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The shift of Hong Kong's economic base from manufacturing to services requires a stronger emphasis on a dispersed spatial development strategy away from the central urban area surrounding the inner harbor and a re-orientation toward the Pearl River Delta region of China in Hong Kong's port development after 1997. To compete successfully with its neighbors in the Asia Pacific region and with Chinese...
The increasing housing crisis and financial deficiencies in the late 1970s made the government re-think the over-centralised financial system which excluded market forces and the initiative of individuals and work units in the finance process. The restructuring of the housing finance system entails the development of financial institutions and instruments to relax the government's control over housing...
Place promotion is a key theme of urban governance in postfordist cities. Recent research shows that cities in Eastern European countries have seen similar changes. The trajectory of the transformation, however, varies from city to city. This paper illustrates the practice of place promotion in Shanghai. The research has drawn materials from the Internet to show how Shanghai has been depicted as a...
The initiation of administrative and economic reforms in China has not only led to the introduction of market mechanisms in allocating urban land resources, these reforms have also created new socio-economic demands, which have to be satisfied through spatial restructuring. To offer effective guidance over land use changes and development, formal development control mechanisms are established. However,...
The effects of globalization on cities are complex, multifaceted and geographically diverse. As a result of national policy changes over the past two decades, the urban impacts of increasing global connectivity in China and Vietnam have been sudden and swift, in contrast to the more gradually formed transborder linkages of cities elsewhere in Asia. In each country, the shift to a market economy, opening...
Recent theoretical attempts to understand the dynamics of urban change in North America have been made predominantly on the basis of either the ''growth machine'' model or urban regime analysis, both of which see the growth of cities as the result of the interplay among some internal urban-based actors for financial gains and fortune building. This study adopts an approach that moves beyond internalism...
Since the introduction of the economic reforms in late 1978, the Chinese urban system has experienced spectacular growth, accompanied by a rapid rise of urbanization from about 20% to more than 36%. Although restricted by government policy, the development of large cities prevailed in the 1980s, as shown in a previous study (Zhao and Zhang, 1995). This process of predominantly large cities growth...
China has witnessed fast urban growth in the recent decade. This study analyzes spatio-temporal characteristics of urban expansion in China using satellite images and regionalization methods. Landsat TM images at three time periods, 1990/1991, 1995/1996, and 1999/2000, are interpreted to get 1:100000 vector land use datasets. The study calculates the urban land percentage and urban land expansion...
The thesis of social polarization in the global city has been debated for a decade, though there are few studies of cities playing major global roles in developing countries in general and cities in transitional economies in particular. This paper investigates the socioeconomic transformation of Shanghai, an emerging global city in China. From 1990 to 2000, a significant loss of occupation occurred...
To understand the socio-spatial impacts of property-led redevelopment on China’s urban neighbourhoods, this study inquires into two influential redevelopment projects in Shanghai. The significance of this research lies in using first-hand data to indicate the new trends of urban change in the Chinese city. Through analysing the data from a 500-questionnaire survey, two different forms of socio-spatial...
In the age of globalization, the city-region is a form of spatial organization that promises to promote inter-city cooperation and so enhance the competitiveness of the whole city-region. The notion was well accepted in China recently and many local governments attempted to formulate city-region plans for coordinated development. City-region planning thus becomes a new form of Chinese spatial planning,...
This paper investigates the new appearance of ethnic congregation in a Chinese city that is intimately tied to the worldwide web of production and global commodity chains. Through an empirical case study, the paper examines how the formation of ethnic enclaves in urban China is driven by the global shift of international production and the interaction between global forces and locally-bounded attributes...
Urban forests are integral components of urban ecosystems, which could generate significant ecosystem services, such as offsetting carbon emission, removing air pollutants, regulating the microclimate, and recreation. These ecosystem services contribute to improving environmental quality, quality of life, and sustainable urban development. Despite a long history of inserting vegetation in human settlements...
Property-led urban redevelopment in contemporary Chinese cities often results in the demolition of many historical buildings and neighbourhoods, invoking criticisms from conservationists. In the case of Beijing, the municipal government produced a series of documents in the early 2000s to implement detailed plans to conserve 25 designated historic areas in the Old City of Beijing. This paper aims...
Previous studies have understood urban competitiveness mainly from an economic perspective. Drawing on insights from recent debates on urban governance that argue for sustainable development, this study employs a more balanced view that takes into account the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of urban competitiveness. A four-level hierarchical indicator system is used to examine the competitiveness...
The absence of a sound theoretical foundation is a major problem in urban conservation planning. This paper suggests the basis for a solution that harnesses the concept of urban landscape units. The nature and application of this concept are discussed in relation to the problems faced by urban conservation in China, where the pressures for change to, and the removal of, the traditional urban fabric...
This paper is a spatial (urban and territorial) approach to high speed rail implications for cities, with focus on recent research and developments. The current situation and future challenges of HSR in Europe are analyzed taking into consideration three main levels of analysis: inter-city relationships, wider spatial implications and the role of HSR stations. The paper reviews the different approaches...
China’s rapid growth over the last three decades has attracted much academic attention. In the post-reform era, economic growth has been paralleled by rapid urbanization. China’s urbanization experience has been shaped heavily by the state through national urban policies as well as through local administrative means. Much has been written about large Chinese cities in the more developed coastal regions,...
This paper provides first-hand empirical evidence about the differentiation of housing conditions among China’s urban poor families based on a case study of Nanjing. The main findings include: (1) the Hukou family registration system has strong differential effects on poor families’ housing conditions; (2) housing conditions among the urban poor are tightly associated with privatization and home ownership,...
As an expression of the state-directed vision for local urban development, China’s master plans are required by the state to provide effective guidance for local spatial land use and socioeconomic development. Using an institutionalist analytical framework, this paper examines China’s master plan mechanism, investigates the discrepancy between master plans and the reality of urban development, and...
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