Housing reform in socialist China has incurred considerable restructuring and transformation of urban space and society. Yet its specific socio-spatial outcomes have not been fully investigated from the perspective of housing type at the meso- and micro-levels. This study attempts to fill the gap by examining the nature and magnitude of the consequences of housing reform and the corresponding effects on mobility. Specifically, based on census data and a mobility survey, this paper combines statistical breakdowns and structural equation modeling to capture the socio-spatial differentiation of urban structure resulting from housing reform and its influences on individual vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT) and transportation walking. The results reveal that: (1) different types of housing tend to feature internally homogeneous populations in terms of socio-economic composition and socio-psychological condition, with pronounced social stratification; (2) residents in different types of housing display dramatically different travel styles, with substantial mobility inequities; (3) social differentiation appears to have spatial determinants; in particular spatial segregation contributes to increasing social exclusion; (4) the effects of spatial and social characteristics on mobility are led by housing type; and (5) individual mobility patterns are shaped by the joint influences of spatial and social dimensions of housing differentiation. The findings contribute to further understanding of socio-spatial differentiation in countries with a transitional housing market, suggesting that the design of land-use policies should recognize their social effects and that urban mobility planning practices should deliver sustainability that serves a diverse population, including in particular disadvantaged groups in public and replacement housing. This study serves as a mirror to observe the urban transition compared to other political economies and adds additional richness and diversity to the theoretical debates on the issue of socio-spatial differentiation and empirical evidence on residential and mobility inequities across global contexts.

Intra-city Public Charging Stations (PCSs) play a crucial role in promoting the mass deployment of Electric Vehicles (EVs). To motivate the investment on PCSs, this work proposes a novel framework to find the optimal location and size of PCSs, which can maximize the benefit of the investment. The impacts of charging behaviors and urban land uses on the income of PCSs are taken into account. An agent-based trip chain model is used to represent the travel and charging patterns of EV owners. A cell-based geographic partition method based on Geographic Information System is employed to reflect the influence of land use on the dynamic and stochastic nature of EV charging behaviors. Based on the distributed charging demand, the optimal location and size of PCSs are determined by mixed-integer linear programming. Västerås, a Swedish city, is used as a case study to demonstrate the model's effectiveness. It is found that the charging demand served by a PCS is critical to its profitability, which is greatly affected by the charging behavior of drivers, the location and the service range of PCS. Moreover, charging price is another significant factor impacting profitability, and consequently the competitiveness of slow and fast PCSs.

Intra-city Public Charging Stations (PCSs) play a crucial role in promoting the mass deployment of Electric Vehicles (EVs). To motivate the investment on PCSs, this work proposes a novel framework to find the optimal location and size of PCSs, which can maximize the benefit of the investment. The impacts of charging behaviors and urban land uses on the income of PCSs are taken into account. An agent-based trip chain model is used to represent the travel and charging patterns of EV owners. A cell-based geographic partition method based on Geographic Information System is employed to reflect the influence of land use on the dynamic and stochastic nature of EV charging behaviors. Based on the distributed charging demand, the optimal location and size of PCSs are determined by mixed-integer linear programming. Västerås, a Swedish city, is used as a case study to demonstrate the model's effectiveness. It is found that the charging demand served by a PCS is critical to its profitability, which is greatly affected by the charging behavior of drivers, the location and the service range of PCS. Moreover, charging price is another significant factor impacting profitability, and consequently the competitiveness of slow and fast PCSs.

Due to spatial heterogeneity worldwide, results from studies examining the effect of residential self-selection on travel behavior vary substantially. As a result of housing reform, the unique housing allocation system in China is a prime example of a context where the self-selection effect may conflict with international knowledge. Using a sample of 3836 residents, whom are living in Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) and non-TOD neighborhoods in Shanghai, this study untangles the effects that the built environment and residential self-selection have on travel behavior, in the context of diversified housing types in urban China. Specifically, this paper employs propensity score matching (PSM) to quantitate the relative importance of the built environment itself, verses residential self-selection, in influencing travel behavior for each of the housing types. The results show that the residential self-selection effect in the four types of housing (work-unit, commodity, public, and replacement) accounts for 15.2%, 30.7%, 18.5%, and 5.9% of the total impact on vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT), respectively. These findings expand the international database of point estimates in the relative contribution of self-selection toward the impact on travel behavior across global contexts, providing a comprehensive framework for similar studies on self-selection in other parts of the world.

Reducing CH4 emissions is a major global challenge, owing to the world-wide rise in emissions and concentration of CH4 in the atmosphere, especially in the past decade. China has been the greatest contributor to global anthropogenic CH4 emissions for a long time, but current understanding towards its growing emissions is insufficient. This paper aims to link China's CH4 emissions during 2005–2012 to their socioeconomic determinants by combining input-output models with structural decomposition analysis from both the consumption and income perspectives. Results show that changes in household consumption and income were the leading drivers of the CH4 growth in China, while changes in efficiency remained the strongest factor offsetting CH4 emissions. After 2007, with the global financial crisis and economic stimulus plans, embodied emissions from exports plunged but those from capital formation increased rapidly. The enabled emissions in employee compensation increased steadily over time, whereas emissions induced from firms' net surplus decreased gradually, reflecting the reform on income distribution. In addition, at the sectoral level, consumption and capital formation respectively were the greatest drivers of embodied CH4 emission changes from agriculture and manufacturing, while employee compensation largely determined the enabled emission changes across all industrial sectors. The growth of CH4 emissions in China was profoundly affected by the macroeconomic situation and the changes of economic structure. Examining economic drivers of anthropogenic CH4emissions can help formulate comprehensive mitigation policies and actions associated with economic production, supply and consumption.

Development of urban networks of cities and towns has received attention including discussions of tensions between population concentrations and overlaps with environmentally sensitive and disaster-prone areas. Moreover, certain development in broad regions of China, such as its deltas, has become a subject of debate. Contrary to some assumptions, this development within places like the Changjiang Delta (also known as the Yangtze River Delta) has proceeded in a relatively incremental manner. However, at this juncture, controlled development of larger cities, like Shanghai, has shifted to more conventional urbanization pathways forward involving larger city expansions. Nevertheless, further urban growth management appears to depend on development and maintenance of a well-balanced network of large, medium, and small-scaled cities and towns. An important aspect of this development involves definition of the Changjiang Delta region itself, and in particular, alongside its likely further economic performance. To these ends, a scenario-based Cellular Automata model of spatial distribution is deployed, reflecting separate thematic projections. A baseline for economic performance is developed, incorporating measures of fixed-asset investment in urban service, revenue from urban maintenance, and Gross Domestic Product. Revelation of a well-performing network involves spatial distribution of development at various scales, and in various concentrations within the region, moreover, location of this development, largely perpendicular to well-travelled corridors, appears as a preferable outcome, contrary to earlier depictions along the major transportation corridors.

 

 

Big data is increasingly regarded as a new approach for understanding urban informatics and complex systems. Today, there is unprecedented data availability, with detailed remote-sensed data on the built environment and rich mineable web-based sources in the form of social media, web mapping, information services and other sources of unstructured "big data". 

This book brings together a group of international contributors to consider the geographical implications of mobility, wellbeing and development within and across Chinese cities through location-based big data perspectives. The degree of urban sprawl, productive density and vibrancy can be reflected from location-based social media big data. The challenge is to identify, map and model these relationships to develop cities at different places in the urban hierarchical system that are more sustainable. This edited book aims to tackle these issues through two inter-related geographical scales: inter-city level and intra-city level.

The text is designed for graduate courses in planning, geography, public policy and administration, and for international researchers who are involved in urban and regional economics and economic geography.