Exploration of the spatial pattern of urban residential land use with geographically weighted regression technique: a case study of Nanjing,China

As the traditional methods and technical means cannot meet the quantitative research needs of the urban land use patterns, quantitative research methods for the urban land use pattern are established via the GIS （geographic information system ） technique combined with the related theories and models. Taking the city of Nanjing as an example, a spatial database of urban land use and other environmental and socio-economic data is constructed. A multiple linear regression model is developed to determine the statistically significant factors affecting the residential land use distributions. To explain the spatial variations of urban land use patterns, the geographically weighted regression （GWR） is employed to establish spatial associations between these significant factors and the distribution of urban residential land use. The results demonstrate that the GWR can provide an effective approach to the exploration of the urban land use spatial patterns and also provide useful spatial information for planning residential development and other types of urban land use.

The process and driving forces of rural hollowing in China under rapid urbanization

Rural hollowing is a recent geographic phenomenon that has received significant attention in China, which is experiencing rapid urbanization. It has led to the wasteful use of rural land resources, and imposed obstacles on the optimization of land use and coordinated urban-rural development. Rural hollowing has various forms of manifestation, which refers to the neglect and vacancy of rural dwellings, both of which can lead to damage and ultimate abandonment of rural dwellings. Damaged dwellings have different degrees of destruction, ranging from slight, moderate to severe. The evolutive process of rural hollowing in general has five stages, i.e., emergence, growth, flourishing, stability, and decline. Based on the combination of both regional economic development level and its physiographic features, the types of rural hollowing can be categorised as urban fringe, plain agricultural region, hilly agricultural region, and agro-pastoral region. Especially, the plain agricultural region is the most typical one in rural hollowing, which shows the spatial evolution of rural hollowing as a ＂poached egg＂ pattern with a layered hollow core and solid shape. Furthermore, the driving forces behind rural hollowing are identified as the pull of cities and push of rural areas. In particular, this paper identifies contributors to rural hollowing that include rural depopulation in relation to rapid urbanisation and economic change, land ownership and land use policy, and institutional barriers.