Urban Land and Sustainable Development Yehua Dennis Wei www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Edited by Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Sustainability sustainability Yehua Dennis Wei (Ed.) Urban Land and Sustainable Development This book is a reprint of the Special Issue that appeared in the online, open access journal, Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050) from 2015–2016, available at: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/UrbanLand_Sustainab leDevelopment Guest Editor Yehua Dennis Wei Department of Geography, University of Utah USA Editorial Office MDPI AG St. Alban-Anlage 66 Basel, Switzerland Publisher Shu-Kun Lin Managing Editor Guoshui Liu 1. Edition 2017 MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade ISBN 978-3-03842-260-0 (Hbk) ISBN 978-3-03842-261-7 (PDF) Articles in this volume are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY), which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book taken as a whole is © 2017 MDPI, Basel, Switzerland, distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution (CC BY-NC-ND) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). III Table of Contents List of Contributors ......................................................................................................... VII About the Guest Editor..................................................................................................... XI Preface to “Urban Land and Sustainable Development” ......................................... XIII Yehua Dennis Wei Towards Equitable and Sustainable Urban Space: Introduction to Special Issue on “Urban Land and Sustainable Development” Reprinted from: Sustainability 2016 , 8 (8), 804 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/8/804........................................................................ 1 Section I: Patterns and Mechanisms of Urban Land Expansion Zhifeng Liu, Chunyang He and Jianguo Wu General Spatiotemporal Patterns of Urbanization: An Examination of 16 World Cities Reprinted from: Sustainability 2016 , 8 (1), 41 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/1/41........................................................................ 15 Jinlong Gao, Yehua Dennis Wei, Wen Chen and Komali Yenneti Urban Land Expansion and Structural Change in the Yangtze River Delta, China Reprinted from: Sustainability 2015 , 7 (8), 10281–10307 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/8/10281 .................................................................. 36 Huiran Han, Chengfeng Yang and Jinping Song Scenario Simulation and the Prediction of Land Use and Land Cover Change in Beijing, China Reprinted from: Sustainability 2015 , 7 (4), 4260–4279 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/4/4260 .................................................................... 67 IV Jing Qian, Yunfei Peng, Cheng Luo, Chao Wu and Qingyun Du Urban Land Expansion and Sustainable Land Use Policy in Shenzhen: A Case Study of China’s Rapid Urbanization Reprinted from: Sustainability 2016 , 8 (1), 16 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/1/16........................................................................ 90 Mário Monteiro and Alexandre Oliveira Tavares What is the Influence of the Planning Framework on the Land Use Change Trajectories? Photointerpretation Analysis in the 1958–2011 Period for a Medium/Small Sized City Reprinted from: Sustainability 2015 , 7 (9), 11727–11755 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/9/11727 ................................................................ 111 Section II: New Dimensions of Urban Land Use and Urban Space Mingfeng Wang, Felix Haifeng Liao, Juan Lin, Li Huang, Chengcheng Gu and Yehua Dennis Wei The Making of a Sustainable Wireless City? Mapping Public Wi-Fi Access in Shanghai Reprinted from: Sustainability 2016 , 8 (2), 111 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/2/111.................................................................... 143 Daquan Huang, Zhen Liu and Xingshuo Zhao Monocentric or Polycentric? The Urban Spatial Structure of Employment in Beijing Reprinted from: Sustainability 2015 , 7 (9), 11632–11656 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/9/11632 ................................................................ 163 Pengjun Zhao and Mengzhu Zhang The Role of Villages and Townships in Informal Land Development in China: An Investigation on the City Fringe of Beijing Reprinted from: Sustainability 2016 , 8 (3), 255 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/3/255.................................................................... 190 V Yongchun Yang, Deli Zhang, Qingmin Meng and Corrin McCarn Urban Residential Land Use Reconstruction under Dual-Track Mechanism of Market Socialism in China: A Case Study of Chengdu Reprinted from: Sustainability 2015 , 7 (12), 16849–16865 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/12/15850 .............................................................. 220 Section III: Effects of Urban Development and Land Use Change Yehua Dennis Wei, Weiye Xiao, Ming Wen and Ran Wei Walkability, Land Use and Physical Activity Reprinted from: Sustainability 2016 , 8 (1), 65 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/1/65...................................................................... 247 Troy D. Abel, Jonah White and Stacy Clauson Risky Business: Sustainability and Industrial Land Use across Seattle’s Gentrifying Riskscape Reprinted from: Sustainability 2015 , 7 (11), 15718–15753 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/11/15718 .............................................................. 268 Xianwei Fan, Dan Zheng and Minjun Shi How Does Land Development Promote China’s Urban Economic Growth? The Mediating Effect of Public Infrastructure Reprinted from: Sustainability 2016 , 8 (3), 279 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/3/279.................................................................... 308 Ji Guo, Hui Liu, Xianhua Wu, Jiong Gu, Shunfeng Song and Yinshan Tang N atural Disasters, Economic Growth and Sustainable Development in China― An Empirical Study Using Provincial Panel Data Reprinted from: Sustainability 2015 , 7 (12), 16783–16800 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/12/15847 .............................................................. 324 Xu Zhang, Xiaoxing Liu, Jianqin Hang, Dengbao Yao and Guangping Shi Do Urban Rail Transit Facilities Affect Housing Prices? Evidence from China Reprinted from: Sustainability 2016 , 8 (4), 380 http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/4/380.................................................................... 348 VII List of Contributors Troy D. Abel Huxley College of the Environment on the Peninsulas, Western Washington University, P.O. Box 1699, Poulsbo, WA 98370, USA. Wen Chen Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China. Stacy Clauson Department of Environmental Studies, Western Washington University, MS 9085, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA. Qingyun Du Key Laboratory of GIS, Ministry of Education; School of Resource and Environmental Science, Wuhan University, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430079, China. Xianwei Fan School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. Jinlong Gao Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China. Chengcheng Gu Center for Modern Chinese City Studies, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China. Jiong Gu School of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China. Ji Guo School of Economics and Management; Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 10044, China. Huiran Han School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian district, Beijing 100875, China. Jianqin Hang School of Economics and Management, Jiangsu Maritime Institute, Nanjing 211170, China. Chunyang He Center for Human-Environment System Sustainability (CHESS), State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. Daquan Huang School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, XinJieKouWai Str., HaiDian District, Beijing 100875, China. Li Huang Department of Geography, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844, USA. VIII Felix Haifeng Liao Department of Geography, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844, USA. Juan Lin Center for Modern Chinese City Studies, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China. Hui Liu School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China. Xiaoxing Liu School of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China. Zhen Liu School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, XinJieKouWai Str., HaiDian District, Beijing 100875, China. Zhifeng Liu Center for Human-Environment System Sustainability (CHESS), State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. Cheng Luo College of Public Administration, Huazhong Agricultural University, 1 Shizishan Street, Wuhan 430070, China. Corrin McCarn Department of Geosciences, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS 39762, USA. Qingmin Meng Department of Geosciences, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS 39762, USA. Mário Monteiro Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra 3030-790, Portugal. Yunfei Peng Shenzhen Urban Planning and Land Resource Research Center, 8009 Hongli Road, Shenzhen 518040, China | Key Laboratory of GIS, Ministry of Education; School of Resource and Environmental Science, Wuhan University, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430079, China. Jing Qian Shenzhen Urban Planning and Land Resource Research Center, 8009 Hongli Road, Shenzhen 518040, China | Key Laboratory of GIS, Ministry of Education; School of Resource and Environmental Science, Wuhan University, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430079, China. Guangping Shi School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China. Minjun Shi School of Economics, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China. Jinping Song School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian district, Beijing 100875, China. IX Shunfeng Song School of Economics and Management, Tianjin Chengjian University, Tianjin 300384, China | Department of Economics, College of Business, University of Nevada, Reno 89557, NV, USA. Yinshan Tang Henley Business School, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6UD, UK. Alexandre Oliveira Tavares Centre for Social Studies; Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra 3030-790, Portugal. Mingfeng Wang Center for Modern Chinese City Studies, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China. Ran Wei Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. Yehua Dennis Wei Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. Ming Wen Department of Sociology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. Jonah White Department of Geography, Michigan State University, Geography Building, 673 Auditorium Rd., Room 116, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. Chao Wu Key Laboratory of GIS, Ministry of Education; School of Resource and Environmental Science, Wuhan University, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430079, China. Jianguo Wu School of Life Sciences and School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA | Center for Human-Environment System Sustainability (CHESS), State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. Xianhua Wu School of Economics and Management; Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 10044, China. Weiye Xiao Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. Chengfeng Yang School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian district, Beijing 100875, China. X Yongchun Yang College of Urban and Environmental Science, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, China | Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems, School of Resource and Environmental Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China. Dengbao Yao School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China. Komali Yenneti Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China. Deli Zhang School of Geodesy & Geomatics Engineering, Huaihai Institute of Technology, Lianyungang 222005, China | Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems, School of Resource and Environmental Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China. Mengzhu Zhang Centre for Urban Planning and Transport Studies, School of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Yiheyuan Road 5, Beijing 100871, China. Xu Zhang School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China. Pengjun Zhao Centre for Urban Planning and Transport Studies, School of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Yiheyuan Road 5, Beijing 100871, China. Xingshuo Zhao Urban-Rural Planning Administration Center, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of China, No.9 San Li He Road, Beijing 100835, China. Dan Zheng School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. XI About the Guest Editor Yehua Dennis Wei (Ph.D., UCLA) is a professor in the Department of Geography and Institute of Public and International Affairs. Wei is the author of Regional Development in China and more than 100 referenced journal articles. He has many publications in leading journals in geography, urban studies/planning, and regional studies/science, such as Applied Geography (AG), Economic Geography , Environment and Planning A , Journal of Economic Geography , Landscape and Urban Planning , Progress in Human Geography , Urban Geography and Urban Studies . He has also edited about a dozen journal special issues including China’s Restless Urban Landscapes I, II ( Environment and Planning A , 2002) and Urbanization, Land Use and Sustainable Development in China ( Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment , 2014). He has received excellence in research awards from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Association of American Geographer’s (AAG) Regional Development and Planning Specialty Group. His professional services include: advisor/panelist for the U.S. National Science Foundation, consultant to the World Bank, Chair of AAG’s China Geography, Asian Geography, and Regional Development and Planning specialty groups, and is vice president of the Chinese Professionals in Geographical Information Science. XIII Preface to “Urban Land and Sustainable Development” According to the 2014 revision of the World Urbanization Prospects by UN DESA, urbanization could add another 2.5 billion people to urban population by 2050, with close to 90 percent of the increase concentrated in Asia and Africa. This unprecedented increase in urban population not only poses challenges to providing jobs, housing, and infrastructure, but also exerts an increased pressure on urban land and sustainability. As land is a vital yet limited resource, sustainable management of urban land to cater the needs of this growing urban population is seen as one of the key challenges for achieving an economically efficient, socially equitable, and environmentally safe society. A key tenet for sustainable economic development and smart growth is promoting equitable sustainable urban land development and mitigating land use conflicts. While a large body of literature has dealt with both land use and sustainable development, the study of the interactive effects of these two remains limited. We need more sophisticated empirical studies examining processes, mechanisms, institutions, equity, and sustainability of urban land use. This book is based on a Special Issue published in Sustainability , and examines patterns, structure, and dynamics of urban land development and sustainability from multiple perspectives, in various contexts and at multiple dimensions (economic, social, political, developmental, and environmental, etc.). The research articles examine urban land development and sustainability arising from globalization, urbanization and institutional change. We have drawn papers from both developed and developing countries, with a focus on China due to the rapid rate of urbanization and change there. This book includes 14 articles, with various research emphases, methodologies and study areas, reflecting the inter-disciplinarily that characterizes urban and land use studies. The book has examined patterns and processes of urban land expansion and sprawl, and also studies new dimensions of urban space, including social media. These papers can provide us insights into the underlying structure and mechanisms of urban land expansion, and open new frontiers on the effects of urban land development on both the natural and human environments. The papers can be grouped under the following three aspects: (1) investigating urban land space by employing varied measurements and methods; (2) addressing the structure and mechanisms of urban land expansion and urbanization; (3) exploring ecological, environmental and socioeconomic effects and footprints of urban development and land use change. We hope that this book will contribute to the understanding of urban land use patterns and processes, and their implications for sustainable development. XIV Lastly, we would like to acknowledge the constructive comments of Robert Argenbright, for his research assistance to Han Li and Komali Yenneti, and the funding of the Ford foundation (0155-0883) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41329001). We would also like to express our gratitude to all the authors, reviewers and the MDPI team. Yehua Dennis Wei Guest Editor Towards Equitable and Sustainable Urban Space: Introduction to Special Issue on “Urban Land and Sustainable Development” Yehua Dennis Wei Abstract: The unprecedented wave of global urbanization has exerted increased pressure on urban land and made land-use sustainability an urgent concern. This Special Issue examines patterns, structures, and dynamics of urban land use from the economic, social, and, to a lesser extent, environmental standpoints, in light of the goal of equitable and sustainable development. This introduction discusses the background and design of the Special Issue and highlights the contribution of the selected papers. Reprinted from Sustainability . Cite as: Wei, Y.D. Towards Equitable and Sustainable Urban Space: Introduction to Special Issue on “Urban Land and Sustainable Development”. Sustainability 2016 , 8 , 804. 1. Introduction According to “World Urbanization Prospects” [ 1 ], urbanization could add another 2.5 billion people to the global urban population by 2050, with close to 90 percent of the increase concentrated in Asia and Africa. The largest urban growth will take place in India and China. This unprecedented increase in urban population not only poses the challenges of providing jobs, housing, and infrastructure, but also exerts an increased pressure on urban land and makes sustainability a matter of overriding concern. Sustainability is a broad topic with multiple dimensions, including economic development, health, energy, land use, water consumption, and air pollution, among others. A key component of sustainable development is equity. The recent financial crisis exacerbated income inequality in most countries, although it has had an uneven impact on cities, regions and people. Social and environmental disparities have also been intensified in many countries. Consequently, equity has become a top sustainable development goal of the UN’s post-2015 development agenda. Indeed, equality and sustainability are fundamental issues for human society and major concerns of governments worldwide [2,3]. Given the importance of these issues, there are relatively limited studies that explore the global characteristics and mechanisms of urban land change and their consequences in regard to equitable and sustainable development. Land is a vital yet limited resource, and how to cater the needs of the growing urban population and 1 achieve an economically efficient, socially equitable, and environmentally sustainable society are challenging issues. A key tenet is promoting equitable and sustainable land development and mitigating land use conflicts [ 4 ]. We need more studies to examine the processes, mechanisms, and effects of urban land use change globally and comparatively. We also need more efforts to better understand the myriad interconnections between urban land use and sustainable development. This Special Issue examines patterns, structures, and dynamics of urban land use and their implications for equitable and sustainable development from multiple perspectives (inter alia, economic, social, and environmental). We examine urban land use and, more broadly, urban space in the contexts of urbanization, institutional change, and governance, as well as the general socio-economic context. During the review process, a high percentage of the manuscripts submitted were rejected, and what remaining all went through 2–3 rounds of review and revision. Papers selected for this Special Issue therefore have been subject to a rigorous peer review procedure with the aim of achieving high quality research and wider dissemination of research results. 2. Research Background and Progress Urban land has been a subject of inquiry for decades. Earlier studies of urban land mainly focused on spatial patterns and internal structure of urban land use, which could be roughly divided into two groups: evolution of different types of urban land use and description of urban land use structure. While land use studies rely on land use data, studies of urban structure look at broader patterns, such as industrial location and population distribution. Studies of the evolution of urban spatial structure, i.e., the patterns of land use in urban areas and the distribution of different functional zones in the city, were closely associated with the process of industrialization and advances in transportation and communication [ 5 ]. Major theoretical contributions of this sort were made by German location theorists and the Chicago School, including the development of traditional models of urban spatial structure, such as the concentric zone model, the sector model, and the multiple nuclei model. The post-World War II era from the 1950s to the 1960s witnessed the rise of neoclassical economics in social sciences, including the use of factorial ecology in urban social analysis and the examination of urban land value and its linkage with urban form by means of the bid-rent theory [ 6 ]. Mounting social problems and the limitations of neoclassical economics prompted the development of alternative thinking in the 1970s and the 1980s, including neo-Marxist urban theories, behavioral approaches and Third World perspectives. Meanwhile, the neoclassical perspective rebounded with the “quantitative revolution”, which provided new methods of analyzing urban land use and spatial structure. In this regard, point pattern analysis 2 and fractal dimension were used in the 1980s and the 1990s to quantitatively define urban land use and spatial structure. With the intensification of globalization and urbanization in the late 1980s, scholars turned their attention to patterns and dynamics of urban expansion firstly in developed countries, followed by studies in the developing countries [ 7 ]. Rapid urban transformation prompted a new wave of theorization, which was led by the “Los Angeles School” in the 1980s and 1990s [ 8 ]. Post-World War II suburbanization and the resulting urban sprawl in the United States became key topics of academic inquiry. Such studies are often linked to studies of urban form and spatial structure of cities. Scholars have also sought to describe the regularities of urban space based on the spatial concentration of modern human activities, such as traffic flow, imbalance of housing and jobs, mobile communication frequency, and even Wi-Fi access. GIS and remote sensing have greatly aided empirical studies of land use, especially as regards urban land expansion, sprawl, and land use change. We now have more accurate data on patterns of global urban expansion and sprawl, not just in the West but also in large developing countries undergoing rapid urbanization such as China and India [ 9 , 10 ]. In addition, various modeling approaches such as agent-based modeling, geographically weighted regression (GWR), spatial regressions and spatial regime models have been applied to the analysis of the underlying determinants of rural-urban land conversion. Results suggest that multiple natural and socio-economic factors, such as access to central business districts (CBDs), transportation improvement, development of mega-projects and industrial districts, and availability of land in suburban areas, are the primary determining factors of urban land expansion [11–14]. Scholars continue to try to understand the process of urban land expansion and sprawl. Following the notions of Asian development states, scholars have analyzed the role of the Chinese government and growth coalitions in urbanization, land development and urban expansion [ 15 – 17 ]. It is argued that even urban sprawl in the United States has been supported by federal housing and transportation policies. Scholars have also investigated issues of power and motivations [18–20]. Urban expansion in developing countries has also been viewed as a process closely linked to the globalization of capital and flow of FDI to developing countries. Adopting the concept of teleconnection, Seto et al. [ 21 ] linked global urban land use change to globalization, which broadened the conventional land-use science focus on local factors. Wei and his associates have attempted to apply the notion of China’s triple transition of globalization, decentralization and marketization to the understanding of rapid urban expansion in China [22,23]. Great attention has been paid to the interactive effects among urban land use, human society and the physical environment. A rich body of literature has examined the cost of urban expansion and sprawl in developed countries, which tend to see 3