Yitian Ren

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Assistant) at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

The urbanization process over last several decades in China has brought benefits in multiple dimensions throughout the country. However, it appears that the benefits shared by small towns is very limited, and this is particular the case in Southwest China. This paper examines holistically the barriers against benefit-sharing by small towns in the u...

Smart City conception has become a global trend with the advancement of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Many cities have proposed Smart City development strategies to capture the opportunities brought by ICTs. However, little attention has been given to investigate whether and how Smart City acts upon human happiness. To fill this...

This research aims to explore how rural China evolves towards and how it is restructured in the digital era. Rooted in the systematically entrenched urban–rural duality, rural China was traditionally marginalised and received limited benefits from the country’s urbanisation development. Digital technologies are thus highly expected to facilitate no...

Rapid urbanization has brought the rampant sprawl of cities and various urban diseases have been emerging. How to effectively understand the health status of a city and diagnose the underlying problems of urban development have therefore become a critical issue. Previous studies have not yet provided scientific methodology for urban health examinat...

Intercity investment activities among enterprises reflect the flow of capital between cities, thereby directly illustrating the economic connections between them. However, there is currently no publicly available dataset that captures this important feature. In this study, we introduce an intercity investment network (IIN) dataset for China, coveri...

Guest behaviour is important in driving hotel energy consumption, operating cost and environmental issues. Promoting energy-saving behaviours of guests is a promising strategy for the sustainable development of the hospitality industry. This research aims to explore the roles of personality profiles in individual heterogeneity in drivers of energy-...

The looming challenge of global land scarcity entails shaping urban structure towards more efficient land use. To figure out how urban structure affects urban land-use efficiency (ULUE), this study first establishes a ULUE assessment method by applying the Super-SBM DEA model, and then characterizes the urban structure via two metrics of monocentri...

ICT infrastructure development has become a profound influencing factor for rural society in addressing conventional deprivations such as geographical isolation and information asymmetry. Rooted in an entrenched urban-rural system, rural China has been marginalised and shared very little benefits from the urbanisation program in the country, where...

The rapid urbanization process in China has resulted in a large number of carbon emissions. Practicing low-carbon city (LCC) strategy is considered as a key pathway towards carbon reduction, and a dimensional analysis on LCC performance can identify weak areas of a city's low-carbon development, from which tailored LCC measures can be developed and...

The socioeconomic costs of traffic congestion are crippling in urbanising China. This study is a first attempt to explore the spatiotemporal pattern of traffic congestion performance in 77 Chinese large cities by using real-time big data. Based upon the hourly real-time traffic performance index data collected between August 27, 2019 to September 2...

Encountered with scarce land resources in contemporary time, mankind has been seeking for solutions to improve land resource carrying capacity to sustain urban development. The development pattern of urban agglomeration has been well received globally in recent years as an alternative strategy to improve land resource carrying capacity. Many countr...

Infrastructure provision is widely emphasised amid industrialisation, modernisation and urbanisation, for which plenty efforts have been devoted across countries globally. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the shortage or over-supply of urban infrastructures has already induced various urban symptoms, such as urban storm water runoff, urban hea...

Extant studies have presented various indexes for evaluating urban carrying capacity (UCC), but there is no consistent perspective on UCC. This paper presents a guiding index framework from a holistic perspective as a reference guidance for evaluating urban carrying capacity (UCC). The framework is developed based upon the theory of sustainable urb...

Peri-urban areas are transitional urban areas with urban-rural mixed landscape and functions, and the positive change of peri-urban areas is essential to achieve the mission of urban-rural integrated development. The accurate identification of the spatial scope of peri-urban areas is a prerequisite for managing such areas, and a scientific understa...

The natural environmental degradation is especially challenging the rapid urbanization areas where urban development needs to swallow traffic noise and pollution of atmospheric environment caused by transportation development. Coordinated development of transportation and environment is very necessary for sustainable urban development. This study e...

Cities are the primary area for the socioeconomic activities of human beings. In line with the unprecedented and continuous urbanization process, those mega cities worldwide have kept receiving plenty of in-flow immigrate populations, which present significant pressure upon the environment and resources systems of urban contexts. Therefore, the dis...

The excessive discharges of industrial wastewater accompanying rapid industrialization has caused severe water pollution problems and ecological environment degradation, especially in China. Decoupling economic development from wastewater discharges generated from various industrial production activities is regarded as an important indicator for ev...

With the rapid process of urbanization, the contradiction between resource environment and economic development is increasingly prominent. Correctly understanding and evaluating urban carrying capacity is urgent for promoting sustainable social progress. Although substantial studies of urban carrying capacity have been conducted, existing indicator...

Environmental problem produced by energy consumption in China is the issue that immediately needs to be resolved. City is the economic and social center, which is the main machine for the social economic development. Therefore, Environmental protection is the responsibility of every city. Many cities have started the transformation from extensive e...

China has been witnessing an unprecedented urbanization process since the implementation of reform and opening policy in 1980s. And the blueprint of Chinese urbanization program will continue for the coming future. Nevertheless, the rapid urbanization progress in China has been consuming vast amount of resources, and the conflicts between limited r...

Urban infrastructures include a wide range of functional infrastructures, such as water-supply infrastructures, gas-supply infrastructures, and transportation infrastructures etc. Nevertheless, it appears that the carrying capacity of these functional urban infrastructures is not properly evaluated during rampant urban development process, which ha...

Urban Infrastructure Economic Capacity (UIEC) is one of the most important capacities of urban infrastructure carrying capacity, which is an essential determinant of sustainable urban development. However, it appears that UIEC is not properly investigated during the urban development process, for which establishing an appropriate method is imperati...

The past few decades witness a typical urbanization era in large developing countries such as China. In line with the urbanization process, land resources have inevitably presented a series of changes. The evolution of urban land carrying capacity (ULCC) is appreciated as a yardstick for guiding towards sustainable urban development. This paper the...

Research interests in urban carrying capacity (UCC) in the contemporary urbanizing China have been growing in recent years, which results in the development of a large body of related articles. This research examines the research evolution in the discipline of UCC in the Chinese context. It is considered important to understand this research evolut...

Development for townships is an important driving force for new-type urbanization of China. However, it appears that the level of the development between different towns is severely unbalanced. This unbalanced development phenomenon has resulted in various problems such as poor living environment and brain drain in less developed towns. This paper...

Many regions globally have been facing the challenges of water scarcity and water pollution along with the rampant urbanization process. These challenges highlight the urgency to investigate appropriately the regional water resource carrying capacity (RWRCC) which is a metric for examining and guiding sustainable regional development. Although exis...

The construction industry has the highest number of casualties per accident, and workers at construction sites are vulnerable to accidents. Current research on unsafe behavior mainly focuses on behavior-based safety at the individual level and safety culture at the organization level; these two safety management rubrics enjoy respective advantages...

Urban resources environment carrying capacity (URECC) is considered as a significant yardstick for guiding the practice towards sustainable urban development. It helps measure the interaction between human activities and urban resources environment system. Although existing studies on URECC have made great progress, there is still no consensus on t...

Using kernel density analysis in Arc GIS and Geo Detector tools, this paper proposes a method to investigate the spatial heterogeneity of consumption vibrancy and its driving factors in large cities, and takes Chengdu as an example to conduct an empirical analysis. The empirical results show that:(a) the spatial distribution of urban consumption vi...

The development of urban infrastructures has been playing a key role in the urbanization process in China over last several decades. Great scale of urban infrastructures has been built and it is anticipated that great number of more will be built in the near future in the country. This paper examines whether these built infrastructures have been ef...

Cities globally are developing rapidly, and the contradictions between urban development and urban carrying capacity (UCC) are increasingly prominent. Various UCC evaluating indicators have been introduced as main instruments for investigating the performance of UCC. However, understanding on the effectiveness of these UCC indicators has drawn litt...

Urbanization is commonly described as the process of population flow from rural to urban areas. As the largest developing country, China has experienced an unprecedentedly fast and large urbanization process since 1980s, which will continue for the coming future. The immense scale of the process has brought multidimensional benefits across all sect...

Investment attraction by adopting adequate development orientations is perceived as effective method for promoting social and economic development in those less developed areas or regions such as the mountainous townships in Southwest China. Investments will not be attracted or utilized effectively if the development orientation is positioned impro...