific mode of urbanization, major function oriented zoning, road map for the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, rural hollowing and targeted poverty alleviation, revitalization of Northeast China and transformation of resource-based cities, and administrative area optimization as the main research objects, theoretical methods have been developed in the aspects of important sustainable process of human and economic geography, territorial function formation and ordering rules for comprehensive geographical pattern, formation and evolution mechanism of urban agglomeration and its resources and environmental effects, sustainable life cycle and the revitalization of the path for problem areas, the interaction between geopolitics, geo-economy and regions, and effect of cultural boundaries on sustainable development. China's human and economic geography has made great progress in discipline development, and the application results have produced profound influences on the ecological civilization construction and sustainable development in recent years. With decades of hard work, China's human and economic geography has reached a world-class advanced level, so as to console the soul and spirit of Wu Chuanjun on the occasion of commemoration of the centenary of his birth.
The optimal control of the human-earth system plays the most important role in the theoretical foundation of human-earth areal system (abbreviated as the "human-earth system") advocated by Academician Wu Chuanjun. Based on the thinking and related discussion of optimal control of human-earth system proposed by Academician Wu, this paper deepened and expanded the theoretical and methodological aspects of structure, nonlinear effects, coupling relationship and evolution of the human-earth system. After that, we focused on the following two aspects. The first is to discuss the optimization of human-earth system and coordinated development of regional PRED (i.e., population, resources, environment, and development), including the relationship between human-earth system optimization and PRED coordinated development, as well as the objectives, key points, theoretical models and quantitative measures of coordinated development of PRED. The second is to explore the path and countermeasures of comprehensive regulation of human-earth system in the new era. First of all, we should promote the continuous and healthy development of human-earth systems through innovation. Secondly, we should optimize the spatial pattern of the human-earth system according to the main function-oriented zoning. Thirdly, we should build a modern economic system through supply-side structural reforms. Fourthly, setting long-term balanced development of population as a goal, we should gradually improve the population policy. Finally, we should follow the market principles to improve the mechanism of paid use of resources and environment and ecological compensation.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has changed from a China-based initiative to an international consensus, and is becoming a platform for a growing number of countries in the world to explore new international economic governance mechanisms. Such a great change along with impressive achievements of BRI development has attracted academic attention from almost all disciplines except basic sciences, giving rise to huge literature. This paper will first explore data from China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database to summarize the characteristics of literature on BRI in general, and then review progress in research on major BRI topics related to geography. The paper finds: (1) the number of Chinese papers on BRI increased by 21 times in three years, from 1012 in 2014 to 21216 in 2017; (2) these papers cover various BRI-related topics but most of them are macroscopic and very general studies of BRI with a taste of public voices, implying that quality papers with deep academic studies are demanded to support the BRI development; (3) more frequently discussed topics are China's outward foreign direct investment, facilities connection, "going out", globalization, global economic governance, community of shared destiny and internationalization of Renminbi; and (4) specific topics that are more deeply studied by geographers are connotation and discourse of BRI, geopolitical analysis of BRI, China-Europe Express Train, global strategic shipping pivot, model of China's outward foreign direct investment and overseas industrial parks, trade pattern and its impacts on economic growth of both China and its trade partners. Lastly, the paper suggests enhancing the discursive construction of BRI and studies of new BRI mechanisms as well as studies of countries involved in BRI, and promoting dialogues and collaborations between Chinese scholars and foreign scholars on BRI studies.
Cities and villages are components of a specific organism. Only the sustainable development of two parts can support the prosperous development as a whole. According to the theory of man-earth areal system, urban-rural integrated system and rural regional system are the theoretical bases for entirely recognizing and understanding urban-rural relationship. To handle the increasingly severe problems of "rural disease" in rapid urbanization, accelerating rural revitalization in an all-round way is not only a major strategic plan for promoting the urban-rural integration and rural sustainable development, but also a necessary requirement for solving the issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and rural people in the new era and securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. This study explores the basic theories of urban-rural integration and rural revitalization and analyzes the main problems and causes of rural development in the new era, proposing problem-oriented scientific approaches and frontier research fields of urban-rural integration and rural revitalization in China. Results show that the objects of urban-rural integration and rural revitalization is a regional multi-body system, which mainly includes urban-rural integration, rural complex, village-town organism, and housing-industry symbiosis. Rural revitalization focuses on promoting the reconstruction of urban-rural integration system and constructs a multi-level goal system including urban-rural infrastructure networks, zones of rural development, fields of village-town space and poles of rural revitalization. Currently, the rural development is facing the five problems: high-speed non-agricultural transformation of agriculture production factors, over-fast aging and weakening of rural subjects, increasingly hollowing and abandoning of rural construction land, severe fouling of rural soil and water environment and deep pauperization of rural poverty-stricken areas. The countryside is an important basis for the socioeconomic development in China, and the strategies of urban-rural integration and rural revitalization are complementary. The rural revitalization focuses on establishing the institutional mechanism for integrated urban-rural development and constructs the comprehensive development system of rural regional system, which includes transformation, reconstruction and innovation in accordance with the requirements of thriving businesses, pleasant living environments, social etiquette and civility, effective governance, and prosperity. Geographical research on rural revitalization should focus on the complexity and dynamics of rural regional system and explore new schemes, models and scientific approaches for the construction of villages and towns, which are guided by radical cure of "rural disease", implement the strategy of rural revitalization polarization, construct the evaluation index system and planning system of rural revitalization, thus providing advanced theoretical references for realizing the revitalization of China's rural areas in the new era.
Urban agglomeration refers to a highly integrated city and town group. It comes into being with the development of industrialization and urbanization to the advanced stage. The formation and development of urban agglomeration is a long natural process, which is transformed from competition to cooperation. China is in a new stage of urbanization transition, and has entered a new era of leading the global urban agglomeration development in the 21st century. The research and experience model of China's urban agglomeration has been accepted by global urban agglomeration construction as reference. In this paper, the natural law of urban agglomeration is proposed, including developmental gradual law, multi-scale transmission law of space intensive utilization, the combination law of spatial crystal structure, the natural growth of the breeding tree, and the gradient upgrade law of sustainable development. Following these laws, Chinese geographers have made great contributions to the research and development of China's urban agglomerations, which focuses on academic theory, technical method, decision support and planning practice. We developed and scientifically defined the concept of urban agglomeration, and first adopted the identification standard of urban agglomeration space. We established the spatial intensive development and layout simulation decision support technology chain in urban agglomeration, and developed related software chain. We laid out the new pattern of 5+9+6 in the spatial organization of China's urban agglomerations, and formulated the first China's urban agglomeration planning technical regulation. We completed the development plan of most urban agglomerations in China, which has become an important basis for decision-making at the national level. In the future, geographers will play a growing role and shoulder the responsibility in the development of Chinese urban agglomerations. We should combine qualitative and quantitative methods, and use big data and intelligent decision support technology to solve a series of problems in the development of this cause. Only in this way can Chinese geographers make greater contributions to the development of urban agglomerations.
Variations of locational conditions caused by transport infrastructure construction largely promoted the agglomeration of production factors and the local economy and reshaped the regional structure. Hence, measuring transport location has become one of the fundamental topics in geography. Recently, along with transport development, as well as the emergence of new technology, new models, new factors and new industrial forms, the locational conditions have been reconstructed and individual travel concept and patterns changed. The existing research on measuring transport location considers not only the location in the geographic context in terms of the spatial location and transport infrastructure network but also the location in the flow of space concerning the network connectivity, reliability and travel convenience. The research objects changed from various locations to the micro-location regarding group travel characteristics and differences at the individual level. The research contents included door-to-door trips in the accessibility of transport networks. Meanwhile, techniques of big data and GIS-T methods make measuring transport location more accurate.
Resource-based cities refer to the type of cities that exploit and process natural resources, such as minerals and forests in the region. The transformation and sustainable development of resource-based cities is an important part of the research on regional industrial development, regional economy and urban development. Since China started the pilot reform of resource-based cities in Fuxin in 2001, the accurate definition and classification of resource-based cities in China has been one of the focuses of academic discussion. This paper systematically analyzes the historical criteria of the definition and classification of resource-based cities. Based on the previous experiences and using the theory and method of urban function classification, this paper proposes a set of methods to identify resource-based cities. Then, based on the development of resource-based cities and their actual characteristics, this paper tries to establish a comprehensive classification framework for resource-based cities by two kinds of evaluation which are based on resources support ability and sustainable development ability. A total of 262 resource-based cities are divided into 4 types, nemely growth type, maturity type, recession type and regeneration type. The paper also analyzes the different characteristics of different types of cities. This result supports the delineation of the scope and categories of resource-based cities in the "National Sustainable Development Plan for Resource-based Cities" promulgated by the State Council and has become the basis for targeted guidance and policy support.
Administrative division research has become one of the most important parts in human-economic geography, which is closely related with studies on political geography, historical geography, and urban geography. The new argument that administrative division itself can be seen as a resource, which is of great significance to understanding and exerting the effect of administrative divisions in spatial governance and optimization of regional development pattern. Based on the review of the development of administrative division research, three predominant directions should be centered in the future research, that is, optimizing and enhancing regional management efficiency, protecting regional governance security and improving precision management of administrative regions. Starting from the modernization of national governance and governance capacity, the important research direction of administrative divisions was discussed in three points: (1) the optimization of managerial hierarchy and scope of jurisdiction can improve spatial governance efficiency; (2) dividing a large-scale and economically developed province into small part can guarantee spatial governance security; (3) reasonable scope of jurisdiction and establishment of grass-roots administrative divisions can enhance spatial governance precision. Appropriate adjustment of administrative divisions have helped to improve spatial governance, and provided a policy support for building a spatial governance system suitable to China's national conditions.
The establishment of Xiong'an New Area has far-reaching historical significance for adjusting and optimizing the urban layout and spatial structure of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Under the construction concept of ecological benchmark, the identification and optimization of ecological security pattern is the basic spatial approach to ensuring the ecological security and realizing sustainable development in Xiong'an New Area. Based on the ecological background characteristics of Xiongxian, Rongcheng and Anxin, this study quantified and mapped five ecosystem services, namely grain yield, water yield, soil conservation, habitat conservation and near water recreation, and identified the ecological sources. Using the VIIRS/DNB Nighttime Light data, ecological resistance surface based on land-use types assignment was modified. The minimum cumulative resistance model was used to identify the ecological corridors. Based on the current ecological security pattern, the optimization strategy of the ecological security pattern was discussed under the goal of green, ecological and livable city. The results showed that, ecological sources, which accounted for 41.88% of the total area and contained 14 major ecological patches, were mainly distributed in the areas surrounding the Baiyangdian Lake. The total length of ecological corridors was 107.21 km, which was divided into four groups with a circle distribution. The radiating area of existing ecological sources reached 70.6% of the total area. Therefore, it is necessary to build a new ecological source with a radiating area of 227 km2 to meet the demand for 85% of radiating area of the ecological source. The ecological security pattern scheme proposed in this study can provide spatial guidance for the construction of green, ecological, and livable city in Xiong'an New Area.
In this study, the authors focus on the characteristics of Beijing's socio-spatial restructuring, which were identified by spatial statistical methods based on the sixth national census. At first, factor analysis and spatial autocorrelation were used to identify the classification and main factors of social area in Beijing. Then the authors analyze socio-spatial differentiation and its evolution in Beijing through the indexes of spatial differentiation and the computing results. Results show that the main changes of social area and socio-spatial differentiation in Beijing between 2000 and 2010 include several aspects as follows: (1) The evolution of industrial structure and its spatial distribution have led to the corresponding change of socio-spatial structure in Beijing, such as occupational differentiation and the increase of its spatial differentiation. The spatial distribution of various types of occupational population reflects the evolution trend of industrial space in Beijing, such as shrinking agriculture, while urban manufacturing industry and logistics industry are more concentrated. (2) The elderly population, migrant population, Uygur population, illiterate population, and the agricultural population continue to follow the trend of the past, with gregariousness increasing and miscibility weakening. The matching consistency of the distribution of these indicators with the resident population has been weakening, which reflects that many urban problems are more prominent, such as the separation of work place and residence, commuting of the migrant population, the elderly or the empty nesters. (3) The number of migrants increased significantly, and its spatial distribution is more extensive, showing the development trend of the suburbs especially that of the outer suburbs. (4) The trend of the centralized distribution of intellectuals is becoming more and more obvious. Generally speaking, the level of education of the city has been improved, and as far as the distribution of education is concerned, there exist more differences. (5) The complexity of the housing system increased and commercial houses are widely distributed, but its spatial differentiation also increased. During the 10 years, the rapid development of real estate market lead to the substantial restructuring of spatial distribution of housing, and housing spatial differentiation increased significantly. (6) From the perspective of dynamic mechanism of urban social spatial structure and its evolution, individual differences, family differences and regional differences constitute the three levels of urban social differentiation, which present a specific urban spatial structure. The evolution of urban social-spatial structure results from intertwined effect of administrative forces, market ones and social ones. (7) Comparison of Beijing with other mega-cities in China, such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, shows that the social spatial structure of such cities has both coexistences and uniqueness.
Based on the records of patent transfer from the patent retrieval and analysis platform in the State Intellectual Property Office of China, this research built an assessment index and model for technology transfer in China's city system in terms of agglomeration and dispersion, using big data mining technology, geo-coding technology, spatial autocorrelation model and multiple linear regression model. Then we studied the spatial-temporal pattern, agglomeration model and influencing factors of technology transfer in China's city system from 2001 to 2015, and obtained the following results. Firstly, with the increasing capability of city's technology transfer and the growing number of cities involved in transferring technology, the polarization and strong agglomeration of technology transfer in China's city system have been intensified. Secondly, technology transfer in China's city system has experienced a process of constant spatial polarization, the three-pole pattern led by the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta region and the Pearl River Delta region has been gradually prominent. Thirdly, technology transfer system from global to local scale in China's city system has initially taken shape. Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have become the three global centers of China in technology transfer. Fourthly, technology transfer in China's city system has produced an obvious spatial correlation and agglomeration effect. The four types are mainly in the cluster, and the geographical proximity of technology transfer in China's city system is significant. Last but not least, the influencing factors of technology transfer in China's city system were also verified by multiple linear regression model. We found that the demand and supply capacity respectively represented by the scale of tertiary industry and the number of patent applications has a great influence on the growth of technology transfer capability. In addition, the number of R & D employees is an important factor, but its correlation is low. The findings further confirm that the scale of primary industry has a significant impedance effect on city's technology transfer capability.
With the transformation of urban economy to new knowledge economy, urban amenities are considered as one of the most important factors influencing the flow of high-end talents and urban economic growth. Based on previous research of urban amenities at home and abroad, in addition to the consideration of the access to data, the article develops an indicator system for the assessment of urban amenities in China. This system includes 6 categories of urban amenities and 34 indicators. On the basis of the amenity indicator system, the research gives the evaluation on the development level of urban amenities of 26 major cities in China. It finds out that: (1) The four cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen rank top four in overall amenity level among the 26 cities; (2) Business amenity, transportation and speed are most important decisive factors that have impact on overall urban amenity level. Compared to Western developed countries, at the current stage Chinese big cities are paying more attention to the "built/material environment" of the city rather than "soft" ones, such as natural environment and social amenities; (3) Because there exists a gap in overall level of urban amenities among 26 Chinese major cities, there are both similarities and differences in their respective development model in terms of interior urban amenities composition and structure. The developed urban-amenity indicator system and its empirical research among the 26 Chinese major cities in this paper can help to understand the disparity in urban amenities development level in different cities. Urban amenity index can be further used for other urban development variables, such as economic development level and talent flow.
The 2008 international financial crisis had a severe impact on urban economic development globally, which stimulated a new wave of discussion on the importance of urban economic transformation. Compared to the past, Chinese cities are facing tougher challenges in sustaining economic development through transformation because of the slowdown in economic growth nationally. Previous studies mainly focused on the strategies and countermeasures of urban economic transformation, and ignored how local economies develop, adapt, and transform over time. Moreover, there have been no comparative studies among cities in eastern, central and western China. Drawing on the theory of evolutionary resilience, this study examined three typical old industrial cities (Shenyang, Chongqing and Wuhan) to compare and contrast their transformations since 1978 using economic cycle modeling and shift-share methods. Results showed that: (1) economic growth in Chongqing and Wuhan has been above national average since the mid-1990s, whereas that of Shenyang has fluctuated periodically and shown a periodic oscillation phenomenon. (2) Since the 1990s, the shift of industrial structure in Shenyang has been volatile, and the increase in the relative share of the tertiary industry has been mainly the result of the deceleration of growth in the secondary industry. Chongqing and Wuhan, on the other hand, are more stable in industrial restructuring. (3) Since the end of the 1990s, the transformation of the manufacturing industry of Shenyang and Wuhan has been affected mainly by the upgrading of an old path, whilst the transformation of manufacturing industry of Chongqing has been the result of both old and new paths, which contributes to the higher growth rate. (4) Since the beginning of the 21st century, the evolution of the new path in Shenyang has featured a low-end trend, in contrast the evolution of the new path in Chongqing and Wuhan has shown a high-end trend. In conclusion, this paper illustrates the value of applying the resilience theory to the study of urban economic transition and enriches the practical value of the theory.
On January 27th and 28th, 2018, Youth Forum of Human and Economic Geography and the 2nd Youth Forum of Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Chinese Academy of Sciences were successfully held at Beijing National Convention Center. The theme of the forum is "Inheritance and Innovation of Human and Economic Geography: Responsibilities and Actions of Young Scholars". The conference attracted about 370 young scholars engaged in studies on Human and Economic Geography from more than 100 universities and research institutes in China. During the forum, the youths had a heated discussion. The new generation should continue to learn, inherit and innovate the spirit and knowledge system of the predecessors of human and economic geography, and advance development of this discipline for the new era.
