Influence of Information Technology on Social Spatial Behaviors of Urban Residents——Case of Nanjing City in China

Taking Nanjing as a case, the paper explains the spatial behavior differences existing in the information technology use among different groups of residents and households, by virtue of analyzing the survey data of urban households in the 11 districts of Nanjing, from the social, spatial, life and other non-technical angles. Also it makes various analyses and evaluation quantitatively and qualitatively on the social and spatial effect of information technology. The results show that the new technology is changing the social spatial behaviors of urban residents. New behavioral spaces of urban family such as telecommuting, email and QQ have begun to emerge. With the help of Internet, the communication scope of families has expanded greatly, and more new forms of publicizing community information have begun to emerge. Telecommunication contact forms have been developing swiftly, and their frequencies of contact have been increasing dramatically.

Spatial Humanities and Geo-computation for Social Sciences:Advances and Applications

Humanities and Social Sciences(HSS) are undergoing the transformation of spatialization and quantification. Geo-computation, with geoinformatics(including RS: Remote Sensing;GIS: Geographical Information System;GNSS: Global Navigation Satellite System), provides effective computational and spatialization methods and tools for HSS. Spatial Humanities and Geo-computation for Social Sciences(SH&GSS) is a field coupling geo-computation, and geoinformatics, with HSS. This special issue accepted a set of contributions highlighting recent advances in methodologies and applications of SH&GSS, which are related to sentiment spatial analysis from social media data, emotional change spatial analysis from news data, spatial analysis of social media related to COVID-19, crime spatiotemporal analysis, “double evaluation” for Land Use/Land Cover(LUCC), Specially Protected Natural Areas(SPNA) analysis, editing behavior analysis of Volunteered Geographic Information(VGI), electricity consumption anomaly detection, First and Last Mile Problem(FLMP) of public transport, and spatial interaction network analysis for crude oil trade network. Based on these related researches, we aim to present an overview of SH&GSS, and propose some future research directions for SH&HSS.

Gentrification and Residential Differentiation in Nanjing,China

The institutional environment in China has quite evidently changed during modern socio-economic transitions.Driven both by local government and by marketing force,urban social space was redistributed after the reform of urban land and real estate policies.Urban renewal makes for wide differential rent and therefore gentrification is occurring in China.This paper analyzes the background and institutional environment of gentrification in China,and further discusses the process,characteristics and evolutionary mechanisms in the case of Nanjing,through investigation of the attributes of 1075 residential communities built during the 1998-2008 at a macro level,and interviewing the residents and analyzing questionnaires in 6 different and typical communities at a micro level.As a socio-spatial course of two-way interaction,gentrification is divided into 3 stages of incubation,occurrence and fast development,according to the time of landmark events and policy reform on the leasehold of land in Nanjing during socio-economic transition.In terms of the socio-spatial characteristics of gentrification in Nanjing,the gentrification process under the trajectory of urban renewal makes urban social space present a new circle-layer structure;the rise of quite a number of gated communities results in the fragmentation of social space and privatization of public space;the management mode of modern communities and the change of life style have aggravated the indifference of neighborhood relationship of gentrified communities.Based on the empirical evidence of this study,this paper indicates that gentrification is quite different between China and western countries with respect to spatio-temporal order,dominant forces,paths of realization and spatial expression,and it further reveals the dynamic mechanism of gentrification developing in China at the present stage.

Multiplex network reconstruction for the coupled spatial diffusion of infodemic and pandemic of COVID-19

The pandemic of COVID-19 witnessed a massive infodemic with the public being bombarded with vast quantities of information.The spreading of neutral and highly accurate reports can guide the public to self-protect and reduce the pandemic.Mis-and dis-information would intrigue panic and high exposure risk to epidemic.Although the infodemic has attracted attentions from the academia,it is still not known to what degree and in which direction the information flows contribute to the COVID-19 pandemic.To fill the gap,we apply network reconstruction techniques to rebuild the hidden multiplex network of information and COVID-19 spreading by which we aim at quantifying the interaction between the propagation of information and the spatial outbreak of COVID-19,and delineate between the positive and negative impact of information on the pandemic.By differentiating the types of media that participated in the information process,we find that in the early stage of COVID-19 pandemic,infodemic does play a critical role to amplify the risk of virus outbreak in China and the risk is even larger for those highly developed regions.Compared to the old-fashion media,the new mobile platforms impose a greater risk to reinforce the positive feedback between infodemic and COVID-19 pandemic.

Adaptive Transition of Traditional Handicraft Villages Under the Rule of Consanguinity Community:A Case Study of Xizhuang Village in Xinjiang County,Shanxi Province

As an important witness to the rural industry in the agricultural era,traditional handicraft villages have attracted renewed attention in the contemporary context of intangible cultural heritage protection.The dual characteristics of their traditional cultural heritage and modern economic benefits make these villages an important carrier of the dynamic inheritance and development of the heritages under the background of rural revitalization.This paper takes a stonemason village of Xizhuang in Xinjiang County,Shanxi Province,as an example,and reveals the evolutionary characteristics of traditional handicraft villages in the process of transition from agricultural to industrial society from the“social-spatial”perspective.In the agricultural era,the kinship,production organization,and religious beliefs of traditional handicraft villages were closely linked under the blood relationship in a clan-based structure,forming a“social-spatial”trinity composed of“residence,production,and spirit.”In the industrial era,the development of handicraft economy results in the transformation of the“social-spatial”form of the settlement,the social structure shrank from clan control to nuclear family domination,the production space began to be stripped away from villages,the living space changed from gathered clan living to separated-family homes,and the spiritual place was transformed into public space.However,due to the inter-generational transmission of handicrafts based on blood relationship,the consanguinity community has always been the main carrier for the continuity of skills,and has become the stable foundation for maintaining the“social-spatial”form of the village.Therefore,the adaptive transition of traditional handicraft villages in the context of socio-economic transformation continues the interconnection among society,economy,and space,and presents a unique vitality and comparative stability.