A Book Review of Planning for Growth: Urban and Regional Planning in China

Planning for Growth:Urban and Regional Planning in China Author:Wu Fulong Year:2015Publisher:Taylor&Francis Ltd ISBN:9780415814423(248 pages,in English)The book,Planning for Growth:Urban and Regional Planning in China,written by Prof.Wu Fulong,is part of the Royal Town Planning Institute’s(RTPI)Library Series.It has drawn wide attention since its publication in 2015.The American urban sociologist John R.

Research and Analysis of Regional Ecological Positioning in Planning Environmental Impact Assessment

The regional ecological positioning of one area is based on the region’s ecological orientation by the country or a larger region.Combined with the region’s natural geographical features,ecological background,main ecological problems,regional ecological structure,pattern,process,function and service,etc.,the position of a certain area in ecological space,structure,process,function and service,etc.is determined through the analysis and research.Regional ecological positioning is an important prerequisite and core basis for regional ecological impact assessment.However,in the current regional ecological impact assessment,most of them have not analyzed and studied the regional ecological positioning.Due to the lack of research on regional ecological positioning,it is rare to apply the research results of regional ecological positioning to the establishment of regional ecological objectives and the construction of index system.Regional ecological positioning does not guide the direction of regional ecological protection and construction well,and there is a general tendency of regional ecological positioning being one-sided and slogan-based.This paper analyzes the necessity and importance of research of regional ecological positioning,puts forward the technology framework of study on regional ecological positioning.With regional ecological positioning research in planning ecological impact assessment of the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Zone as an example,how to carry out the study on the regional ecological positioning and how to apply the results of the study on the regional ecological positioning in regional ecological impact assessment are explained and illustrated.

Basic thoughts and practice of China's regional development planning in new period

Regional development planning is one of the 'hot spots' in the field of human geography in China Based on brief retrospection and reviewing of its development since the 1980s, this paper discusses the basic thoughts of regional development planning under the socialit market economy, i.e.,to work out planning of flexibility, sustainability, multi-objective coordination and high effective practicability. In line with these thoughts, the paper puts forwards boo countermeasure in the practice of working out a high effective regional developmed planning. These countermeasures are to strengthen research on market factors, to take the coordinated development between the economy,society and PRED as the main line of regional development to correctly deal with the relationship between qualitative analysis and quantitative research and to emphasize on researches of regional policies.

Transport and planning issues of the Paris Region: a question of sustainability

During the last three decades, massive networks of transport infrastructure have been completed in the Paris Region1over 600 km of highway, and three regional rail lines (Reseau Express Regional) linking the suburbs with the City of Paris. Despite such achievements, the demand for daily transport increases significantly, and road congestion level rises, resulting in a worsening environment which affects the quality of life. Rapid car growth, largescale suburbanization and longer commuting distance have generated a greater demand for roads. Yet the supply seems to have fallen persistently behind the demand. A few questions arise which merit investigation. Has transport planning failed to regulate such supply and demand? Can the idea of sustainable development be incorporated into the planning system? Furthermore, what are the barriers to a sustainable transport development? In tackling these questions, this paper explores the causes leading to the drastic rise in transport movements in the Paris Region, examines the planning issues and, finally, inquires whether the longterm strategies of the French authority meet the future demand in the context of a sustainable development.

Istanbul’s Resilience in Question:Resilience,Decision-Making Process,Planning Politics

An important environmental issue related to planning is created by the political orientation of the government in Turkey.Especially in the new millennium,the government has focused on achieving economic growth and avoiding the global economic crises as its primary targets.These priorities resulted in efficiency-oriented planning policies in which the metropolitan city of Istanbul is the main field of operation because of its capacity to become a regional centre of finance in the global economy.In this respect,Istanbul is regarded to have the capacity of fuelling the economic boost because of its historic,strategic and environmental assets.The city has become a dynamic bundle of urban operations.Existing public areas such as parks,forests,seashores are subjected to land development;renewal projects transform deteriorated poor neighbourhoods into high income neighbourhoods or inner-city attractions for tourism or globally marketed business areas with high quality offices.Vacant land which is reserved as potential green space for new developments in the plan is given new functions with high densities.This paper attempts to present how local government is pursuing these ends and legitimizing its means by abusing the earthquake risks,and how planning regulations are bent in order to pave the road for foreign and domestic capital.These actions are discussed in relation to the typology of planning approaches and the question of resilience.

THE URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

Under the push of economic reforms,the cities and towns in China are undergoing a swift development.Dynamics and functions of cities vary from ancient down to present time.Since the establishment of the People’s Republic,cities have experienced much oscillations in their development in accordance with the country’s political and economic ups and downs.The major problems facing the cities are:the lagging of infrastructures behind city development,the disjointment of urban planning with regional planning,and the transforming effect of spontaneous growth of market towns on urban-rural relationship.Through amplifying overall planning,modifying city size classification and enhancing the urban-rural linkage,a hierarchical urban system could be established.

Formation Cycle of Creative Region

Creative regions and their formation in a region depend on several factors. These factors are effective when placed side by side and have a positive impact on the establishment of the physical system of area. In fact, continuous and chained activity of these factors will play an important map. The connection between the key factors of creative region is named creative ecosystem that starts from a point, and after a few steps becomes a creative idea. Finding this ecosystem is particularly important in formation of the creative region. With proper understanding, apropos analysis, and timely use of this chain, actual and virtual potentials of region will be stimulated and pleasant result will come out. This paper explores the creative region factors and components that can be involved in the creative ecosystem. These factors are sometimes fundamental and sometimes minor considered compared to the current situation in the region. The used research method is grounded theory and in fundamental extent, it is seeking to achieve an underlying or grounded theory. After investigations and the results of this study, a creative region cycle theory has been reached and is presented as a fundamental theory that is a basis for formation of future researches. In the cycle of creative region, innovation, social capital, creative human capital and living quality are discussed that as the criteria for the formation of a creative region have numerous separated indicators.

The Role of Physical and Political Factors on the Conservation of Native Vegetation in the Brazilian Forest-Savanna Ecotone

The AraguaiaRiver Basincovers a considerable extent of Brazilian Savanna (locally called Cerrado) and part of Amazon Tropical Rainforest, embracing high biodiversity and a vast flooding area. This region has been converted to agricultural lands since 1970s, for the past four decades, leading to a fragmented landscape that holds one of the few large remaining blocks of Cerrado primary vegetation. Therefore, to assess the degree of preservation of this area a 2007 primary vegetation map was derived through Boolean operations using land use and land cover maps from 1975, 1985, 1996 and 2007, from digital classification of Landsat MSS and TM images. To evaluate the role of driving factors on the presence of pristine vegetation, a logistic regression analyses was performed. Tested factors were: distance from roads and cities, terrain slope, land tenure, soil fertility and flooding. We found statistical significant values (p nous lands, wetlands and areas with low fertility have positive influence on the presence and maintenance of these pristine areas. The occurrence of original vegetation in many cases is associated with environmental constraints that difficult or do not allow agricultural use. Analysis of physical and political factors, which may have direct or indirect influence on the conservation and degradation of native vegetation are very important for the comprehension of the dynamics of regional land use, and provide supporting information for a more efficient and sustainable regional landscape planning.

Case Study of Local Revitalization in Indigenous Areas of Taiwan: Using the Namasia District as an Example

This study aims to analyze the operational model of the local revitalization plan implemented in the indigenous tribes in Taiwan. It treated Namasia District of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan as the subject, and conducted an investigation by qualitative research. According to the findings, the practices of local revitalization are based on the following conditions: 1) local government leads the plan of revitalization;2) it finds DNA to develop local revitalization;3) it seeks investment from enterprises;4) it accepts the assistance from academic and professional teams for the integration and development of innovative and creative products;5) it reinforces the ethnic consciousness, supports local residents and industries, and participates in the execution of plans.

Modeling susceptibility to deforestation of remaining ecosystems in North Central Mexico with logistic regression

Determining underlying factors that foster deforestation and delineating forest areas by levels of susceptibility are of the main challenges when defining policies for forest management and planning at regional scale. The susceptibility to deforestation of remaining forest ecosystems （shrubland, temperate forest and rainforest） was conducted in the state of San Luis Potosi, located in north central Mexico. Spatial analysis techniques were used to detect the deforested areas in the study area during 1993-2007. Logistic regression was used to relate explana- tory variables （such as social, investment, forest production, biophysical and proximity factors） with susceptibility to deforestation to construct predictive models with two focuses： general and by biogeographical zone In all models, deforestation has positive correlation with distance to rainfed agriculture, and negative correlation with slope, distance to roads and distance to towns. Other variables were significant in some cases, but in others they had dual relationships, which varied in each biogeographi- cal zone. The results show that the remaining rainforest of Huasteca region is highly susceptible to deforestation. Both approaches show that more than 70% of the current rainforest area has high and very high levels of susceptibility to deforestation. The values represent a serious concern with global warming whether tree carbon is released to atmos- phere. However, after some considerations, encouraging forest environ- mental services appears to be the best alternative to achieve sustainableforest management.

Robust lane recognition for structured road based on monocular vision

A robust lane detection and tracking system based on monocular vision is presented in this paper. First, the lane detection algorithm can transform raw images into top view images by inverse perspective mapping （ IPM）, and detect both inner sides of the lane accurately from the top view im- ages. Then the system will turn to lane tracking procedures to extract the lane according to the infor- mation of last frame. If it fails to track the lane, lane detection will be triggered again until the true lane is found. In this system, 0-oriented Hough transform is applied to extract candidate lane mark- ers, and a geometrical analysis of the lane candidates is proposed to remove the outliers. Additional- ly, vanishing point and region of interest（ROI） dynamically planning are used to enhance the accura- cy and efficiency. The system was tested under various road conditions, and the result turned out to be robust and reliable.

A MODEL FOR MEDIUM-OR LONG-TERM PLANNING

The PDAS(Production Distribution Area,Spatial)is an efficient method for optimalanalysis of the existing industrial production spatial distribution.As the main problem formedium- and long-term programming of the industrial production level isproject investmentanalysis,incorporation of project investment into PDAS to evaluate the project investmentcomprehensively over the whole planned period will be an ideal approach.This.however,changes the linear programming problem into a mixed integer programming problem withconstraints which include a step function.To simplify the algorithm,in light of large scalesystem decomposition,a model and an algorithm with coordinative running of schedulingand distribution optimization are proposed.The new version of PDAS,named PDAS-D,will have more practical use in decision support analysis for the medium-and long-termproduction spatial distribution and optimal adjustment of industrial structure by means ofproject investment.