天津城市——区域空间结构演进的回顾与反思

党的十八大以来,京津冀协同发展战略和雄安新区的规划从区域层面对天津城市空间结构和功能定位提出了新的要求。通过对不同时期城市空间属性和空间增长主体的认知,并结合规划编制工作,系统梳理了建国以来天津城市—区域空间结构的演进历程,并将其归纳为静态点状发展、点轴式扩散发展以及扇形加轴带发展三个阶段。在此基础之上,分析了区域视角下天津城市空间结构存在的问题,并从港口同区域发展关系、城镇空间布局以及生态空间格局三方面提出了天津城市空间结构优化的建议。

Regional Disparities of China's Economic Development during 1992-2013——Based on DMSP/OLS Nighttime Lights Data of Cities

Balanced regional development is essential to China's economic stability and efficiency and achievement of the goal to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Based on the DMSP/OLS nighttime lights data of 291 cities at or above prefecture level during 1992-2013, this paper examines the regional disparities and trends of Chinese mainland's economic development. The findings are as follows:(1) During sample observation period, China's overall regional disparities generally declined despite some volatility; China's intra-regional disparities have been curbed yet a consistent framework for inter-regional economic coordination is lacking.(2) Southern coastal region contributes a significant share to China's overall regional disparities as the developed cities of Guangdong Province did not create a significant spatial spillover effect on neighboring regions.(3) According to the result of spatial Markov transition probability estimation, spatial factor has played a remarkable role in the evolution of China's regional economy and proximity to high-level regions will accelerate a region's transition toward higher levels.

MEASUREMENT OF AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES AT COUNTY LEVEL IN JIANGSU PROVINCE

Agglomeration economies are the important factors for the regional development. However, the common indicators to measure them, such as Gini Coefficients neglect the spatial ingredient of data, leading to a-spatial estimates. In order to assess spatial neighbor effects of agglomeration economies, this study makes the new attempts by applying a series of techniques of spatial autocorrelation analysis, specifically, measuring the economies of urbanization and localization at the county level in the secondary and tertiary industries of Jiangsu Province in 1999 and 2002. The conclusions in this study reveal that on the whole, the localization effects on the economies of the secondary industry might be stronger than urbanization effects for that period, and highly agglomerative economies were limited within the southern Jiangsu and parts of middle along the Changjiang (Yangtze) River. Moreover, the tertiary industry has been strong urbanization rather than localization economies in the whole Jiangsu. Unlike the secondary industry, the tertiary industry held the high levels of agglomeration economies can be also found in the poor northern Jiangsu, and then the spatial clusters of trade and services might be basically seen in each of urban districts in 13 cities. All in all, spatial autocorrelation analysis is a better method to test agglomeration economies.

Carbon dioxide emissions from cities in China based on high resolution emission gridded data

Based on the China high resolution emission gridded data （I km spatial resolution）, this article is aimed to create a Chinese city carbon dioxide （CO2） emission data set using consolidated data sources as well as normalized and standardized data processing methods. Standard methods were used to calculate city CO2 emissions, including scope I and scope 2. Cities with higher CO2 emissions are mostly in north, northeast, and eastern coastal areas. Cities with lower CO2 emissions are in the western region. Cites with higher CO2 emissions are clustered in the Jing-Jin-Ji Region （such as Beijing, Tianjin, and Tangshan）, and the Yangtze River Delta region （such as Shanghai and Suzhou）. The city per capita CO2 emission is larger in the north than the south. There are obvious aggregations of cities with high per capita CO2 emission in the north. Four cities among the top 10 per capita emissions （Erdos, Wuhai, Shizuishan, and Yinchuan） cluster in the main coal production areas of northern China. This indicates the significant impact of coal resources endowment on city industry and CO2 emissions. The majority （77%） of cities have annual CO2 emissions below 50 million tons. The mean annual emission, among all cities, is 37 million tons. Emissions from service-based cities, which include the smallest number of cities, are the highest. Industrial cities are the largest category and the emission distribution from these cities is close to the normal distribution. Emissions and degree of dispersion, in the other cities （excluding industrial cities and service-based cities）, are in the lowest level. Per capita CO2 emissions in these cities are generally below 20 t/person （89%） with a mean value of 11 t/person. The distribution interval of per capita CO2 emission within industrial cities is the largest among the three city categories. This indicates greater differences among per capita CO2 emissions of industrial cities. The distribution interval of per capita CO2 emission of other cities is the lowest, indicating smaller differences of per capita CO2 emissions among this city category. Three policy suggestions are proposed： first, city CO2 emission inventory data in China should be increased, especially for prefecture level cities. Second, city responsibility for emission reduction, and partition- ing the national goal should be established, using a bottom-up approach based on specific CO2 emission levels and potential for emission reductions in each city. Third, comparative and bench- marking research on city CO2 emissions should be conducted, and a Top Runner system of city CO2 emission reduction should be established.

Regional Structure and Spatial Morphology Characteristics of Oasis Urban Agglomeration in Arid Area——A Case of Urban Agglomeration in Northern Slope of Tianshan Mountains,Northwest China

It is great important to the health development of urban agglomeration to correctly understand the formation and development law of regional structure of urban agglomeration.Employing the analysis methods like fractal theory and quantitative statistics,coupling with the use of remote sensing images and other spatial data,this article discusses the urban agglomeration of oasis on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains in an arid area,and conducts the researches on its city scale,spatial distribution and individual form from 1990 to 2005.The result shows that it has loose hierarchical scale structure and polarization trend of population distribution while its hierarchical scale structure tends to mature.Under the influence of natural conditions,the spatial layout of urban agglomeration of oasis has macro characteristics that suggest cities distributed along oasis edges(dense or sparse),spatially expand along rivers,and cluster around traffic branches.The connectivity among the cities is high and shows an internal organization form of a banding distribution.The whole spatial shape of the internal structure of cities presents a "dumbbell" form,with mononuclear phenomenon receding and multi-nuclear appearing gradually.Individual cities spatially expand along rivers,portraying a long strip appearance.It indicates that the urban agglomeration of oasis shows regular and close structure but with a tendency to be complicated form and the loose structure.In the development of urban agglomeration,the authors recommend that the development of the city with good economic development conditions should be strengthened,and more attention be put into regional planning.

Benefits and Challenges of Urban Green Spaces

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the benefits,and challenges towards providing multifunctional urban green spaces.The results are based on critical analysis of study findings from different cities in Europe,America and to a lesser extent in Asia.Inner-city green spaces are especially important for improving air quality through uptake of pollutant gases and particulates which are responsible for respiratory infections.Due to their amenity and aesthetics,green spaces increase property value.To ensure multifunctional role of urban a green space is achieved,in particular the social and psychological role,certain standards of quantity,quality and distribution within the urban area should be adequately established.Green spaces need to be uniformly distributed throughout the city area,although each does not need to be extremely large but should be large enough to accommodate the city population.

Exploring relations between city regions based on mobile phone data

City regions often have great diversity in form and function. To better understand the role of each region, the relations between city regions need to be carefully studied. In this work, the human mobility relations between regions of Shanghai based on mobile phone data is explored. By formulating the regions as nodes in a network and the commuting between each pair of regions as link weights, the distribution of nodes degree, and spatial structures of communities in this relation network are studied. Statistics show that regions locate in urban centers and traffic hubs have significantly larger degrees. Moreover, two kinds of spatial structures of communities are found. In most communities, nodes are spatially neighboring. However, in the communities that cover traffic hubs, nodes often locate along corridors.

Regional differences of border geo-cities in China and the surrounding countries

As the improvement of international status and the implementation of China's neighboring diplomacy, the development of border regions and the security of border cities, as well as their spatial structure and regional differences are gaining more attention from academic circle. Based on the interdisciplinary perspectives of urban geography, regional economics and geopolitics, this paper explores the regional differences of border geo-cities in China and the surrounding countries with the help of remote sensing information acquisition and Arc GIS spatial analysis. Three primary results are found as follows:(1) The border geo-cities in China and surrounding countries are divided into five geographical regions: geo-cities in South China Sea, geo-cities in Southeast Asia, geo-cities in South Asia, geo-cities in Central Asia and geo-cities in Northeast Asia.(2) In the spatial structure system of China's border geo-cities, the importance of geo-cities in five major regions is fairly different. In terms of the security and economic development, the rank of priority is geo-cities in Northeast Asia, geo-cities in South China Sea, geo-cities in Central Asia, geo-cities in South Asia, geo-cities in Southeast Asia.(3) Considering China's geo-setting for the development of border geo-cities, the east region is significantly better than the west, and the north region is slightly better than the south.

Spatial function regionalization and governance of coastal zone: A case study in Ningbo City

Reasonable development and utilization of spatial resources in the coastal zone not only affects the development quality of the marine economy but also impacts the utilization efficiency of spatial resources,playing an important role in regional sustainable development.Depending on the natural,economic,and societal characteristics of a region,research topics such as using relevant methods to divide the coastline,proper spatial development of the coast,protecting coastal zones,and achieving higher spatial resource distribution efficiency have recently become hot topics in geographic research.Most of the scholars construct the evaluation index system from the perspective of economic and ecological factors and undertake some exploration of the division methods.However,the selection of indicators for a coastal zone needs a different and more scientific approach.There is a need for emphasizing the overall strategy of land-ocean integration in developing spatial resources in a coastal zone.Taking the coastal zone in Ningbo as an example,this paper develops a new evaluation framework and spatial function regionalization method that is used to divide the coastline and coastal zone.Based on the perspective of overall strategy for the land and ocean,we evaluate the suitability of coastline development.We then propose the spatial function regionalization of the coastal zone.Finally,based on the status quo of spatial development in Ningbo,we divide the coastal zone into ecological space,production space and living space,and propose adjustment directions and control requirements for the different types of spatial layouts.

Spatial expansion and potential of construction land use in the Yangtze River Delta

Based on remote sensing data of the Yangtze River Delta(YRD) in the years of 1991, 2001 and 2008, the paper built an index system of land use potential restraint factors in YRD, according to geological condition, terrain condition, water area, natural reserve area and basic farmland, and evaluated construction land potential based on the platform of GIS spatial analysis model. The results showed that:(1) the construction land increased rapidly since 1991 and reached 24,951.21 km2 in 2008, or 21.27% of the total area. Among all the cities in the YRD, Shanghai took the greatest percentage, followed by Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Spatially, areas where government departments are located became the growth center of construction land. Prefecture-level cities were the fastest growth region and the changing trend showed circle layered characteristics and significant increase with Shanghai and Suzhou as the core.(2) The higher the quality of construction land potentials(CLP), the smaller the number of CLP units. High sensitive area accounted for the largest percentage(40.14%) among all types of constraint regions and this was followed by medium sensitive region(31.53%) of the whole region.(3) The comprehensive CLP in the YRD was 24,989.65 km2, or 21.76% of the total YRD. The land use potential showed spatial distribution imbalance. CLP of Zhejiang was obviously larger than that of Jiangsu. CLP was insufficient in regional central city. Moreover, CLP in the YRD formed a circle layered spatial pattern that increasingly expanded centered in prefecture-level cities. Low potential area expanded from north to south. High potential area was mainly located in south YRD. Areas with zero potential in the YRD formed a northwest-southeast "Y-shaped" spatial pattern in north Hangzhou Bay.(4) CLP per capita in YRD was 0.045 ha/person and also unevenly distributed. Some 25.57% of the study units at county level nearly had no construction land and 8.24% of the units had CLP per capita below the national average level. CLP per capita in less than 25% of the county-level units was larger than the YRD average level, which were mainly located in Zhejiang. Therefore, research on the construction potential area in YRD was favorable for analysis of the development status and potential space of this region under the background of rapid urbanization and industrialization.