With the spread of globalization, the phenomenon of growth and shrinkage in rapidly urbanizing areas has become an international topic in the study of regional development and transformation. Following the reform and opening up of China, rapid urbanization spread through the Pearl River Delta, promoted by external capital and cheap labor. At the same time, a large number of “Desakota” regions appeared, featuring different types of property rights. However, the financial crisis had a huge impact on urban development in 2008. The differences in the property rights of the regions meant that renewal policies followed different paths, so that a new spatial phenomenon occurred in which growth and shrinkage coexisted. In light of this, our research will start from the special conditions of regional urbanization, combined with the system of binary land property rights between city and rural areas, to explore the intrinsic features of Desakota regions in the Pearl River Delta and propose an analytical framework for understanding growth and shrinkage. The post–financial crisis era saw great differences between state-owned land and collective-owned land in their matched-degree with national industrial policies, leading to completely different development opportunities for different regions. In fact, the phenomenon of centralized and decentralized urban-rural integration (Desakota), which happened in the vast rural areas of the Pearl River Delta, was the result of the endogenous system of binary land property rights between city and rural areas. After the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008, the Chinese government’s macro-control policies underwent major adjustments, and the country’s fiscal and industrial policies have begun to shift. State-owned land with a single property rights structure has become a key area for local renewal and transformation due to its low-cost advantage. It provides space for the entry of new industries through functional replacement and promotes regional economic transformation and development. At the same time, due to the dispersive land property and small scale, the long-term accumulation of small property collective land leads to higher transaction costs and difficulty in large-scale production activities. Consequently, transformation and renewal are difficult to achieve. The difference in regional property rights structure and difficulty of renewal has led to a new spatial pattern in which both growth and shrinkage coexist. This empirical analysis takes Dongguan as an example and tries to overcome the limitations of traditional social and economic indicators. Innovatively, it uses NPP-VIIRS nighttime lighting data to explore visually the spatial distribution characteristics of growth and shrinkage in Dongguan. Combining this case study with those of typical regions, we analyze the mechanism of different types of development inside the regions from the perspective of property rights. We find that land is the essential factor determining the direction of regional development. The growing areas of Dongguan are mainly concentrated in ports, cross-border areas, and key areas supported by national policies, which have clear property rights and a single structure. In addition, the shrinking areas often occur in mixed areas of industrial parks and urban villages, which have relatively dispersive property rights. This study provides a good sample for the development of rapidly urbanizing areas in the post-financial crisis era. Local governments should focus on the regional property rights structure in the process of decision making and should adapt to local conditions and adopt different policies to promote regional development.
Under the influence of “replacing human labor by machine”, new growth of labor-intensive towns appears. In order to analyze its driving force, this paper builds up an analytical framework based on technology, industry, demography and space. Taking Shunde district of Foshan city in PRD as a classical example, the paper investigates this argument and concludes three findings. First, the promotion and application of “replacing human labor with robots” has greatly promoted the technological upgrading of the region. Enterprise and the government jointly promoted the regional technical level from “secondary innovation” to “primary innovation.” Second, technology upgrades have an important impact on industrial upgrades and demographic changes. Technology upgrades have led to the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries such as household appliances. The demand for automation equipment in traditional industries has driven the development of the robot industry. At the same time, technological upgrading has reduced the demand for ordinary labor and created new employment opportunities, which brings changes to the employment structure. Third, industrial upgrading and demographic changes have jointly promoted changes in spatial organizations. Spatial diffusion and agglomeration of innovation elements have formed a pattern of “large agglomeration and small dispersion.” Fringe areas that were not valued in the past have become the new core of regional growth, thereby reshaping the regional spatial structure. In the context of “replacing human labor with robots,” Shunde district has formed a new urban growth model that affects and promotes the interaction of technology, industry, population, and space.
After the reform and opening up of China began in 1978, Guangdong province made great achievements in economic development and urbanization, achieving international significance with its “Guangdong development model.” In recent years, accompanied by changes in the external environment and internal conditions, a new phenomenon, named urban shrinkage, has occurred during the process of rapid urbanization, with such features as economic decline, population outflows, and vacant dwellings, in complete contrast to the traditional development path. Given this phenomenon, this paper dynamically observes the changes to the number of permanent residents and the registered population of cities above county level from 2000 to 2016. By classifying three typologies of urban population shrinkage-continuous shrinkage, episodic shrinkage, and no shrinkage-we analyze the time trajectory and spatial distribution of urban population shrinkage. In addition, we discuss the factors influencing the shrinkage of cities in Guangdong province by using a regression model to explore the effects of potential determinants (manufacturing sector, service sector, fixed-asset investment scale, public services levels in cities, average income of industrial workers, and local government financial status) on urban population shrinkage. The study had several findings. First, general growth accompanied by local shrinkage is the main characteristic of urban population change in Guangdong. The change in permanent population shrinkage is characterized by fluctuations and short-termism, and its trajectory is V-shaped, while the household registration population change is relatively stable. Second, in spatial terms, urban population shrinkage presents a distribution pattern of “core growing-edge shrinking,” with cities showing continuous or episodic shrinkage mainly concentrated in the eastern and northern parts of Guangdong. In contrast to the zonal distribution of resident population shrinkage, household registration population shrinkage is mainly distributed scattered, with four counties in Qingyuan city being typical of edge-shrinking cities in Guangdong. Third, urban population shrinkage no longer follows a simple linear process at the provincial level but involves a combination of multidimensional and multifactorial motivations, including economic, institutional, social, and demographic. Industrial economic decline, regional developmental differences, local financial shortages, and local population outflows are the main factors influencing urban population shrinkage in Guangdong province. Our study offers a comprehensive method, using different typologies, for understanding urban shrinkage in its spatiotemporal evolution and provides new research evidence for determining the influences on shrinking cities in areas of rapid urbanization.
Unlike large-scale shrinkage that prevails in an economic recession, “shrinkage under growth” is a new phenomenon in China’s urban development in recent years. Since 2000, Wuhan has shown a pattern of co-occurrence of growth and shrinkage in population and is regarded as a good sample for investigation. Thus, this paper first comprehensively examines the whole picture of growth and shrinkage in Wuhan from three dimensions: population, economy, and land use; then, it quantitatively describes its features and spatial patterns by using data from the county and street levels. The paper finds that 1) from 2000 to 2016, 116 of the 156 streets with complete data statistics showed growth in their population, among which 64 streets grew by more than 30%. Forty of the 156 streets showed a decline in population, and 29 have decreased by more than 10%. 2) The streets with rapid population growth were concentrated in the boundary areas between the inner city and the new city, where new urban residential land was supplied in large quantities. 3) The local shrinkage that was observed in the four areas-Qingshan District, Qiaokou District, Hanyang District, and Caidian District-was agglomerated in space and morphologically “perforated.” Using Qingshan District as a case study, it was found that the area presented a spatial pattern of [growth in the east, shrinkage in the central region, and parallelism in the west]. The paper then explored the internal mechanism of the local shrinkage from the perspective of “capital.” It is believed that there is a trend of aging and minority birth, but the main cause of local shrinkage is the “escape” of capital from the industrial sector. Subsequent research can focus on the following three aspects: the identification of “shrinkage under growth”; the in-depth discussion of the internal mechanism of “shrinkage under growth”; and judgments on whether shrinkage was a short-term phenomenon or a long-term trend.
In the era of population reduction and an ultra-aging society, a country spatial structure transition strategy called “Compact and Network” is presented to cope with the shrinkage of local cities and to build future spatial structures in Japan. Urban shrinkage is a development path that is spreading widely through the world. Recently, this shrinkage phenomenon has also emerged in some cities and regions of China, and will become one of major challenges that China may confront in this new type of urbanization. This indicates many potential problems and deep contradictions resulting from the growth-first mode after the adoption of the reform and open-up policy, and will probably exacerbate the urban shrinkage crisis. This paper therefore analyzes the formation mechanism, development policies, and typical cases of a compact and network city in Japan, and then sums up the planning strategies and compact and network city shaping schemes for shrinking cities in Japan. Based on this, some guiding strategies for China’s shrinking cities are offered in terms of planning strategy orientation, multi-center compact and network city construction, and right-sizing planning. 1) We should accept and face the fact of population decline and urban shrinkage and realize that the appropriate coping strategy for shrinking cities is not to attempt to increase the population again but an adaptation strategy that focuses on activating these opportunities that shrinking cities provide. Shrinking cities should promote urban spatial reorganizations according to the accurate results of demographic analysis and change prediction. Meanwhile, it is necessary to not only promote comprehensive plans of urban policies and facilities construction projects, but also to emphasize mutual collaboration and consideration between cities. 2) In the era of shrinking cities, including issues of population decline and aging, urban development policies should consist of facility location plans aimed at service objects. With full consideration of these features of shrinking cities, a variety of urban functions should be realized in the 5 minute walking zone of urban centers at all levels, railway stations, bus stations, and major road intersections, which are linked by transit networks. Then, shrinking cities can build multi-center ‘“compact and network” city spatial structures successfully through the compact village strategy and transit-oriented network strategy. 3) According to the accurate results of demographic analysis and change prediction, shrinking cities should promote smart shrinkage strategy of urban space and right-sizing planning suitable for inventory planning and reduction planning dynamically. Also, many problems remaining from the period of urban expansion can be solved by the opportunity of ‘urban double repair’ policy, while removing vacant properties to improve the urban space and community life quality through greening strategies.
Dongguan City shrank under the influence of the financial crisis in 2008. The shrinkage has brought about a series of problems, such as the loss of population and the decline of urban competitiveness. In order to effectively alleviate these, Dongguan municipal government has introduced the migrant population policy to attract the migrant population to settle down. Previous studies on migrant population policy satisfaction mostly focus on single policy, such as job satisfaction, employment satisfaction and housing satisfaction. Moreover, the differences in policy satisfaction among different migrant population groups are ignored. Therefore, this paper evaluates the comprehensive foreign population policy (with the hukou system as its core) from the perspective of citizens, focusing on the comparison of the policy satisfaction of the non-resident foreign population and the new resident population and its influencing factors. Based on the 2013 survey in Dongguan, the study uses binary logistic regression analysis to explore the satisfaction of migrants toward Dongguan migrant policy and its determinants. The study found that among the migrant population, those with high educational background, no real estate in Dongguan, no differential treatment between education and housing due to hukou, satisfied with public security environment, and those who has participated in public policy making are more satisfied with the migrant population policy. In addition, on comparing non-hukou migrants with new citizens, the study found that new citizens hold a higher level of satisfaction. This suggests that foreign policy has been influential in some way. Due to the restrictions of hukou system and their economic conditions, Non-hukou migrants pay more attention to the problems of housing, children's obligations education and stable public security environment. In contrast, new citizens put more emphasis on the emotional dimension and social integration. Therefore, the urban migrant population policy should focus on the low-income non-hukou migrants, and focus on the basic education, the solution of housing problems and the security environment. In addition, the implementation of the public participation and the use of the internet and new media are effective ways to increase the popularity and satisfaction of policy. The government should also encourage local people and the migrant population to contribute ideas, so as to enhance the sense of identity and belonging of the migrant population. Finally, it is of great significance to pay attention to different urban shrinking backgrounds and understand the population’s real demand for improving the quality of population urbanization and alleviating the urban shrinkage.
In the 40 years since the reform and opening up, the urbanization rate of China’s population has increased substantially, and the pattern of population mobility has also changed from individual mobility to family migration. However, most of the existing studies are based on individual dimensions to analyze the settlement willingness of China’s floating population, and less from the family dimension. In the context of the pursuit of highly educated and highly skilled personnel in China’s big cities, the family development of low-education migrants is easily overlooked. This paper uses sample survey data of eight representative cities to study the willingness of migrant families and their influencing factors based on family perspective. By constructing the Family Settlement Index (FSI) from long-term residential plan, social security, social identification, family migration, and household registration (hukou), this study found that migrant families in Wuhan, Wuxi, Suzhou, and Xi'an have higher willingness to settle in cities. Shanghai is at an intermediate level, while the floating population of Quanzhou, Changsha and Xianyang has a lower willingness to settle. Using regression analysis, it is found that the households’ willingness to settle in the third-tier cities is significantly lower than that of the first-tier cities; the higher the per capita GDP and the proportion of tertiary industry in GDP, the higher the willingness of migrant families to settle. Among the urban social factors, if the city is convenient for migrants to take care of family members and children to obtain better education, the higher the willingness of migrant families to settle in cities. Consistent with existing research, the longer the residence time and the shorter the flow distance, the higher the willingness of the floating population to settle in the city. Among the rural factors, the amount of money returned to the hometown and the household expenses of the home have a negative effect on the willingness of the floating population to settle in the city. In short, there are some differences in the factors affecting the settlement willingness of migrants in different cities, but the influence of family factors is consistent, showing that the city is more conducive to the care and development of its family members, and the stronger the willingness of migrant families to settle in the city. Compared with the existing research that measures the willingness to settle by a single variable, this study comprehensively constructs the family settlement index of the floating population from the family perspective, and more accurately assesses the willingness of the floating population to settle in the city. In terms of analytical methods, this study used a multilevel regression analysis method to analyze the correlation between “city-family settlement” and explore the inter-city differences in the impact mechanism of floating population family settlement willingness. This study empirically explains the impact of China’s urbanization process on the urbanization of vulnerable migrant families, and is of great significance for understanding the social effects of China’s urbanization process. Finally, at the policy level, this paper proposes to create a “family-friendly” new urban-rural development order to achieve the settlement and development of migrant families, which is an important part of improving the quality of population urbanization.
Along with the rapid development of urbanization, the migration mode of floating populations has gradually shifted from “individual migration” to “family migration.” In 2014, the National New-type Urbanization Plan put forward the strategic goal of “promoting people-oriented urbanization” and encouraging the orderly citizenization of rural migrant workers. In this context, the family migration of rural-urban migrants and their social integration after entering a city have attracted considerable attention. Thus, based on data from the floating population survey conducted in Jinhua City in 2016, this paper refers to rural-urban migrant families with migrant children as the research subject and explores their social integration level and influencing factors quantitatively through principal component and multiple linear regression models. First, social integration of rural-urban migrant families with migrant children has three dimensions: children’s education, economic adaptation, and psychological integration. For these families, whether their children can obtain a solid education is the primary consideration for their integration into a city, followed by their economic conditions and psychological levels. Family-based floating population groups have more diversified needs for social integration into inflow cities than populaces characterized by individual mobility. Second, the degree of social integration of families is only at the medium level; thus, the quality of integration needs to be improved. The integration degree in terms of children’s education is the highest, followed by economic adaptation; further, the degree of psychological integration is the lowest, and there are pronounced differences among the dimensions. Jinhua City focuses especially on the education of migrant families’ children. Relevant policies ensure that these children are educated, so their education integration level is relatively high. However, migrant families face difficulties in accessing public schools, as they are not able to choose schools. In terms of the social welfare system-although policy-making has lowered the threshold of access for the floating population-limited resources, a mismatch between supply and demand, inadequate publicity, and other reasons may mean that the welfare system still gives priority to local residents in terms of implementation. It is difficult for migrant families to enjoy equal welfare protection, resulting in serious differences between local and non-local people and a low degree of psychological integration. Third, in terms of influencing factors, female gender and high education levels as personal characteristics, professional skills, personal services, and higher income factors (economic level) have a positive and significant impact on the degree of social integration, reflecting the role of human capital therein. Types of schools and educational expenditures (educational level) also have a significant impact on social integration. Housing conditions and length of residence are not the main factors affecting the social integration of such families. Findings indicate that families still give primary consideration to children’s education, and housing conditions is less important than children’s educational needs.
The Guangzhou government established 120 authorized vending sites to formalize the activities of street hawkers by 2015. However, many authorized vending sites in Guangzhou have been recently removed and this policy faces some challenges. This report adopts a qualitative research method based on observations, questionnaire surveys, and interviews during the period of February to May 2016, to analyze the background and content of the spatial drainage policies. By considering the street hawkers’ authorized vending site in the Yuanxi community, Guangzhou as a case study, this investigation attempts to explore the effects of the spatial drainage policy on the street hawkers, customers, formal retailers, residents and urban management officers in the community. The study also analyzes the challenges faced by the spatial drainage policies and the developed solutions. It is shown that the spatial drainage policy was initiated by the Guangzhou government to facilitate the regulation of the activities of street hawkers during the past several years. The spatial drainage policy takes more stakeholders into consideration and the designation of authorized vending sites has many positive effects. Firstly, these sites exert a positive spatial effect on the street hawkers by providing a legal space for these individuals to conduct business transactions. It also has an impact on the spatial distribution of the street hawkers and the community retailing system in the Yuanxi Community. Secondly, the authorized vending site has a positive social effect on the street hawkers. The legalization of their business space helps them to improve their self-identity. Moreover, the business and spatial regulation of the authorized vending site helps to improve the efficiency of urban administration and law enforcement while minimizing conflicts between street hawkers and the urban management officers. The Yuanxi authorized vending sites also satisfy more customers from surrounding areas by providing cheaper goods and better shopping conditions. Nevertheless, these vending sites have some negative effects. The noise associated with these designated vending areas affect the daily lives of nearby residents. Moreover, the removal of the Yuanxi authorized vending sites has been requested given the temporary permission of the land use and the upgrading of the community. Although the removal of these sites can improve the living quality in the Yuanxi community, this will be accompanied by a loss of the legal and stable business space of the street hawkers. As a result, these individuals will have to conduct transactions in other public space in the Yuanxi community, which will lead to disorder in the community and a new burden on the urban manage officers. The case of the Yuanxi community demonstrates that the spatial drainage policy failed in its objective to transform the activities of street hawkers into a formally organized business because the authorized vending sites occupy community public space. The legal business space for street hawkers will face challenges when different stakeholders fail to reach an agreement on the land use of these authorized vending sites. The results of this study suggest that the government should organize a third institution and establish a communication system among different stakeholders of authorized vending sites, which can improve the planning and management of these areas.
The analysis of technical, economic, and spatial influences for transnational and indigenous enterprises needs a theoretical transition from technical spillover to technical interaction, based on the technical evolution of local enterprises and the market. Compared with the technology spillover theory, the theory of technology interaction emphasizes the bidirectional flow of technology, implementation of technology behavior, and dynamic and bidirectional accumulation of technological influence-indicating that a new theoretical framework is needed. By introducing interaction terms in the multivariate regression model, this paper empirically describes the impact of technical interactions between transnational and local enterprises from the perspective of technical capability and technical behavior interactions on the innovation performance of Chinese high-tech industries. The model used in this study included the innovation performance of local enterprises as the dependent variable, the interaction of technical capabilities among transnational and local enterprises and the interaction of R&D behavior among transnational and local enterprises as the independent variables, and enterprise scale, capital intensity, market structure, and the enterprise’s ability to enter the international market as control variables. The findings indicate that interactions involving technical capabilities have significant positive effects on the innovation performance of local enterprises. This result shows that the technological influence of local and transnational enterprises in the field of high-tech manufacturing in China is changing from an indirect and one-way technology spillover to more active, frequent, and complex technological interactions that have played a positive role in promoting the innovation performance of local high-tech manufacturing enterprises. Furthermore, technical behavior interaction results in an increase in research intensity for both transnational and local enterprises, which enhances the innovation performance of indigenous enterprises and supports the viewpoint that transnational enterprises foster the R&D behavior of local enterprises. The regression results of the control variables show that the capacity for accessing the international market has a significant negative effect on an enterprise’s innovation performance, and the effect of scale, capital intensity of a local enterprise, and market structure on enterprise innovation performance is not statistically significant. For developing regions that have experienced rapid industrialization by carrying out the transfer of international industries, there is considerable significance in conducting a serious examination of the technological interrelationships between multinational and local firms, establishing the benign interaction mechanism between them to promote the integration of regional innovation resources, and building a more competitive regional innovation system. The results of this paper can enrich people’s understanding regarding technical interactions between transnational and local enterprises and their underlying mechanism, given the background of globalization. Findings of this study should also provide inspiration for policy-making decisions of regional innovation systems as integrated global forces.
Under the background of industrial land transformation in the process of urbanization, Guanggang New Town was selected for empirical analysis. From the perspective of geographical imagination, this paper explores the process-by surrounding villagers, old Guangzhou Iron and Steel employees, and new entrants—of deconstructing and reconstructing the local significance and cultural connotation of Guanggang New Town. This paper further analyzes the connection between local construction and identity construction. It argues that the differences in subjectivity and spatial practice between different social groups lead to different geographical imaginations for the cultural significance of Guanggang New Town. There exists a game of place significance between different groups in the common residential area. However, in the context of urban renewal, the upper class often has the upper hand. With the construction of the Guangzhou New Steel City, the collective memory of villagers and old workers around the Guangzhou Iron and Steel Plant was impacted and, at the same time, place identity was also reconstructed, reflecting the coupling of the relationship between changes in spatial material form and place significance. Moreover, the place identity of the new entrants is based on place cultural imagination without excluded groups. The place significance and identity of the two groups are broken, and therefore the two social groups need further cultural communication and integration in the future. With the cultural impact of social discourse and the dominance of power and capital, multiple imaginings about the place cultural significance of Guanggang New Town have been gradually derived. The spatial imagination of different individuals and social groups also reflects the construction and change of spatial meanings. The imagination of different individuals and social groups of a space is also reflected in the construction and change of place significance. However, in the process of urban planning and transformation from top to bottom by the government, there is often a lack of cultural and geographical perspective from the perception and memory of different spatial subjects, which renders the original place significance and collective memory of generations lost during the process of urban renewal. This paper explores the geographical imagination of industrial land transformation and the construction of place significance from the perspective of cultural geography, which attempts to explore urban renewal from the perspective of cultural geography, and provides new ways to consider more spatial subjects in the process of urban renewal. At the same time, this paper reveals how the daily life practices and collective memory of different groups are affected under the transformation of industrial land, how geographical imagination and place significance are reconstructed in this process, and what is the mechanism of the change of geographical imagination and place significance is reconstructed. This is also an extension of the topic related to urban renewal.
The aim of this study is to examine the quantitative relationship between hydrological projects and the functions of hydrologic connectivity. This investigation is based on the data of hydrological projects and hydrologic connectivity for 1954, 1975, 1990, 2008 and 2016, using set-pair and correlation analysis to quantitatively evaluate the effect of hydrological projects on hydrologic connectivity in the Southern Jing River. The results show that: 1) the correlation coefficient (R2) between the hydrological projects both inside and outside the region and the rate of cutoff, annual mean runoff and sediment runoff are determined to be above 0.5. This indicates a significant correlation between these factors. 2) The relative main value of the three modules of natural function presents a decreasing trend, especially the functions of material/energy interchange and ecology maintenance, which declined rapidly from an acceptable position to a “poor” level since 1990. The relative main values of the three modules of social function presented different trends. Throughout the study period, the function of flood prevention exhibits an increase while the function of transport and resource utilization shows a decrease. The function of water resource distribution initially decreases prior to 1990 followed by an increase after 1990. 3) The level of both natural function and comprehensive function exhibit a decrease during the period 1954-2008 and this situation did not reverse until 2016 during which a small increase was recognized while the level was still low. The level of social function was also low during 1954-1990. However, a significant increase was observed after 2008 and the level was much higher than that of the natural function.
