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Research progress of urban land use and its ecosystem services in the context of urban shrinkage
... According to the definition of a shrinking city [21,33,34], three years is the shortest study period for which a shrinking city can be identified. To quantify the spatial and temporal characteristics of shrinking cities, cities that shrank in size were identified for the entire study period from 2000 to 2020 and for every three years from 2000 to 2020. ...
... Referring to the classification criteria of the shrinkage intensity [21,33,34], the population shrinkage coefficient is classified into the five following levels (Table 2, Figure 2): nonshrinkage (PI > 0), mild shrinkage (0 > PI > −1%), moderate shrinkage (−1% > PI > −2%), high shrinkage (−2% > PI > −5%), and severe shrinkage (−5% > PI). At the district and county level, the representation of the population shrinkage is broader than at the prefecture and city levels, and the depth of the shrinkage is intensified. ...
... In line with previous research, continued shrinkage for no less than 3 years will represent the time standard for cities to be classified as experiencing continuous shrinkage [37] (Table 3, Figure 3). Firstly, we calculated the nighttime light change values for each study area, year on year; secondly, we screened cities and time periods where the nighttime light change values were negative [33] (i.e., nighttime light shrinkage); thirdly, based on previous studies, we used a continuous shrinkage of no less than three years as the time criterion [21,33,34] for a continuously shrinking city. As the frequency of shrinkage was variable with the length of the study period, we used more than one-third of the study period as the criterion. ...
The regional differences in the Yellow River Basin have increased, and the aggravation of this unbalanced state has seriously restricted the high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin during the accelerated urbanisation that has taken place in recent years. In this regard, heterogeneity in the trends of evolution and the causes of population shrinkage in different regions of the Yellow River Basin can be adopted as targeted countermeasures. The present study uses data from the fifth, sixth, and seventh national censuses and takes the administrative units of different levels in the Yellow River Basin as the object, considering 72 prefecture-level cities within the autonomous prefectures and 595 county-level administrative units in nine provinces (autonomous regions). The population shrinkage coefficient, night light index, bivariate spatial autocorrelation, geographic detectors, and other methods were used, with the final objective of exploring the spatial–temporal distribution pattern and impact mechanism of urban shrinkage from 2000 to 2020. The results of the study show the following: (1) The shrinkage patterns in 2000–2010 (T1) and 2010–2020 (T2) were quite different. From T1 to T2, the shrinkage situation worsened, with the number of districts experiencing population shrinkage increasing from 175 to 373 and the number of districts experiencing continuous night light and shrinkage districts increasing from 146 to 163. (2) The phenomenon of urban shrinkage is spatially scale dependent, with the shrinkage of prefecture-level cities and county-level cities being characterised by both spatial differentiation and spatial nesting relationships. (3) There is a certain inconsistency in the representation of the shrinkage patterns of the nighttime lighting and population data. The nighttime lighting dimension can reflect the structural shrinkage characteristics of the city more accurately and sensitively, and the representation of population loss is lagging. (4) The main impact factors and the intensity of urban shrinkage are the aggravated aging level, the declining level of industrial greening and intensification under market-driven economic structure adjustments, and the decreased natural growth rate in the population structure and public service facilities.
... In China, two key types of socioeconomic statistical data based on administrative units are used. One is China's census data that are released roughly every 10 years (Long & Wu, 2016;Zhang et al., 2019), and the other is the socioeconomic statistical data gathered from the Statistical Yearbook published annually (Deng et al., 2019;Wu & Li, 2019). However, the continuity and comparability of socioeconomic statistical data are weak, as China's administrative boundaries keep changing owing to jurisdictional adjustment (Deng et al., 2019). ...
... Based on the characteristics of long-term time-series NL data and the relevant research (Table 2) (Hollander & Németh, 2011;Oswalt & Rieniets, 2006;Wu & Li, 2019), here we define shrinking cities as cities that have lost a substantial amount of light brightness continuously (i.e., more than 1% reduction annually in TDN for no less than three consecutive years) or frequently (i.e., more than 1% reduction annually in TDN frequently for more than one-third of the study period). The reasons for using such criteria were as follows. ...
... Second, according to Oswalt and Rieniets (2006), cities that have lost more than 1% annually of the original population were identified as shrinking cities, so we also used 1% annually reduction as the threshold. Third, according to previous studies (Hollander & Németh, 2011;Wu & Li, 2019), we used continuously shrinking for no less than three years as the time criterion of continuously shrinking cities. As for frequently shrinking, we did not determine the absolute number of years because the frequency of shrinking varied with the length of the study period; instead, we used more than one-third of the study period as the criterion. ...
The shrinking of cities has become an increasingly global phenomenon, posing challenges for sustainable urban development. However, most focus remains on Europe and North America, and relatively little attention has been paid to the East Asia, especially the urbanizing China. Nighttime light (NL) dataset and its features (long-term time-series free access and large coverage) provide an alternative means to quantify shrinking cities. Here, we developed a new approach to identify shrinking cities and measure urban shrinkage, using corrected-integrated DMSP/OLS and NPP/VIIRS NL data. Based on this approach, we quantified the spatiotemporal patterns of shrinking cities in China from 1992 to 2019. Our study identified 153 shrinking cities in China during the study period, accounting for 23.39% of all 654 cities. These shrinking cities were widely distributed across eight economic regions and most provinces. The number of shrinking cities changed periodically and peaked following the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 and again after the Global Economic Crisis in 2008. The cities that experienced the greatest shrinkage intensity were mainly distributed in northeast China, with severe urban shrinkage occurring between 2008 and 2013. The new approach proposed in this study can effectively identify shrinking city hotspots and key periods of urban shrinkage. Our findings suggest that sustainable urban development in China must consider shrinking cities, which are faced with challenging and urgent sustainability issues different from those by rapidly growing cities.
... A value of 1 indicates urban shrinkage, and 0 otherwise. As the definition and measurement of 'shrinking cities' within the Chinese context are still subject to debates (see for example the different numbers of shrinking cities as identified in different studies such as Yang and Dunford [23], Long and Gao [18], and Wu and Li [53]), a dummy variable may be more robust than specific population counts. Similarly, in Xiao et al. [8], cities are categorized into individual groups of growing and shrinking cities. ...
... As there is a mismatch between the administratively and functionally defined urban populations in Chinese cities, we use population figures for both city districts and the whole cities to improve robustness (see Chan [54] for a detailed discussion on de jure and de facto population in Chinese cities). The third list of prefectural-level and above cities that have experienced shrinkage during 2007-2016 is reported by Wu and Li [53], which has accounted for different definitions of the 'urban population'. The three lists contain 60, 30, and 22 shrinking cities for our analysis, respectively. ...
... Correlates of residential carbon emissions with the urban shrinkage dummy variable from Wu and Li [53]. relationship holds with all three dummies of shrinkage (model 1 in Tables 3-5). ...
This paper analyzes the relationship between urban form, shrinking cities, and residential carbon emissions, based on information collected for prefectural-level and above Chinese cities for the years of 2005, 2010, and 2015. After controlling for a number of urban form and socioeconomic variables (e.g., size, compactness, and polycentricity), this paper pays attention to residential carbon emissions in ‘shrinking cities’, which have experienced population loss and are a recent urban phenomenon in China. Everything else being equal, shrinking cities tend to be associated with less energy efficient than their growing counterparts, suggesting that these cities may not only be ‘battling’ with shrinking populations and economies but also need to consider the environmental issues.
... Third, it identifies the specific paths that urban shrinkage impacts on LUE, with innovation, economy and public services being mediating factors. A city is a complex system composed of multiple subsystems, and the effects of urban shrinkage are likely to be transmitted through their networks (Wu and Li, 2019). Based on these paths, potential interventions to block negative effect of shrinkage can be applied to effectively solve the conundrums of land use and urban spatial structure in shrinking cities. ...
The effect of urban shrinkage has gradually become a new topic. Theoretically, urban shrinkage may exert great influence on land use efficiency (LUE) through various urban subsystems, but there is currently limited research examining these pathways. Using the Super-SBM-Undesirable model and the Structural Equation Model (SEM), this study calculates the LUE of shrinking cities in Northeast China and simulates the process of urban shrinkage affecting LUE. To quantify the process of urban shrinkage affecting LUE, three mediation variables, namely the economy, public services, and innovation, are used as latent variables to apply SEM. The results show that urban shrinkage will affect LUE through a direct path and indirect paths. In the direct path, urban shrinkage leads to an improvement in LUE. In the indirect paths, the economy and innovation will transmit the negative effect of urban shrinkage on LUE, while public services will reverse this effect. An important contribution of this study is that it quantifies the paths of urban shrinkage affecting LUE, thereby expanding the understanding of urban shrinkage effect and laying a foundation for the sustainable development of shrinking cities.
... CA models are suitable for modelling complex systems that occur in spatial environments (Barredo et al 2003), while ABM models can represent the interactions between agents (residents, businesses, and government) (Heckbert et al 2010). The combination of the three models can reflect land use change causality and its typical patterns in shrinking cities (Wu and Li 2019). However, due to the differences in local backgrounds and the complex mechanism of urban shrinkage, the accuracy of land use simulation in shrinking cities is still being determined. ...
The proliferation of case studies of shrinking cities in recent years has stimulated intense debate on the impacts of urban shrinkage. However, assessing the impacts of urban shrinkage from a comprehensive perspective could be more present. Also, there is a lake of analytical review of historical studies about the impacts of urban shrinkage. The built environment has different characteristics under different urban development patterns involving infrastructure, services, and social, economic, and structural factors, which provides a best practice for exploring the impacts of urban shrinkage. This study synthesizes the literature surrounding urban shrinkage and built environment changes, identifying that urban shrinkage notably affects the different components of the built environment and gives rise to four related environmental and sustainability impacts involving urban landscapes and structures, ecological sustainability, socioeconomic vitality, and residents' perceptions. Furthermore, there are interactions between the environmental and sustainability impacts, involving trade-offs and synergies between residents' perceptions, ecological sustainability, and socioeconomic vitality. The study also summarized the mainstream methods for assessing the impacts of urban shrinkage and explored the effects of urban shrinkage management strategies on improving the built environment. Finally, a framework for future direction is presented for the final to integrate the theories of urban shrinkage, people and land relationship, and sustainable urban development to guide further exploration in the field. In summary, this study implies that restoring and upgrading the built environment can pave the way for a common goal for long-term sustainable development. The value of this study is to provide relevant researchers with the knowledge to understand the developing frontiers of urban shrinkage impacts on built environments.
... The existing literature tended to focus on the potential ecological value of land made idle by urban shrinkage. Vacant houses and abandoned facilities due to urban shrinkage will eventually be demolished for safety and maintenance reasons to create vacant land (Frazier and Bagchi-Sen, 2015), which can be transformed into green spaces to provide ecosystem services to the city and improve the urban environment and the quality of life of residents (Wu and Li, 2019). Lauf et al. (2014) simulated future land use development in metropolitan Berlin, Germany based on the two scenarios of urban shrinkage and growth and found that ecosystem services were significantly improved under the shrinkage scenario. ...
Urban shrinkage is the process of population loss, industrial and functional decline, and eco-environmental deterioration due to various natural and human factors that occur once a city’s development reaches a certain point. It is an external manifestation of positive or negative changes in an urban economy, society, culture, resource use, and sustainability. Urban shrinkage is a new feature of global urbanization as well as a frontier of international and Chinese research. It has attracted widespread attention from academics in China and overseas, becoming an emerging trend that has spread from developed countries to underdeveloped ones. Research on and responses to urban shrinkage have also become new tasks of China’s new urbanization strategy. Our review of the existing literature reveals that there are significant temporal and spatial differences in research by Chinese and overseas scholars on urban shrinkage. Urban shrinkage studies have paid scant attention to interactions with the eco-environment, with analyses of urban shrinkage mechanisms and factors largely focusing on economic and social development factors; and urban shrinkage index analyses have tended not to include eco-environmental quality and environmental pollution indicators. The key tasks for future urban shrinkage research include the following: to conduct in-depth research on the mechanisms and driving factors of urban shrinkage to reveal the essence of urban shrinkage; to discover the principles behind interactions between urban shrinkage and the eco-environment, as well as to analyze the eco-environmental effects of urban shrinkage; to construct an index system for evaluating the extent, monitoring and providing warnings of, and containing urban shrinkage; and to research urban shrinkage coping strategies under different circumstances and carry out experiments and demonstrations according to local conditions.
... The view that the number of shrinking RBCs in China has increased significantly is consistent with Long et al. [92] but may not be inconsistent with the findings of some scholars, such as Liu et al., Wang et al. [83,91], due to the study sample, the period of the study, and the data used; the use of different characterization metrics is important [34], and the comparison itself is not rigorous. ...
Resource-based cities (RBCs) have become an important part of shrinking cities, and their population shrinkage brings many challenges for RBCs. A lot of literature analyzes the effects of shrinkage in RBCs, but very few explore the impact of population shrinkage on changes in their public service levels (PSLs). How the population shrinkage affects public services in RBCs, whether it is heterogeneous concerning the degree of shrinkage, and what the policy implications are all need to be studied in this paper. We propose the criteria for defining population shrinkage grades in terms of population size, population proportion, and population reduction rate, and we define the shrinkage grades of 112 RBCs. We select 12 indicators to build an index system to measure the PSLs of China’s RBCs, define the shrinkage grades of 112 RBCs, measure their PSLs, and analyze the impact of population shrinkage on the public services in China’s RBCs. The results show that there is a positive correlation between the rate of population reduction (pr) and the increased range of PSLs (PSLIR). The population shrinkage generally contributes to the improvement of PSLs in RBCs, but the effect is heterogeneous among the different shrinkage grades. In cities with population growth, it inhibits the improvement of PSLs, while in cities with population shrinkage, it promotes the improvement of PSLs. This promotion effect is phased and can only occur in the early stages of population shrinkage. The results also reveal the effects of the control variables on the PSLs of all the RBCs, as well as the RBCs with different shrinkage grades. These results can provide a reference for the sustainable development of RBCs.
... In 1988, German scholars Häußermann and Siebel first proposed the term "shrinking city" to describe massive population loss and hollowing out of cities [2]. In recent years, China also has shrinking cities [3]. Urban shrinkage is receiving growing attention from academia and government departments at home and abroad. ...
This study focuses on 55 shrinking cities selected by the urban shrinkage index using data about the urban population of 250 prefecture-level Chinese cities from 2012 to 2017. It analyzes the theoretical impacts of urban shrinkage on haze pollution and the spatial distribution and autocorrelation of urban shrinkage. The spatial error model (SEM) and the fully modified least squares (FMOLSs) regression are used to empirically examine the impacts of urban shrinkage on haze pollution at national and regional levels. The results indicate that shrinking cities showed spatial agglomeration and that northeast China had the largest number of shrinking cities. Nationwide, urban shrinkage reduced haze pollution. An increase in the proportion of secondary industries, economic development, and built-up areas intensified haze pollution, while an increase in the green area in parks alleviated such pollution. Regionally, except for west China, the impacts of urban shrinkage on haze pollution were significantly negative. Urban shrinkage in central China had the greatest impacts on haze, followed by northeast China and east China. Haze pollution was intensified by the increase in the proportion of secondary industries in east, central and west China, alleviated by economic development in east and west China, slowed down by the increase in green area in parks in northeast, east and west China, and aggravated by the rise in built-up areas in northeast, central, and west China. Targeted suggestions are proposed herein to reduce haze pollution, adapt to urban shrinkage and build quality small cities based on local conditions.
... Population size (PZ). Population loss is the first symptom of urban shrinkage (Wu and Li, 2019), and many studies have also used population loss as an indicator of urban shrinkage (Guo et al., 2021;. Therefore, population is the factor that must be examined in this paper. ...
Shrinking cities are a category of cities characterized by population loss, and the environmental problems of these cities are often neglected. Using panel data from 2012 to 2019, this paper investigates the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of carbon emissions in shrinking cities in China and the driving factors. The results find that: (1) From 2012 to 2019, carbon emissions tend to increase in shrinking cities and decrease in non-shrinking cities. Due to earlier industrial development and ecological neglect, shrinking cities in Northeast China have higher carbon emissions than other regions. (2) Population size, industrial structure and public services promote the growth of carbon emissions in shrinking cities. The influence of living environment on carbon emissions in shrinking cities is not significant. There is an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) relationship between economic level and carbon emission. (3) In shrinking cities, the increase in commuting time and distance due to spatial expansion promotes the growth of carbon emissions. Foreign investment decreases with the loss of population, which reduces carbon emissions. Technological progress gradually declines as investment in science and technology decreases, which makes carbon emissions grow. This paper clarifies the driving factors of carbon emissions in shrinking cities in China, and therefore, the findings of this paper have important reference value for the formulation of carbon reduction policies in shrinking cities in developing countries.
... Wu and Li [52] Ten years later, the urban population has decreased, and the population growth rate has been negative for more than three natural years. ...
Since the 1980s, rapid urbanization in China has been accompanied by city shrinkage. Identifying shrinking cities and clarifying the spatial and temporal patterns are of great significance for formulating policies and realizing smart shrinkage. City shrinkage characterized by population loss is a difficult challenge for urban planning and regional development policy-making. This paper uses 2012–2020 nighttime light (NTL) data to identify the spatial and temporal distribution patterns of shrinking cities in China and excavates the shrinking cities’ trend of agglomeration and dispersion further. The following results are obtained. (1) About 34.9% of prefecture-level cities are shrinking across the country but most severely in northeast and northwest China; (2) the number of shrinking cities fluctuates over time (2015 and 2020 are the peak shrinkage years). Shrinking cities in China show a northeast-to-southwest spatial distribution. (3) From 2012 to 2020, the aggregation degree of shrinkage continuously decreased (Low-Low) and the aggregation degree of growth continuously increased (High-High), indicating that shrinkage in northeast China was slightly alleviated and that the radiative effect of the growth pole was further enhanced. These findings help us better understand the trend of city shrinkage in China. Future work needs to be focused on the potential causes of the shrinkage. Furthermore, long-term trends also need to be investigated.
... China has currently adjusted family planning policies to alleviate urban shrinkage pressure (Yang & Dunford, 2018) and has proposed a control and reduction strategy for the total amount of construction land , elevating management on construction land reduction to a national development agenda (The State Council of PRC., 2015). In the future, measures of adaptation, including transforming inefficient vacant land to urban green space (Haase et al., 2014b;Zhang et al., 2017;Wu & Li, 2019), need to be taken into account to implement urban renewal action, further improve urban spatial structure and urban functional arrangements and transform the way of urban development and economic growth (The People's Government of Beijing Municipality., 2021) to mitigate the negative impacts of urban shrinkage. ...
Delimiting the urban growth boundary (UGB) is important for limiting urban sprawl and improving urban sustainability. However, the future UGB delimitation for the entire China is still lacking. Here, we delimited China’s UGBs before 2100 under localized shared socioeconomic pathways and 11 urban expansion modes (i.e., spontaneous growth, organic growth, and nine modes integrating both) and evaluated the urban shrinkage pressure and the effects on other land use/cover types and ecosystem services. The results revealed that China’s urban land demand was projected to increase first and then decrease under five scenarios before 2100. The extent of UGBs was projected to be 121,199-142,982 km2, 34.14%-58.25% higher than the urban area in 2020. As a result of urban population decline, China’s urban land demand in 2100 was projected to be 20.83%-53.41% lower than the extent of UGBs, implying that China, especially the three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning, will face remarkable urban shrinkage pressure. Future urban expansion in China will mainly occupy cropland, and lead to a simultaneous decline in habitat quality, food production and carbon sequestration. Spontaneous growth will cause greater losses of ecosystem services than organic growth at the national scale, while in some provinces, such a difference will be reversed. To address the urban shrinkage pressure, China needs to control urban area and optimize urban spatial patterns based on UGBs. In addition, the place-based optimal urban expansion mode is also required to reduce the negative impacts of future urban expansion on ecosystem services and promote sustainable development.
... Population size (PZ). Population loss is the first symptom of urban shrinkage (Wu and Li, 2019), and many studies have also used population loss as an indicator of urban shrinkage (Guo et al., 2021;. Therefore, population is the factor that must be examined in this paper. ...
... Therefore, the critical standard for a core author is 4.10, so 152 authors can be treated as core authors. Collectively with Peter H. Verburg (30), Brett A.Bryan (20), Stephen Polasky (17), Sandra Lavorel (15), and Catharina J. E. Schulp (13) represent the top five prolific authors in the field. ...
Land use changes cause significant alterations in the land surface structure and significantly impact ecosystem services. Research on land use change (LUC) and ecosystem services has become one of the hotspots of interdisciplinary research in ecology and geography. Based on 1860 publications collected from the Web of Science Core CollectionTM (WoS), the top authors, top organizations, top journals, and subject categories were discussed in detail. For the number of published articles, Sustainability ranks first with 86 publications, providing significant contributions in domain. The keywords could be classified into six categories: land use/land cover change, conservation, biodiversity, policies and programmers, environmental change, and agriculture. Citations and reference co-citations were analyzed, and popular literature and co-cited literature in the field were identified. In the discussion, we focus on four important issues, including land use area changes, land use pattern changes, land use spatial pattern changes, and land use changes at different scales. The research framework in the field and the shortcomings of existing research are discussed as well. The main aim of the paper is to assist researchers in identifying potential gaps in the research that should be addressed in future research.
... Second, due to accidental errors, it is necessary to perform analyses on DN ranging from 0 to 63 years by year in order to exclude occasional expansion of NCTs. Third, based on a previous study [50], we set continuous growth over more than three consecutive years as the standard for the continuously expanding characteristic towns and over one-third of the study period for frequently expanding characteristic towns. ...
Characteristic towns have emerged along with China’s economic and social development. As a new model of small-town development, they have played an essential role in promoting industrial transformation and upgrade, improving the living environment, and promoting regional innovation and development. Accurate identification of the expansion characteristics of National Characteristic Towns (NCTs) is vital for optimizing the spatial layout of characteristic towns and adjusting the policies of characteristic towns. This study used a dataset on nighttime light to identify expanding NCTs and measure their expansion from 2000 to 2020. In total, 233 expanding NCTs were identified, accounting for 58.25% of the NCTs in China. The areas with the most significant intensity of expansion are primarily located in the East, South, and North economic regions. The critical period of NCTs expansion primarily occurred in the periods 2008–2011 and 2011–2014. Our results show that NCTs are highly consistent with the spatial distribution of urban agglomerations, and the development of NCTs is inherently related to the development of urban agglomerations in the region. The implementation of NCT policies has significantly promoted the development of NCTs in the Central and Western economic regions, which face challenging development issues and differ from those in the Eastern region. The method proposed in this study can effectively identify the ‘hot spots’ of expanding NCTs and the critical periods of their expansion.
... Shrinking cities are cities that have suffered a significant loss of population. In this study, the identification of the shrinking cities is based on Wu and Li's (2019) research. They identified the shrinking cities in China according to the data collected from the China Urban Construction Statistical Yearbooks. ...
Although shrinking cities' socioeconomic sustainability has been focused in academia, the diffusing nature of shrinking cities' environmental impact has rarely been systematically investigated. It remains uncertain the spatial extent of the effect of shrinking cities has on the environment. In this study, we address this issue by calculating the concentration of PM 2.5 in the built-up area of 640 prefecture-level and county-level cities in China, and applying the Spatial Dubin Model (SDM) to analyze the spatial relationship between shrinking cities, built-up area expansion, and air pollution in China between 2000 and 2016. Our statistical findings indicate a negative relationship between shrinking cities and increased air pollution, both directly and indirectly. When cities contract, the growth of air pollution in local and surrounding areas decreases by 0.143% and 0.635%, respectively. However, shrinking cities associated with urban built-up area expansion have relatively higher air pollution growth. They contribute 0.598% and 4.968%, respectively, to the increase in air pollution in the local and surrounding areas. Besides, local economic development in mitigating air pollution has a positive spatial spillover effect on air quality in the neighboring cities. In contrast, local population size has a negative spatial spillover effect. The above findings contribute knowledge to the convoluted spatial dynamics between urban decline and air pollution in China. The associated policy implications are also discussed.
... As one of the fastest developing countries in the world, recent literature has concerned the coexistence of urban expansion and city shrinkage in China (Long & Wu, 2016). Even though China continues to urbanize, approximately more than 80 cities endured population loss for the period of 2007-2016 (Liu et al., 2020;Wu & Li, 2019). This is especially the case for some resource-based cities in Northeast and Northern China, which have been losing their population and suffering from stagnant and even negative local GDP growth (Wu, 2019;Yang, 2019). ...
While China's urbanization has been characterized by ‘growth-oriented’ development models, the recent litera- ture has highlighted the emergence of urban shrinkage in China, i.e., cities and regions that endure sustained population losses. For example, some mining towns in Northeast China have been losing both population and economic growth. Extending from Martinez-Fernandez et al.'s (2012) theoretical conjecture that urban shrinkage is a ‘symptom’ of the lack of global/external economic connections, this paper assesses whether the loss of in- vestment precedes urban shrinkage. The empirical study draws upon a unique dataset of investment flows be- tween mainland Chinese cities. The analysis shows that the correlation between investment network centrality and urban population changes is positively significant, and this significance is increased after the lag period of in- vestment network centrality is prolonged. Furthermore, when the value of investment network centrality climbs, their effect on urban population changes is going to be enlarged. The results are highly policy-relevant and will inform future policies regarding urban shrinkage management.
... The expansion of urban built-up encroaching on the land space of farmland and forest will lead to the increasingly prominent contradictions between regional urban development, agricultural land protection, and ecological conservation (Egoh et al. 2007;Liu et al. 2015;Zhao et al. 2021). With the rapid expansion of the city Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues * Chenxi Li xywglcx@163.com 1 and changes in land use, LUC has caused huge changes in the internal structure, process, and function of the ecosystem (Wu and Li 2019;Liu and Kuang 2019;Daily 2000), ecosystem services values (ESV) in terms of regulation, supply, and culture (Hang et al. 2015;Lautenbach et al. 2011). More and more researchers, managers, and the general public around the world have realized the importance of ecosystem services to urban development and have incorporated them into decision-making management. ...
Simulating changes in the value of ecosystem services caused by land use changes in large cities under multiple scenarios is of great significance for cities to formulate land use policies and improve ecosystem services. Take Shijiazhuang, which is in the process of rapid urbanization, as an example. Based on the remote sensing image data and statistical yearbook of 1988, 1998, 2008, and 2018 as the basic data to analyze and estimate the 30 years of land use and ecosystem service value changes in Shijiazhuang. According to this, the CA-Markov model was used to simulate the land use change in Shijiazhuang under three scenarios in 2030 and estimate the value of ecosystem services under each scenario, using grid tools to visually express the spatial distribution of ecosystem service values and the degree of agglomeration under three scenarios. The results indicate that the most obvious feature of land use change in Shijiazhuang from 1988 to 2018 was that the farmland area decreased year by year, the built-up expanded rapidly, the farmland area decreased by 86,874.75 hm² in 30 years, and the built-up increased by 154,711.90 hm². In 1988, 1998, 2008, and 2018, the ecosystem service value of Shijiazhuang was 32.578 billion yuan, 32.799 billion yuan, 29.944 billion yuan, and 31.251 billion yuan respectively. In 2030, under three scenarios of natural development, farmland protection, and ecological protection, the value of ecosystem services is 331.111 billion yuan, 33.670 billion yuan, and 33.891 billion yuan in order. The hot spots are mainly concentrated in the northwest and southwest of Shijiazhuang, and cold spots are concentrated in the eastern cities, counties, and districts. Based on changes in land use brought about by urban expansion, simulating the value of ecosystem services under multiple scenarios in the future, providing scientific guidance for building urban ecological networks, and realizing sustainable urban ecological development.
Research on land use change is helpful to better understand the processes and mechanisms of land use changes and provide a decision base for reasonable land development. However, studies on LUCC were mainly conducted for megalopolises and urban agglomerations in China, but there is a gap in the scholarly community when it comes to shrinking small cities where the population decreased sharply under the influence of the urban expansion of megacities. Hence, it is necessary to investigate the evolution rule of land use in these regions. This study takes Qishan County in Shanxi Province as the research subject and analyzes the land use change over the last 20 years with remote sensing technology. Comparing the two LUCC models of the CA-Markov Model and the LCM Model, an optimal model is used to predict and simulate land use change under three potential scenarios in 2030. The conclusions are stated as follows: (1) From 2000 to 2020, the cultivated land area increased originally and subsequently decreased, and forest land continued to decrease at a progressively slower speed. In contrast, the urban land area expanded significantly. (2) The comprehensive dynamic change in water land is the most significant, indicating that this is an unstable land resource in the region and more attention should be given to this matter. (3) The scenario of water area protection indicates that the inhibition of the transition of water areas can protect their vulnerable ecological environment without negatively impacting economic development. Furthermore, the ongoing focus on economic development in the region is related to the rapid disappearance of cultivated land, which is not an optimistic perspective for the area’s ecosystem. The results of this study implied land transition features and mechanisms in Qishan County, providing novel insights for decision support for county-level land use planning.
150 km 圈层区域而言， 大中小城市协调发展效果不理想。④ 产业空间规 模扩大及城市建设维护管理水平提升对于控制城市相对收缩具有重要的积极作用。最后， 从推动湖北省城市协调 发展、 加强中小城市收缩管控方面探讨了政策建议。 关键词： 城市收缩； 城市体系； 湖北省 自 20 世纪 80 年代， 随着去工业化、 人口老龄 化、 郊区化发展， 欧洲国家与北美地区城市收缩逐 步显现 [1-5] 。进入 21 世纪， 城市收缩演化为全球现 象 [6-7] 。其中， 欧洲 57%的城市、 美国 13%的城市尤 其是东北部地区城市面临着收缩问题 [8-9] 。2000-2016 年， 中国存在收缩态势的城市至少有 60 个 [10] 。 可以说， 城市收缩已成为城市可持续发展的重大挑 战。 《2019 年新型城镇化建设重点任务》 首次从中央 决策层面明确提出收缩型中小城市一词。由此可 见， 城市收缩已上升为中国新型城镇化建设的重大 议题。 然而， 国内有关城市收缩的学术研究十分不 足。当前， 学术界以人口数量为基础， 结合经济增 长、 夜间灯光等信息 [11] ， 对城市规模乃至活力变化 开展了大量研究 [10,12-14] 。然而， 由于城市收缩的诊断 标准至今属于主观判断， 大多研究结论一直备受争 议。值得注意的是， 人口收缩是城市收缩最直观的 表现 [15-16] 。 《2019 年新型城镇化建设重点任务》 也强
The emergence of rapid transit, primarily represented by high-speed railway (HSR), while reshaping the regional traffic patterns, leads to the reconstruction and redistribution of population and industry. This leads to either shrinkage or expansion of urban scale. However, research on the influence mechanisms of the urban scale has mostly concentrated on historical, economic and social factors. The influence of traffic factors is rarely mentioned in current research. Therefore, this study examines Northeast China, where the change in urban scale is most significant, to discuss the spatial impact of high-speed railway on the urban scale. This is of great significance in terms of enriching current understanding of the factors affecting the urban scale. The results included the following: 1) The high-speed railway produced considerable space-time convergence effects, however, simultaneously aggravated the imbalance in traffic development in Northeast China. The increase in accessibility presents attenuation characteristics from the high-speed railway. Additionally, the high-speed railway has changed the mode of cooperation between cities in the provinces, inter-regional and inter-provincial cooperation models gradually become popular. 2) The change rate of accessibility and the urban scale present significant spatial coupling phenomena, with the change rate of the Harbin-Dalian trunk lines and its surroundings being more significant. 3) There are predominantly four modes of the influence of high-speed railway on the urban scale, which make difference city present expansion or shrinkage.
Aims
Urban soils are the basis of many ecosystem services in cities. Here, we examine formerly residential vacant lot soils in Cleveland, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan, USA for their potential to provide multiple ecosystem services. We examine two key contrasts: 1) differences between cities and 2) differences within vacant lots created during demolition, specifically pre-existing (i.e., prior to demolition) soils outside of the building footprint and fill soils added within the former building’s footprint.
Methods
Deep soil cores were collected from vacant lots in Cleveland and Detroit. Soil properties that are proxies for three ecosystem services were measured: hydraulic conductivity for stormwater retention, topsoil depth and soil nitrogen (N) level for support for plant growth, and soil carbon (C) content for C storage.
Results
Both city and soil group contrasts created distinct ecosystem service provisioning based on proxy measures. Cleveland soils had greater hydraulic conductivity and greater soil C and N levels but thinner topsoil layers than Detroit. Within vacant lots of both cities, pre-existing soils had greater soil C and N levels, but lower hydraulic conductivity values than fill soils.
Conclusions
Soil properties of vacant lots were generally suitable for providing multiple ecosystem services. City-level differences in soil properties created differences in ecosystem service potential between cities and these differences were evident in pre-existing and fill soils. When comparing between cities, though, fill soils were more similar than pre-existing soils indicating some homogenization of ecosystem service potential with greater redistribution of soil.
As cities shrink, they often leave a patchwork of vacancy on the landscape. The maintenance of vacant lands and eventual transformation to sustainable land uses is a challenge all cities face, but one that is particularly pronounced in shrinking cities. Vacant lands can support sustainability initiatives, specifically the expansion of urban gardens and local food production. However, many shrinking cities are the same aging cities that have experienced the highest soil lead burdens from their industrial past as well as the historic use of lead-based paint and leaded gasoline. Elevated soil lead is often viewed as a barrier to urban agriculture and managing for multiple ecosystem services, including food production and reduced soil lead exposure, remains a challenge. In this paper, we argue that a shift in framing the soil lead and gardening issue from potential conflict to potential solution can advance both urban sustainability goals and support healthy gardening efforts. Urban gardening as a potential solution to the soil lead problem stems from investment in place and is realized through multiple activities, in particular (1) soil management, including soil testing and the addition of amendments, and (2) social network and community building that leverages resources and knowledge.
This article reviews existing literature on spatial metrics, presenting a portfolio of metrics addressing the spatial patterns of growing and shrinking cities and discussing their potential and limitations. A wide and diverse set of spatial metrics was found. While these metrics address most of the identified spatial patterns of urban growth, spatial metrics used in urban shrinkage studies are much scarcer and not nearly sufficient to provide a comprehensive assessment of its spatial patterns. The article concludes that there is great potential for the development of new spatial metrics or mixed indicators, particularly in shrinkage contexts. The article builds on recent literature focusing on reviewing and developing metrics for particular spatial patterns (notably patterns of urban sprawl), while considering a very broad and multidisciplinary set of metrics. It focuses not only on the outcomes of urban growth but also on those of the increasingly common shrinking phenomenon.
Urban environments are in continual transition. Yet, as many cities continue to grow and develop in ways deemed typical or standard, these transitions can be difficult to acknowledge. Narratives of continued growth and permanence become accepted and expected while the understanding of urban dynamics becomes lost. In many parts of the world, the shrinking cities phenomenon has given rise to a new awareness of urban transition that provides a laboratory of new conditions at the intersection of urbanism and ecology. With property vacancy rates easily exceeding 50% in certain locations, cities in the American Rust Belt look more like successional woodlands than bustling metropolises, yet these cities still contain significant numbers of urban residents. A central question that arises from this phenomenon is: how can vacant land, through the provision of ecosystem services, become a resource as opposed to a liability? This paper looks to recent studies in urban ecology as a lens for understanding the land use potential of shrinking cities, while discussing unconventional solutions for sustainable development of urban land.
House vacancy rate (HVR) is an important index in assessing the healthiness of residential real estate market. Investigating HVR by field survey requires a lot of human and economic resources. The nighttime light (NTL) data, derived from Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, can detect the artificial light from the Earth surface, and have been used to study social-economic activities. This paper proposes a method for estimating the HVR in metropolitan areas using NPP-VIIRS NTL composite data. This method combines NTL composite data with land cover information to extract the light intensity in urbanized areas. Then, we estimate the light intensity values for nonvacancy areas, and use such values to calculate the HVR in corresponding regions. Fifteen metropolitan areas in the United States have been selected for this study, and the estimated HVR values are validated using corresponding statistical data. The experimental results show a strong correlation between our derived HVR values and the statistical data. We also visualize the estimated HVR on maps, and discover that the spatial distribution of HVR is influenced by natural situations as well as the degree of urban development.
A solid understanding of urbanizing China – the world’s largest and most rapidly transforming urban society – calls for improved urban data provision and analysis. This paper therefore looks at major technological, social–cultural, and institutional challenges of understanding urban China with open data, and showcases our attempt at understanding Chinese cities with open urban data. Through our showcases, we hope to demonstrate the usefulness of open urban data in (1) mapping urbanization in China with a finer spatiotemporal scales; (2) reflecting social and environmental dimensions of urbanization; and (3) visualizing urban China at multiple scales.
Urban green spaces provide essential ecosystem services and improve resident quality of life, but open space networks are often fragmented by urban development, and it is difficult to reclaim natural lands after they have been built up. Shrinking cities (i.e., cities experiencing population decline) typically contain an abundance of vacant and abandoned residential buildings that are demolished for safety and maintenance reasons. The resulting empty lots can potentially be reclaimed as natural areas to defragment the green network and increase open space connectivity. To date however, planning efforts have largely ignored post-demolition land uses for these lots, allowing many to become empty wastelands. This research approaches this gap by presenting an alternative plan for residential demolition sites using landscape ecology principles and methods to incorporate them into the open space network. Using Buffalo, NY – a typical rustbelt shrinking city – as a case study, areas most at risk for experiencing demolitions are identified using a clustering technique, and each building within the cluster is assigned a likelihood it will be demolished using a logit model. Properties with the highest risk for demolition are then prioritized based on their ability to contribute to and connect the open space network using landscape connectivity metrics. Results indicate the approach can foster large increases in green network connectivity using small parcels (a 356% increase in total open space area was observed in this study after three years of purposeful selection), allowing cities to reclaim unused urban areas and defragment the open space network.
The potential of Markov-cellular automata model has been recognized and used widely in land use changes simulation and forecast, but previous researchers focused on analysis of future simulation result and land use change. Few thoughts have given to the analysis of modal accuracy and uncertainty and previous accuracy assessments have largely been conducted by simply calculating the overall value of selected accuracy metric. To increase the applied assessment value of Markov-cellular automata model, we explored the accuracy of simulation through the calculation of Kappa index for location and quantity. The case study area was Changping District, which is a rapidly growing area of Beijing. We classified the 1988 and 1995 TM image into six land use types in accordance with Chinese standards. Computed the transition suitable atlas based on different range and measurement units of the physical and socioeconomic factors. And then, we integrated these datasets to simulate the 2000 land use change map by Markov-cellular automata model. Lastly, we analyzed the simulation result and assess the accuracy of different cell size and neighbour size through various kappa index. The results of simulation showed that simulation accuracy of small cell size is better than the big cell size although it takes a substantial amount of time to run. However, the prediction accuracy of the model was quite stable with the neighbour sizes from 3*3 to 13*13. These results allowed us to understand what and how the factor including cell size and neighbour size affected simulation accuracy and how to select the best cell size for simulation. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of School of Environment, Beijing Normal University.
Since the release of the digital archives of Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Line Scanner (DMSP/OLS) nighttime light data in 1992, a variety of datasets based on this database have been produced and applied to monitor and analyze human activities and natural phenomena. However, differences among these datasets and how they have been applied may potentially confuse researchers working with these data. In this paper, we review the ways in which data from DMSP/OLS nighttime light images have been applied over the past two decades, focusing on differences in data processing, research trends, and the methods used among the different application areas. Five main datasets extracted from this database have led to many studies in various research areas over the last 20 years, and each dataset has its own strengths and limitations. The number of publications based on this database and the diversity of authors and institutions involved have shown promising growth. In addition, researchers have accumulated vast experience retrieving data on the spatial and temporal dynamics of settlement, demographics, and socioeconomic parameters, which are “hotspot” applications in this field. Researchers continue to develop novel ways to extract more information from the DMSP/OLS database and apply the data to interdisciplinary research topics. We believe that DMSP/OLS nighttime light data will play an important role in monitoring and analyzing human activities and natural phenomena from space in the future, particularly over the long term. A transparent platform that encourages data sharing, communication, and discussion of extraction methods and synthesis activities will benefit researchers as well as public and political stakeholders.
While technological progress has fostered the conception of an urban society that is increasingly decoupled from ecosystems, demands on natural capital and ecosystem services keep increasing steadily in our urbanized planet. Decoupling of cities from ecological systems can only occur locally and partially, thanks to the appropriation of vast areas of ecosystem services provision beyond the city boundaries. Conserving and restoring ecosystem services in urban areas can reduce the ecological footprints and the ecological debts of cities while enhancing resilience, health, and quality of life for their inhabitants. In this paper we synthesize knowledge and methods to classify and value ecosystem services for urban planning. First, we categorize important ecosystem services and disservices in urban areas. Second, we describe valuation languages (economic costs, socio‐cultural values, resilience) that capture distinct value dimensions of urban ecosystem services. Third, we identify analytical challenges for valuation to inform urban planning in the face of high heterogeneity and fragmentation characterizing urban ecosystems. The paper discusses various ways through which urban ecosystems services can enhance resilience and quality of life in cities and identifies a range of economic costs and socio‐cultural impacts that can derive from their loss. We conclude by identifying knowledge gaps and challenges for the research agenda on ecosystem services provided in urban areas.
Developed, modern cities throughout the world are facing population declines at an unprecedented scale. Over the last fifty years, 370 cities throughout the world with populations over 100,000 have shrunk by at least 10% (Oswalt and Rieniets 2007). Wide swaths of the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Japan are projecting double-digit declines in population in the coming decades. Internationally, scholars and practitioners of the built environment have responded to this crisis by reconceptualizing decline as shrinkage and have begun to explore creative and innovative ways for cities to successfully shrink (Stohr 2004; Swope 2006). Historically, planners have responded to population decline by instigating economic development strategies, but this conventional approach has failed in scores of places. This emerging new approach to rethinking decline provides a non-economic view of responding to depopulation.
This article presents an overview of multi-agent system models of land-use/cover change (MAS/LUCC models). This special class of LUCC models combines a cellular landscape model with agent-based representations of decision making, integrating the two components through specification of interdependencies and feedbacks between agents and their environment. The authors review alternative LUCC modeling techniques and discuss the ways in which MAS/LUCC models may overcome some important limitations of existing techniques. We briefly review ongoing MAS/LUCC modeling efforts in four research areas. We discuss the potential strengths of MAS/LUCC models and suggest that these strengths guide researchers in assessing the appropriate choice of model for their particular research question. We find that MAS/LUCC models are particularly well suited for representing complex spatial interactions under heterogeneous conditions and for modeling decentralized, autonomous decision making. We discuss a range of possible roles for MAS/LUCC models, from abstract models designed to derive stylized hypotheses to empirically detailed simulation models appropriate for scenario and policy analysis. We also discuss the challenge of validation and verification for MAS/LUCC models. Finally, we outline important challenges and open research questions in this new field. We conclude that, while significant challenges exist, these models offer a promising new tool for researchers whose goal is to create fine-scale models of LUCC phenomena that focus on human-environment interactions.
After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, demographic decline and urban shrinkage brought massive changes in the housing stock in East German cities. Urban planners and policy makers face complex problems caused by the resulting vacancies and demolitions and the handling of urban brownfields in the inner city. At the same time, cities are under ongoing pressure of suburbanisation. Because existing models focus mainly on demographic and urban growth and their impact on housing stocks, we present a simulation model that is able to compute both growth and shrinkage processes. We uncover nonlinear dynamics and feedbacks between demography, housing preference, and supply of housing space. The simulation results show that, despite population decline, the increasing number of single households leads to a growing total housing demand in the central parts of the study area. Beyond this area, residential vacancies in multistorey housing segments will remain regardless of population growth. At the same time, the simulations show that, despite population shrinkage and an overall oversupply of flats, there is a negative net demand for flats in affordable prefabricated housing estates as the percentage of low-income households increases. These findings will help planners modify or adapt their visions of the residential function in shrinking cities and to adjust current programmes of renewal and restructuring.
Keywords: urban simulation, residential space, demographic change, households, Germany
In recent decades several methods have been proposed to simulate land-use changes in a spatially explicit way. In these models land is generally represented on a lattice with cell states indicating the predominant land use. Since a cell can have only one state, mixed land uses and different densities of one land use can only be introduced superficially, as separate cell states. In this paper we describe a cellular automata model that simulates dynamics in both land uses and activities, where activities represent quantitative information, such as the number of inhabitants at a location. Therefore each cell has associated with it (1) a value representing one of a finite set of land-use classes, and (2) a vector of numerical values representing the quantity of each modelled activity that is present at that location. This allows simulation of incremental changes as well as mixed land uses. The proposed model is tested with a synthetic application that uses two activities: population and jobs. It simulates the emergence of human settlements over time from local interactions between activities and land uses. Assessment of results indicates that the model generates realistic urbanization patterns.
Urban shrinkage is not a new phenomenon. It has been documented in a large literature analyzing the social and economic issues that have led to population flight, resulting, in the worse cases, in the eventual abandonment of blocks of housing and neighbourhoods. Analysis of urban shrinkage should take into account the new realization that this phenomenon is now global and multidimensional — but also little understood in all its manifestations. Thus, as the world's population increasingly becomes urban, orthodox views of urban decline need redefinition. The symposium includes articles from 10 urban analysts working on 30 cities around the globe. These analysts belong to the Shrinking Cities International Research Network (SCIRN), whose collaborative work aims to understand different types of city shrinkage and the role that different approaches, policies and strategies have played in the regeneration of these cities. In this way the symposium will inform both a rich diversity of analytical perspectives and country‐based studies of the challenges faced by shrinking cities. It will also disseminate SCIRN's research results from the last 3 years.
Résumé
La décroissance urbaine n'est pas un phénomène nouveau. De nombreux travaux ont analysé les problèmes sociaux et économiques conduisant au départ de populations et résultant dans les pires des cas à l'abandon d'îlots d'habitat et de quartiers entiers. Cependant, l'étude de la décroissance urbaine doit aujourd'hui tenir compte du constat récent selon lequel ce phénomène est désormais global et multidimensionnel, tout en restant peu appréhendé dans toutes ses composantes. Ainsi, alors que la population mondiale est de plus en plus urbaine, les conceptions classiques du déclin urbain méritent d'être réexaminées. Ce symposium inclut des articles de dix chercheurs travaillant sur trente villes à travers le monde. Ils appartiennent au Shrinking Cities International Research Netwok (SCIRN), dont le travail collectif a pour objectif d'analyser différents types de décroissance urbaine et le rôle que les multiples approches, politiques et stratégies ont joué dans la régénération des villes touchées par ce processus. Ce numéro s'appuie sur une diversité d'approches et sur l'étude de contextes urbains variés, ayant pour point commun d'être concernés par les enjeux de la décroissance urbaine. Il permet de diffuser les résultats des recherches menées au sein du SCIRN au cours des trois dernières années.
This special issue explores emerging research agendas in planning. It brings together scholars from diverse schools working on new areas of research and application in urban design and planning. Emergent research agendas include both novel areas of research and important shifts in the direction of a research area. The challenge for planning schools is to reflect critically on these changes and develop long-term research agendas that can better position our field in society and academia, and provide a basis from which to assess our academic programmes. The chapters presented in this issue reinforce key aspects of planning: multi-scale, and multi-faceted, yet integrative in its intent, stressing the physical, yet inescapably social. At the same time, they identify research areas that respond to major social and environmental changes. Blanco and Alberti focus on the latest findings in climate change science and on planning for adaptation; they highlight the opportunities that planners have to provide leadership in this area. Forsyth, Krizek and Rodríguez take up the issue of non-motorised travel, a topic of increasing interest for urban designers, public health experts and transportation and energy planners. For Talen and Ellis, an emerging challenge is the need to plan for diverse and compact communities. What social factors, policies, programmes and planning processes facilitate compact and diverse communities?
Cities have been viewed for several decades as the places within Europe typically facing the greatest problems associated with economic and population decline. A contrasting view has emerged recently that identifies cities as sites of economic dynamism and social vitality. The paper offers evidence on population change for 310 cities across the whole of Europe to assess how their fortunes have changed over the period from the 1960s through to 2005. It reveals considerable diversity of experience, with one in seven cities described as resurgent on a strict definition of decline followed by growth. They are outnumbered by cities that have experienced continuous growth and those that have had a recent downturn. Taking a long-term overview, the growth of European cities has generally slowed over the last few decades. A short-term perspective suggests something of a recovery within the last five years. Growth and revival are more common in Western Europe and decline is more widespread in the East. The position of larger cities also appears to have improved slightly relative to smaller cities.
Ob Angehörige, Sozialarbeiter oder Krankenpfleger, Dr. Dirk Claassen aus Hannover versucht Kontaktpersonen seiner Patienten möglichst in die psychiatrischen Gespräche und die Therapie einzubeziehen. Auch setzt er viel auf Ergotherapie — trotz drohender Regresse.
Research shows the positive impact that using retrieval practice can have on outcomes. Helen Webb discusses her work to apply this strategy in the classroom and encourage her students to use it as part of their revision
Land Use and Land Cover change (LUCC) is a main research subject of global environmental change and sustainable development. LUCC is a complex and dynamic process that involves both natural and human systems. Land use simulation models are powerful tools for understanding the driving forces of LUCC, for supporting urban planning and decision making, and for providing important information to evaluate the ecosystem effects of LUCC. Land use dynamic systems are difficult to predict through traditional "top-down" models. The Cellular Automata (CA) model and Agent-Based Model (ABM) are "bottom-up" approaches that have attracted increasing attention as powerful modeling tools in simulating land use patterns and evolution processes. In a CA model, each cell has a finite number of states, which can represent land use or land cover types. Changes in individual cells are defined by transition rules and generate the macro pattern of land use changes. The CA model has outstanding advantages in simulating the natural driving factors of land use dynamics. However, the influences of human factors are difficult to represent in a CA model. ABM, by contrast, can reflect the decisions and behaviors of individuals, such as government, investors, and residents. In an ABM, agents can move and interact with each other and with the environment. These local interactions generate certain land use patterns on the global scale. Thus, the two models have distinct advantages in modeling land use dynamics. Currently, the development of the CA and ABM models has achieved several important breakthroughs. This paper summarizes the recent progress in land use simulation models from the perspective of theory and methodology, including scale sensitivity, CA transition and ABM behavior rules, and coupled CA and ABM models. This paper also outlines the applications of these models in virtual city simulation and theoretical verification, realistic city simulation and scenario prediction, multitype land use and cover simulation, and decision support. However, the current land use models have obvious limitations on some crucial issues, such as fine and large-scale simulation. Hence, this paper discusses these problems and proposes the inclusion of three-dimensional modeling, big data, and rule-mining for fine simulation, as well as large-scale simulation and knowledge transfer, in future studies.
The integration of a system dynamics (SD) model, a cellular automata (CA) model, and a Geographic Information System (GIS) is an important topic in the temporal and spatial simulation of land-use changes. Based on many previous studies, the temporal–spatial dynamics method (TSDM) has been proposed as a research framework that removes the limitations of using loosely coupled SD–CA–GIS. In this study, TSDM was successfully implemented in the NetLogo platform. The results show that: (1) Integration SD–CA–GIS based on grids leads to the seamless implementation of real-time data exchange among SD, CA, and GIS; (2) The temporal–spatial dynamic mechanisms can be represented using common time steps in SD–CA–GIS, and TSDM can be used for spatial visualization; and (3) The model accuracy can be improved by extending the CA transition rules with SD. The land-use patterns for 2000, 2010, and 2016 in Beijing, China, were simulated to test the TSDM implementation, and the simulation accuracies were 83.75%, 80.98%, and 77.40%, respectively. The results indicate that TSDM achieves a much better accuracy than conventional SD–CA–GIS coupled models, and is a more practical approach to simulate land-use change.
Die Stadtsoziologie, so scheint es, hat einen neuen Gegenstand: die schrumpfende Stadt. Alle bisherigen soziologischen Analysen der Stadt beschäftigten sich mit wachsenden Städten. Mit dem Wachstum der Städte wuchs sozusagen auch das wissenschaftliche Interesse an ihnen. Das ist kein Zufall, weil sie als „Zentrum der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung“ in dem Sinne gelten konnten, daß soziale Innovation und sozialer Wandel fast immer von den Städten ausgingen.
More than 11 million homes lie empty across Europe. More than 2 million homes are empty in each of France and Italy, 1.8 million in Germany and more than 700,000 in the UK. These figures show that a large share of the housing stock in Europe is not in use. The problem has arisen because policymakers did not develop proper tools to balance long-term supply and demand for housing. The article describes why this problem appeared and provides an answer to the question of what type of incentives policymakers should apply to housing stock management, financing and taxation to achieve a better utilization of the built environment. A housing stock is a form of inventory of a built environment. The value of housing stock represents the major part of inventories in each society. Such stock currently is not managed properly because the management of housing stock does not include the methods for forecasting demand according to the dynamics of age cohorts for different housing needs, preferences and purchasing power. The goal is to develop such tools. Therefore, the actuarial reverse mortgage approach to financing is combined with a graph of a multiple decrement-competing risk approach to achieve better forecasting of supply and demand and to show how tax policies influence the housing market and the inventory of empty homes. The article also shows how taxation of real estate transactions is eating into the housing equity of the elderly when the latter must change their residential property due to decreased functional capacity. Therefore, we conclude that taxation of transactions is not an age-friendly instrument and should be replaced by property taxes that are paid annually. A better taxation policy is also suggested for Spain.
Around three dozen US cities with populations of more than 100,000 in 1950 have lost at least 20% of their residents. Deborah and Frank Popper have argued that their Buffalo Commons concept, originally conceived as a means to revivify the depopulating Great Plains, can be adapted for use in these new urban prairies. When it was announced in 2002, Baltimore's anti-blight Project 5000 aimed to acquire 5,000 vacant and abandoned properties by aggressively pursuing tax sale foreclosures, quick-takes, and traditional acquisitions. The city asked local law firms, title companies, and related businesses to help clear titles, and by 2007 had acquired and cleared title of more than 6,000 properties. Michigan changed its tax foreclosure law in 1999 to give county governments greater authority in gaining control of abandoned property County or state tax foreclosures can be completed within two years and abandoned property can be transferred in only one.
This paper takes a look at the implementation of policies under shrinkage conditions using the example of one of the largest federally supported urban policies in Germany. The Urban Restructuring Programme was initiated in the year 2001 as a response to the problem of extraordinarily high vacancies in the eastern part of the country. While earlier publications on the subject suggested that this policy was predominantly oriented towards demolition of vacant units, in this paper it is argued that this view should be revised. It is demonstrated that both the problem of housing vacancies and policy responses were substantially differentiated regionally. Further, it is highlighted how the policy has gradually changed over time, as its focus shifted from demolitions towards a new approach which seeks to adapt the mechanisms of urban regeneration to the conditions of shrinkage. Finally, the question is asked to what extent the new approach will turn out to be successful in the light of current demographic trends in Eastern Germany.
Maintaining and improving ecosystem services in urban areas and human well-being are essential for sustainable development and therefore constitute an important topic in urban ecology. Here we reviewed studies on ecosystem services in urban areas. Based on the concept and classification of urban ecosystem services, we summarized characteristics of urban ecosystem services, including the human domination, high demand of ecosystem services in urban areas, spatial heterogeneity and temporal dynamics of ecosystem services supply and demand in urban areas, multi-services of urban green infrastructures, the socio-economic dimension of ecosystem services supply and ecosystem disservices in urban areas. Among different urban ecosystem services, the regulating service and cultural service are particularly indispensable to benefit human health. We pointed out that tradeoffs among different types of ecosystem services mostly occur between supportive service and cultural service, as well as regulating service and cultural service. In particular, we emphasized the relationship between landscape design (i.e. green infrastructure) and ecosystem services supply. Finally, we discussed current gaps to link urban ecosystem services studies to landscape design and management and pointed out several directions for future research in urban ecosystem services.
Poverty has appeared as one of the long-term predicaments facing development of human society during the 21st century. Estimation of regional poverty level is a key issue for making strategies to eliminate poverty. This paper aims to evaluate the ability of the nighttime light composite data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day–Night Band (DNB) carried by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) Satellite in estimating poverty at the county level in China. Two major experiments are involved in this study, which include 1) 38 counties of Chongqing city and 2) 2856 counties of China. The first experiment takes Chongqing as an example and combines 10 socioeconomic variables into an integrated poverty index (IPI). IPI is then used as a reference to validate the accuracy of poverty evaluation using the average light index (ALI) derived from NPP-VIIRS data. Linear regression and comparison of the class ranks have been employed to verify the correlation between ALI and IPI. The results show a good correlation between IPI and ALI, with a coefficient of determination () of 0.8554, and the class ranks of IPI and API show relative closeness at the county level. The second experiment examines all counties in China and makes a comparison between ALI values and national poor counties (NPC). The comparison result shows a general agreement between the NPC and the counties with low ALI values. This study reveals that the NPP-VIIRS data can be a useful tool for evaluating poverty at the county level in China.
Studies have shown that, city size and rank follow a Pareto distribution across countries and over time. However, inconsistent definitions and measurements of city size (e.g., urban population and urban area) in census data in China have hindered the retrieval of comparable Pareto coefficients over time. Additionally, abrupt changes in size and rank at the city level are neglected in many studies. In this study, we extracted an alternative and consistently comparable measurement of city size from Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Line-scan System (DMSP/OLS) nighttime light images. Besides the traditional regression analysis at the national level, we also adopted the rank clock method to analyze city-size evolution at the city level. We found that: (1) the distribution of urban areas became more even in China, with an increase of the Pareto's coefficient from 0.79 in 1992 to 0.90 in 2008; (2) the most obvious change in urban-area distribution at the national level occurred during the period from 2000 to 2003, which is consistent with turbulent rank changes at the city level; and (3) our combined method revealed another period from 1992 to 1995 with large rank fluctuations, which was masked by the relatively stable Pareto's coefficients extracted at the national level. The results demonstrate that the new DMSP/OLS nighttime light images and the combined method are useful for revealing city-size dynamics in a more consistent way from both national and city perspectives. The results enrich our understanding of city-size evolution and have valuable implications for relevant decision makers and stakeholders.
DOI: 10.1057/palgrave/2601336
As some cities grapple with economic decline and depopulating neighborhoods, a number of academics and professionals have focused their attention on the causes, conditions and patterns of the resultant vacant land, whereas others lay out broad programmatic, institutional, fiscal and design responses to address vacancy on site or citywide scales. We find that, regardless of condition and context, most responses advocate complex, officially sanctioned, formal programs and policies that call for or depend on implementation over several multi-year phases. While laudable in scope, we question whether “permanent” solutions are appropriate given the widely varying causes, durations, contexts and patterns of vacancy and the inability of similarly scoped government-led programs to thus far achieve intended goals or improve local quality of life. We present examples that make the case for temporary, incremental, flexible and experimental responses to urban vacant land, then conclude by outlining the potential benefits and drawbacks of this temporary use model.
Urban regions face transitions in land use that affect ecosystem services (ES) and thus human wellbeing.Especially in urban regions with high population densities and high demand for ES, the future availabilityof such services must be considered to promote effective and sustainable decision-making and pre-vent further ecosystem degradation. With a combined model approach focusing on household decisionsregarding the choice of residence, future urban land-use development was simulated for metropolitanBerlin, Germany for growth and shrinkage scenarios. We simulate the change in six provisioning, regu-lating, and cultural ES indicators for both scenarios from 2008 to 2030. We compare regional alterationsin ES, ES synergies and trade-offs by merging them into an assessment matrix for each land-use tran-sition. Our results indicate that the land-use transitions that most significantly affect ES degradation orimprovement are those from arable land to mainly non-residential uses—especially public and privateservices. The results show that most changes in land use are related to land consumption and soil sealing;however, as urban brownfields provide excellent opportunities for the development of new urban greenspaces with superior ES qualities, the shrinkage scenario ended up being very positive in terms of ES improvement.
Land use change, in the form of urbanization, is one of the most significant forms of global change, and most cities are experiencing a rapid increase in population and infrastructure growth. However, a subset of cities is experiencing a decline in population, which often manifests in the abandonment of residential structures. These vacant and abandoned structures pose a land use challenge to urban planners, and a key question has been how to manage these properties. Often times land use management of these structures takes the form of demolition, but the elimination of infrastructures and can have unknown and sometimes unintended effects on the human–environment interactions in urban areas. This paper examines the association between demolitions and crime, a human–environment interaction that is fostered by vacant and abandoned properties, through a comparative statistical analysis. A cluster analysis is performed to identify high and low hot spots of demolition and crime activity, specifically assault, drug arrests, and prostitution, over a 5-year period. Results show that there is an association between the area targeted for significant demolition activity and the migration of spatial patterns of certain crimes. The direction of crime movement toward the edges of the city limits and in the direction of the first ring suburbs highlights the importance of regional planning when implementing land use policies for smart decline in shrinking cities.
Demographic change and economic decline produce modified urban land use pattern and densities. Compared to the beginning of the 90s after the German reunification, nowadays massive housing and commercial vacancies followed by demolition and perforation come to pass in many cities of the former GDR. In consequence, a considerable surplus of urban brownfields has been created. Furthermore, the decline in the urban fabric affects social infrastructure and urban greenery of local neighbourhoods. Here, urban planning enters into ‘uncharted territory’ since it needs to assess the socio-environmental impact of shrinkage.In order to carry out such an evaluation quantitatively, a multi-criteria assessment scheme (MCA) was developed and applied. Firstly, we identified infrastructure and land use changes related to vacancy and demolition. Secondly, demolition scenarios for the coming 20 years were applied in order to give an idea for a long-term monitoring approach at the local district level. A multi-criteria indicator matrix quantifies the socio-environmental impact on both urban greenery and residents. Using it, we set demolition scenarios against urban ‘quality of life’ targets. Empirical evidence comes from Leipzig, in eastern Germany, a representative case study for urban shrinkage processes.The results show that shrinkage implies socio-environmental changes of residential livelihoods, however, does not simply increase or decrease the overall urban quality of life. The integrated assessment of all indicators identifies environmental and social opportunities, as well as the challenges a shrinking city is faced with.
Ecosystems provide both the energy and materials needed for the production of economic goods and services and act as a sink of wastes generated by the economic metabolism. Other nature's services benefits are obtained directly from nature, often without passing through transformation processes or the mediation of markets, as in the case of clean air, erosion control, aesthetic benefits, or climate regulation. Economic health in the long term thus depends on the maintenance of the integrity and resilience of the natural ecosystems in which it is embedded. The fact that standard economic theory neglects this aspect has been identified as a main cause of the current environmental problems and ecological crises. Approaches such as ecological and environmental economics attempt to deal with these shortcomings of standard economics through the development of concepts and accounting methods that better reflect the role of nature in the economy and the ecological costs derived from economic growth. Concepts such as natural capital, ecosystem functions and ecosystem services are playing a key role as tools to communicate societal dependence on natural ecosystems and in the articulation of a new form of understanding economics. This paper gives a brief overview of the key concepts for understanding the links between ecosystems and human well-being, and discusses a range of valuation and accounting methods as possible ways to measure the quantities and importance of natural capital and ecosystem services.
Both modelers and social scientists attempt to find better explanations of complex urban systems. They include development paths, underlying driving forces and their expected impacts. So far, land-use research has predominantly focused on urban growth. However, new challenges have arisen since urban shrinkage entered the research agenda of the social and land-use sciences. Therefore, the focus of this paper is a twofold one: Using the example of urban shrinkage, we first discuss the capacity of existing land-use modeling approaches to integrate new social science knowledge in terms of land-use, demography and governance because social science models are indispensable for accurately explaining the processes behind shrinkage. Second, we discuss the combination of system dynamics (SD), cellular automata (CA) and agent-based model (ABM) approaches to cover the main characteristics, processes and patterns of urban shrinkage. Using Leipzig, Germany, as a case study, we provide the initial results of a joint SD-CA model and an ABM that both operationalize social science knowledge regarding urban shrinkage.
This paper provides a comprehensive review of ecosystem services and their economic valuation in China. The main objective of this review is to introduce the findings of the various valuation studies, and explore the challenges that emerged in these studies. This paper shows that ecosystem services research in China went through four stages covering all the main ecosystem types and multi-scales. These studies have raised public awareness of the value of ecological and bio-resource issues, and promoted the establishment of eco-compensation mechanisms in China. However, there are still many controversies and challenges that have emerged from current ecosystem services research. We propose that future ecosystem services research focuses on i) the corresponding definition and classification systems for all ecosystems; ii) the observation and establishment of the relationship between ecosystem structures and corresponding functions; iii) the improvement and normalization of valuation methods; and iv) the exploration and analysis of the spatial and temporal variations of ecosystem services. Furthermore, it is important to improve the accessibility of ecosystem services valuation in environmental decision-making.
Land use/cover change (LUCC) is often the cumulative result of individual farmer’s decisions. To
understand and simulate LUCC as the result of local decisions, multi-agent systems models (MAS) have
become a popular technique. However, the definition of agents is not often based on real data, ignoring
the inherent diversity of farmers and farm characteristics in rural landscapes. The aim of this paper is to
describe an empirical method that defines an agent typology and allocates agents into the different agent
types for an entire region. This method is illustrated with a case study in the Netherlands, where
processes of farm expansion and diversification of farm practices take place. Five different agent types
were defined and parameterized in terms of views, farm characteristics and location. Despite its
simplicity, this empiricalmethod captures several relations between farmers’ views, farm characteristics
and land-use decisions and strategies. This approach is a step forward inmulti-agent systems of land use/
cover change (MAS/LUCC) to include the diversity of land-use decisions and strategies in regional studies
by empirically defining, parameterizing and allocating different agent types.
Whereas environmental and social impacts of urban sprawl are widely discussed among scholars from both the natural and social sciences, the spatial consequences of urban decline are nearly neglected when discussing the impacts of land transition. Within the last decade, "shrinkage" and "perforation" have arisen as new terms to explain the land use development of urban regions faced with demographic change, particularly decreasing fertility, aging, and out-migration. Although shrinkage is far from being a "desired" scenario for urban policy makers, this paper argues that a perforation of the built-up structure in dense cities might bring up many positive implications.
Cities around the globe have experienced depopulation or population shrinkage at an acute level in the last half century. Conventional community development and planning responses have looked to reverse the process of depopulation almost universally, with little attention paid to how neighborhoods physically change when they lose population. This article presents an approach to study the physical changes of depopulating neighborhoods in a novel way. The approach considers how population decline creates different physical impacts (more or less housing abandonment, for example) across different neighborhoods. Data presented from a detailed case study of Flint, Michigan, illustrate that population decline can be more painful in some neighborhoods than in others, suggesting that this article’s proposed approach may be useful in implementing smart decline.