Journal of Urban Planning and Development

Public spaces, one of the key elements of the urban structure, have always accompanied major urban changes, with different levels of success. Recently, new forms of space provision and management have emerged, disrupting spatial structures; redefining social values, needs, and routines; and changing the way traditional public spaces are perceived. Although the last decades brought an extensive study and debate regarding the particularities of public spaces, different disciplines and points of view are rarely combined, justifying the need for a new tool. This paper describes the application of the publicness evaluation model (PEM) to eight case studies in Oporto, Portugal, and Newcastle upon Tyne, England. With the use of four interconnected areas of analysis, this framework attempts to include the particularities of the involvement of different stakeholders in the production of contemporary public space, as well as their concerns and expectations regarding each space, through the creation of a composite publicness score.

Although there has been a rapid urbanization in China since the 1980s, the simultaneous urban shrinkage phenomenon has existed for a long time. The study of shrinking cities is particularly important for China as the current urban development has changed from physical expansion to built-up area improvement. After redefining what constitutes a city (what we term a natural city), we compared the adjusted nightlight intensity of National Polar-orbiting Partnership Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (NPP-VIIRS) data between 2013 and 2016 to accurately identify shrinking cities throughout China. The results indicate that there are 2,862 redefined natural cities in China and that the total area reaches 53,275 km², about 0.5% of the national territory. Based on this, we identified 798 shrinking cities with a total area of 13,839 km². After analyzing the relative position of shrinking cities and internal shrinking pixels in the geometric space, the morphological characteristics of shrinking cities were systematically classified into six patterns. The majority of shrinking cities belong to scatter shrinkage, central shrinkage, and local shrinkage; only 5% are complete shrinkage; the rest are unilateral shrinkage and peripheral shrinkage. In addition, six shrinkage causes were quantitatively classified and summarized by referring to multiple-source urban data and municipal yearbooks. To enrich the methodological system for urban shrinkage, the research provides a reminder of the need to consider the other side of urbanization (i.e., dissolution of social networks) and proposes appropriate strategies and policies to address shrinkage issues.

In recent years, many cities in China have faced profound and complex shrinkage problems, which have required new perspectives and approaches to improve understanding. In this context, this study built a framework to understand city shrinkage based on the regionalization perspective. By simulating land use with spatial relations and conducting a coupling analysis on land use efficiency and accessibility (by strength) based on the study of urban systems, 96 cities along the Yellow River were analyzed under this framework. The research found that cities with significantly lower land use efficiency tend to exhibit lower accessibility (by strength), and city shrinkage in China may be the consequence of the lower de facto accessibility and mismatch between development rights and development potential. The urban system has proven to be helpful in the research, planning, and administration of city shrinkage.

Environmental fragility combined with the social and economic issues make the Mediterranean a hotspot, from multiple perspectives. The South–East Mediterranean (SEM) area risks becoming even more vulnerable, due both to the impacts of climate change and to the uncontrolled urbanization process and degradation of natural resources. The experimental strategies used by countries with a higher level of wealth to implement development models of more sustainable urban areas often include use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), thus pursuing a Smart City approach. This paper analyzes the strategies promoted by international organizations to address some of the most pressing problems in the Mediterranean. It also attempts to delve into the role ICTs play in these programs. The results show that those projects that embrace this direction are still rather limited. This is mostly due to the necessity, for most SEM countries, to tackle the problem of strengthening networks and accessing information. The next European investments are moving in this direction, but support for local governments in defining a critical approach toward “a Mediterranean way toward the Smart City” is crucial.

The informal land development system in sub-Saharan Africa is perceived to promote equity and could be leveraged to support sustainable urban development and management. However, scanty empirical evidence exists on the extent of the system's provision of equity to support policy formulation and practice in the region. Based on stakeholder workshops, focus group discussions, and questionnaire surveys, this study analyzes the system's provision of equity in Nigeria. The study finds that all categories of people undertake informal developments. Consistent with the literature, this finding reflects wide patronage of the informal land development system and its relevance. Nevertheless, contrary to the existing perception, the system's provision of equity is low. The study recommends the institution of pro-poor and gender-sensitive land development and management policies and programs to increase the levels of equity to support the achievement of the country's sustainable urban development and management agenda.

After approximately 30 years of sustained and rapid development, some Chinese cities have seen urban shrinkage marked by a decreasing population size. Land finance, which is the second public finance of local governments in China, influences urban development through capital and land supply. It is the primary source of funds for urban infrastructure construction and the driving force behind promoting urban boundary expansion. In the context of the overall downturn of domestic land finance, land finance contraction for shrinking cities may accelerate the further decline of population in these cities. This paper investigated 84 key cities across China between 2008 and 2015 and found that (1) the contraction of land finance has heterogeneous impacts on shrinking cities and nonshrinking cities, which, in turn, has significant catalytic effect on population loss in shrinking cities; and (2) the insufficient replenishment of capital caused by the contraction of land finance in shrinking cities has a more significant impact than the insufficient supply of land. Infrastructure investment has a complete mediation effect in this influencing mechanism.

Real estate gives a huge impetus to the development of the national economy and surging housing prices can easily trigger social problems and financial risks. Considering housing price fluctuations, this study constructs a stochastic evolutionary game model from the perspective of the implicit interest coalitions among local governments, real estate enterprises, and speculators. The stable condition of the model is that local government, local governments decide to regulate, real estate enterprises select not to hype housing prices, and speculators choose not to buy houses. Through numerical simulation, this study finds that the supervision of central government and the regulatory strength of local governments can affect the choices of players differently, which gives a new explanation for the retaliatory rise of housing prices when local governments conduct regulation measures frequently. In addition, gray income, the punishment of hype, and the cost of speculation can make the strategic moves of players different in severity and direction under a stochastic environment. Based on these findings, countermeasures and suggestions are proposed in this study.

A neighborhood-based planning approach is increasingly seen as an essential part of a comprehensive urban planning process. However, increasing the density of established neighborhoods may have negative impacts on neighborhood structure in regard to the issue of carrying capacity. The carrying capacity of a neighborhood may be examined under four components, including environment, infrastructure, urban public facilities, and socioeconomy. In this research, the carrying capacity issue has been examined in Tehran's established neighborhoods. The research method is quantitative and qualitative, using geo-spatial tools in Arc geographic information system (GIS) setting, the analytic hierarchy process method, interviews with experts, application of a Raster Analysis and GIS, and Point Density and Line Density. The collected indicators data were transformed through density analysis to Raster Layers. Then, the four selected components overlaid by “sum-weighted” regulations command obtaining the carrying capacity of the neighborhoods. The results showed that the carrying capacity potentials for the selected neighborhoods are less than the average score for all neighborhoods in Tehran. It can be said that the increasing density in established neighborhoods is quite different from new neighborhood developments. It may be possible only by considering a carrying capacity evaluation process.

How you travel, where, when, and what you do could indicate who you are. This paper discovers a possible social network between public transit passengers and develops a location–time–activity-based friend recommendation (LTAFR) model based on trips and activities of the passengers. First, trips and activities of passengers are reconstructed from the smart card data. Second, the similarity between passengers is measured in two steps for the activity similarity and trip similarity. The activity similarity is measured considering three dimensions of activity (location, time, and type). The trip similarity is measured considering both spatial and temporal dimensions. Third, a similarity score is defined as the multiplication of the activity and trip similarity values. To discover mutual relations between the passengers, the cosine similarity index is used. Finally, connected Top-k passengers are recommended as potential friends based on the highest cosine similarity values. The proposed model is implemented on a one-day smart card dataset from Brisbane, Australia. Also, the model is implemented on a household travel survey (HTS) dataset for comparing sociodemographic attributes of the recommended passengers. In the end, further investigations show that recommended potential friends have close sociodemographic attributes.

The distribution of pedestrians in urban space reflects the status of urban spatial planning to some extent. The reasonable prediction of pedestrian concentration is of great significance to the evaluation of urban vitality, urban comfort, and urban spatial layout planning. In this paper, a method for predicting pedestrian concentration is proposed, which can estimate pedestrian concentration in a whole city without being limited to a specific intersection or city node. According to the characteristics of three kinds of transportation accessibility based on space syntax and commercial vitality index, a dynamic distribution estimation model of pedestrian concentration is proposed. Taking Xi’an city of China as a case study, through multiple linear regression (MLR), a support vector regression (SVR) algorithm, and random forest (RF) algorithm, the pedestrian concentration in five periods of a day was predicted and analyzed, and the spatial and temporal characteristics of crowd distribution are comprehensively described. The results show that the dynamic distribution model of pedestrian concentration constructed by RF is superior to the MLR and SVR, and its average prediction accuracy can reach 93.86%.

In this study, heat island intensity is evaluated based on an image processing algorithm, and the degree of intensive land use is determined with the entropy-weight TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) model. In addition, the Tapio decoupling theory is further introduced for analysis of the relationship between the urban land-intensive use and heat island effect in Shijiazhuang city, China, from 1995 to 2016. According to the results, the continuously growing coverage area of the urban heat island extends from urban areas to suburban areas, and the gradually increasing heat island intensity is mainly localized along the southwest–northeast direction. The level of land-intensive use has increased from poor to good, and the rate of improvement has gradually accelerated. According to the Tapio decoupling analysis, there is a negative decoupling between intensive land use and heat island effect from 1995 to 2004, which changes to a weak decoupling from 2004 to 2016, indicating the gradual transition to a coordinative relationship. This study innovatively introduces the decoupling theory, analyzes the relationship between urban land-intensive use and heat island effect, and complements urban sustainable development from content and method. However, in terms of micro levels, this relationship requires further study.

In this research, from a macro perspective, we studied the impact of urban development planning on population changes in central urban areas. Regional development plans have different aggregation modes and different development structures for different functional areas. This difference was evaluated as a different development model. Kanazawa was used as a case study area, and the corresponding development plan was determined by different development models. Set up three development modes of concentrated central urban area development mode, decentralized central urban area development mode, and maintenance-oriented central urban area development mode. Under the guidance of three different development modes, calculation and analysis are performed using genetic algorithms. The population recovery, the degree of land-use mix, and the degree of land-use specialization in the central urban area are three indicators. On this basis, a land-use planning support system has been developed.

Land expansion and population growth are the most important factors for urban development in the rapid urbanization stage. Intensive land use is a key goal of urban sustainable development. Therefore, to promote intensive land use, local governments should take the scientific evaluation of the relationship between urban land and population as the basis and make policies cautiously. Thus, it is vital to adopt evaluation methods that are sensitive to intensive land use. However, this topic has received insufficient attention in the literature. Addressing this gap, this study (1) proposes a modified method to evaluate the relationship between land expansion and population growth, (2) compares the results of three evaluation methods, and (3) compares the relationship between evaluation results and urban construction land area per capita (UCAP) using UCAP as an indicator of intensive land use. Our findings indicate that existing evaluation methods do not adequately reflect the state and trend of intensive land use and that our modified model significantly improves the sensitivity to intensive land use. Additionally, this paper provides policy suggestions based on a quantitative evaluation of the relationship between urban land expansion and urban population growth. These conclusions provide a basis for formulating planning strategies to promote the intensive use of land in cities in the stage of rapid development.

Urban regeneration is a naturally controversial societal issue, which has a significant impact on people’s daily life. The main stakeholders, including the government, developers, and residents, expect the best out of urban regeneration. Occasionally, the interest of various stakeholders clashes with each other, which considerably hampers the success of the project. To improve the overall output and achieve sustainability in urban regeneration, we adopted a three-population evolutionary game framework in analyzing the problem. First, we analyzed the interest of stakeholders and formulated the payoffs of three stakeholders. A total of 13 evolutionarily stable strategies were found on the basis of the replicator dynamic equations and Jacobian matrices of each stakeholder. Second, we conducted robustness checks, which enabled us to determine that subsidies from the government have the most comprehensive influence on the equilibrium of the game by affecting players’ attitudes of cooperativeness. Finally, we proposed an adaptive subsidy scheme to stimulate the cooperative behaviors of developers and residents and alleviate the excessive financial burden of the government. The game outcomes were validated through a case study of an urban regeneration project in Shanghai. This study provides a novel perspective to handle strategic decision-making problems in urban regeneration and other policy-related societal issues.

Public real estate management (PREM) is at the center of international debate concerning the theories of New Public Management (NPM) and public governance (PG). These principles have progressively led to a profound restructuring of the public administration system and have overcome several limits assigned to public bodies in the PREM field. Among these, the lack of data and information on the public real estate (PRE) portfolio has been considered a common issue for prereform asset management until very recently. Deficiencies in building real property inventories are normal today in most places and in Italy, where municipalities are facing many challenges when developing information technology–based infrastructures. The main aim of this study is to define a conceptual framework for a city dashboard to support PREM. The city dashboard is understood to be a knowledge, managerial, and participatory tool that can collect, map and catalog, and update and share property data. This can be used to support the integration of PREM in urban governance policies and to involve citizens and private investors (PIs) in urban regeneration projects.

Bus bridging evacuation refers to transporting affected passengers to their destination stations during metro disruption by buses dispatched from depots. Planning bus bridging plays an important role in maintaining the level of service of metro rail and serving affected passenger demands. This paper presents an integrated planning and operational model for bus bridging evacuation, in which the varying bridging passenger demand at disrupted metro stations, the arrival and departure of bus fleets, the dwelling time of a bus fleet, and the number of alighting and boarding passengers at disrupted metro stations are captured in detail. Based on the dynamics of a bus bridging system, bus bridging routes are planned to stop at intermediate disrupted metro stations between their dispatched disrupted metro station and turnover stations. Results of a case study with Shanghai metro line 16 demonstrate the advantage of the proposed planning model in real-world application. The proposed model and its simulation-based solving algorithm yield economical bridging plans with fewer dispatched buses and lower operation cost compared with our previous model. Results of the case study show that total operation cost and computation time are contradictory with each other. The combination of larger population size, larger maximum number of generations, and larger crossover rate probably contributes to finding the globally optimal bus dispatch plan.

The evolution of urban temporal and spatial patterns in Northeast China is complicated. In order to study the urbanization process in this area, explore the spatial and temporal laws of urban development in Northeast China, and find the main influencing factors affecting urban development in Northeast China, DMSP/OLS images are used as data sources. Urban built-up areas in Northeast China from 1993 to 2013 are extracted and temporal and spatial patterns of urban development are studied. Combining the economic, population, industrial structure, ecological and other statistical data, a geographical detector is applied to study the main influencing factors of urban development in Northeast China. According to a selection of 10 typical cities, the annual urban expansion speed and the urbanization intensity index are calculated to quantitatively analyze the development of typical cities. The present study indicates that the urbanization process in Northeast China was slow during 1995–1996. In fact, except for Daqing, the other typical cities developed slowly before 2003. While the urbanization process accelerated after 2003, it reached to its maximum rate in 2010. Moreover, it is observed that from 1993 to 2013, centers of cities gradually moved to their regional centers. On the other hand, it is concluded that from 2004 to 2013, the regional gross domestic product (GDP), GDP of the secondary industry, gross industrial product, GDP of the tertiary industry and the total investment in fixed assets were main indicators of the urbanization that affected change in the urban built-up area in Northeast China. Among them, the regional GDP had the greatest impact on urban development. As an old industrial base in China, the secondary industry mainly drove urban development before 2010. It is concluded that urban development began to change from 2010 and the driving force for urban development gradually changed from industry to the tertiary industry.

In highly urbanized areas, urban redevelopment is required to achieve both ecological and economic goals. However, how to balance the layout between built-up and ecological land is one of many challenges facing urban planners. Recent studies have proposed effective decision-making models based on ecology–economy comparative advantages (EECA), but these have not been applied to planning the redevelopment of urban land at the site level. Using the urban district of Zhanjiang as a research case, this study established a region-site dual-level model from the EECA perspective to optimize the layout between ecological and built-up land in land redevelopment planning. The findings indicated that better optimization results were obtained from the EECA perspective than ecological or economic suitability evaluations, which are often used in urban planning. This study is an extension of existing research on the optimization of different land-use type layouts, which will serve as a foundation for planners to obtain a basic understanding of the optimal land-use layout in land redevelopment based on EECA and evaluate regional development goals from the perspective of land resource redevelopment.

Transportation infrastructure has a positive impact on freight transportation activities when it has excellent economic and social performances. At the current stage of economic development in China, sustainable development of the region is facing the imbalance of transport supply and transport demand. With the growing flow of freight transportation, it is essential to explore the relationship between freight transportation activity and transport infrastructure, which helps to guarantee that the development of transport infrastructure matches freight transportation demand growth. In contrast to the existing literature, this study describes freight transportation activities as a network. The degree, and freight degree of the freight transportation network (FTN) and development level of the transport infrastructure were first analyzed considering intercity freight flow. Then, the coupling relationship between them was tested using a coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) focusing on the hysteresis status, and the link strength model was established to further reveal the causal mechanisms behind the coupling relationship. The results revealed that the interaction between freight transportation activities and transport infrastructure development was significant, and there was a relatively coordinated relationship between freight transportation activities and transport infrastructure overall. The contribution of freight transportation activities to transport infrastructure development was less than the contribution of transport infrastructure development to freight transportation activities in most cities of Yunnan, which ultimately causes the advanced development in transport infrastructure and freight transportation activities to become the key factor to promote the coordinated development of Yunnan's transport. In addition, we found that a good coupling coordination degree existed in cities with increased freight transportation activities and high transport infrastructure development, as well as in cities with less active freight transportation activities and a low level of transport infrastructure development. From the perspective of coordinated development, the results indicated that without planning a large number of transport facilities devoted to an increase in transport infrastructure construction might not necessarily be good for its development

There are two opposing trends in urban development: one is the exponential growth of cities and the other is shrinking cities,” which are characterized by a decrease in number of residents. Since the 2008 financial crisis, there have been great changes in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), where growing and shrinking areas coexist. In this paper, we analyze cities' growth and shrinkage in respect of urban construction and economic vitality in the PRD in spatial term. Thus, we define land use changes in urban construction to characterize growth by using Landsat Thematic Mapper data on urban built-up areas of the PRD region in 2000, 2009, and 2013; and we characterize economic activities for vitality by using Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System nighttime light data in various years after time continuous correction and vegetation correction, in combination with population data. Four different types of space are identified in this region, namely continuous growth, transformational growth, stationary, and shrinkage. This paper provides policy recommendations and planning strategies for the future development of shrinking cities in China. Shrinkage is considered to be only a short-term stage in the urbanization process faced by most cities in China and abroad. Technological progress and industrial transformation are likely to be critical factors affecting the direction of urban development, where cities can resume growth from shrinkage by revitalizing manufacturing industry and economic activities through education, innovation, and technology.

The answer to the question of why cities are shrinking and what the drivers behind this process are is not clear. However, there are common features of urban shrinkage, and each case has its origins and manifestations. In addition, different policies are counteracting the negative consequences of the shrinkage. Regeneration strategies vary a lot, depending on the way the problem is perceived by both central and local governments. The previously mentioned issues are discussed in this paper, using Poland and one of its old industrial cities, Wałbrzych, as the case study. This paper has two aims: (1) the identification and analysis of the drivers and scale of the process of urban shrinkage in Poland and its geographical distribution (in the national and local context) and (2) the analysis and assessment of different policies adopted to mitigate negative effects of urban shrinkage (including such forms as special economic zones and urban regeneration projects). This paper closes with recommendations for policymakers at national and local levels. The findings highlight that more than one-third of Polish cities have been characterized by advanced urban shrinkage since the postsocialist transformation started (i.e., since 1990), and integrated strategies that would allow them to adapt to negative demographic trends have become part of urban policies at national and local levels only in the recent years.

Public participation as an alternative paradigm in planning theory is consequently a key challenge in planning practice regarding interactive and collaborative versus rational and top-down decision-making approaches. Hence, this paper aims to define this concept theoretically and then to evaluate it practically. Based on the relevant views and research, public participation has been considered through three main dimensions of “inclusiveness and incentive structures,” “information exchange and provision of lay knowledge,” and “sense of ownership and influence on decision-making.” This threefold conceptualization has also been further explored by 10 subdimensions or measures to explain precisely the specific aspects of community participation. “Transparency and accessibility,” “fairness or equal contribution,” “effectiveness and efficiency,” and “negotiation” are the most significant subdimensions. Thus, the concept of public participation has been evaluated in the Oudlajan market (Bazarcheh) in Tehran, where a supposedly participatory revitalization project has been implemented. This evaluation relies on the views of 117 market traders as respondents, using the analytical hierarchy process method. Accordingly, the overall status of the public participation in the Oudlajan project with a score of 2.56 based on a 5-point Likert-type scale is evaluated as between low and average. This finding implies that while the Oudlajan Market Revitalization Plan may seem participatory, it has serious shortcomings, especially according to the actual affected community or group.

In a rapidly developing nation such as Qatar, the prime aspect of growth is directed toward delivering social, economic, and environmental coherence in its neighborhood development. Qatar's current fast economic growth and the physical transformation of its built environment compromises social and environmental aspects. However, if applied suitably, these transformations can enhance these compromised aspects while increasing economic prosperity. Such transformations include major urban public transit systems currently under construction for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2030 Qatar National Vision (QNV-2030), which aims to connect the center of Doha to several megaprojects and transit villages around major metro stations. The main goal of projects such as the Doha Metro System is to reduce the number of vehicles on the road networks while providing a “stress-free” transition experience. Therefore, the pursuit of transit-oriented developments (TODs), as part of an integrated transportation and land use strategy, will aid in the revitalization of urban neighborhoods in terms of both social and environmental aspects, while allowing for economic prosperity. The main challenge for urban planners is to design the metro stations and accompanying facilities to be well integrated into the urban context of their surroundings, thus reducing traffic through the design of mixed-use, compact transit villages. This study aims to explore the extent to which the new metro station can be interconnected with the spatial form of the built environment of the Souq Waqif neighborhood. This research study argues that efficient integration of land use with balanced transportation will contribute to creating a more livable environment with reduced automobile dependence while aiding the economic context. The research design includes qualitative data based on theoretical studies to assess the principles of TODs and the extent of further implementations that can be employed for the Souq neighborhood to become a TOD.

Neighborhood vitality denotes the presence of people and space for human activities and is critical for creating sustainable cities. However, there is limited understanding of its association with multidimensional aspects of the human and built environment. Using the de facto population, established through mobile signal data, as an indicator of neighborhood vitality in Seoul, South Korea, this study empirically tests the uneven effects of the human and built environment and its latent factors on neighborhood vitality. The multidimensional human and built environment models confirmed that higher population and employment density and neighborhoods with higher land value are associated with neighborhood vitality on working days and weekends, while higher land-use mix and balance and dense neighborhoods remarkably contribute to the higher presence of inhabitants on weekends. The latent factor models revealed that (1) centralized neighborhoods with concentrated employment and high land values determine higher neighborhood vitality; and (2) land-use mix positively explained the variations in neighborhood vitality only during working hours. The key findings illuminate the significance and latent structure of the human and built environment on neighborhood vitality.

Urban shrinkage has become a worldwide phenomenon, and poses challenges to urban planning and regional development strategies. Although numerous researchers have identified the characteristics and causes of urban shrinkage, the understanding of urban shrinkage from a regional perspective has not yet been explored. To fill this gap, in this paper, we analyzed the nature of urban shrinkage in northeast China, the typical Chinese region affected by urban shrinkage, from a regional perspective. The results show urban shrinkage occurs in 64 county-level cities. A total of 34.62% of shrinking cities were classified as smartly growing cities, characterized by economic growth and population loss, while 65.38% of shrinking cities were identified as absolutely shrinking cities, suffering simultaneously from economic and demographic decline. The connection between central cities and shrinking cities allowed identification of three types of phenomena, namely central agglomeration leading to peripheral shrinkage, shrinkage of prefecture-level city proper, and central diffusion leading to peripheral shrinkage. The causes of urban shrinkage include agglomeration effects of central cities, aging of demographic structure, supply–demand mismatch between industries and market, weak connection between industries and services, and underdeveloped public services. Furthermore, the agglomeration effects of central cities play a critical role in urban shrinkage in northeast China. Therefore, from a regional perspective, shrinkage was an inevitable experience in the process of socioeconomic development in northeast China. The “best” development path for northeast China may be to comply with the tendency toward urban shrinkage, and restructuring of the spatial distribution of socioeconomic activities.

As a result of the booming rural reconstruction in China, the recurring problem of “village sameness” reflects the inadequate understanding of inherent spatial characteristics of traditional settlements. To better understand the internal logic driving site selection of historic rural settlements, this study proposed a machine learning method based on the Gaussian mixture model (GMM). First, significant spatial variables controlling settlement distribution were deduced using contextual analysis, then a univariate GMM was implemented to examine the settlement distribution sensitivity for every variable. Finally, a multivariate GMM was utilized to perform a multivariate regression analysis on the nonlinear nonmonotonic relationship between significant control variables and land usage development potential, which was a simulation of people's optimizing selection of living space. In accordance with the abstracted spatial rules, the model was also used for predicting the spatial trends that could support regional planning activities. In additional, a comparison between the GMM and the logistic regression model was made using spatial feature recognition and the spatial characteristic regression. The results showed the comparative advantage of the GMM for its nonlinear nonmonotonic behavior.

Since the 1950s, The Greater Cairo Metropolitan Region (GCMR) has experienced an unprecedented rate of informal urbanization over productive arable lands, forming fragmented landscape and accompanied with significant socioeconomic influences. Recent data show that 62% of Greater Cairo and 87% of Giza are informal settlements resulting from urban sprawl, with 80% of these informal settlements built on privately owned agriculture lands. Beside the direct loss of agricultural land, the fragmented agricultural lands, created by urban expansion, road networks, and constructions, suffers from indirect impacts on the inputs of agricultural processes, such as increased irrigation requirements, soil contamination. This study aims to develop a conceptual framework illustrating the interrelationship between urban sprawl and agricultural activities through a case study on one district (Tersa District) in the Giza governorate. The study implemented both qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques as well as water samples analysis. Data were collected through structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews with 30 farmers, 50 residents, and governmental authorities to investigate changes in the different facets of agricultural activities over a 10-year period from 2007 to 2017. Changes in agricultural activities were assessed in terms of changes in cultivated land ownership, agricultural laborers, agricultural cooperative organization support to farmers, crop type, and livestock management activities. To evaluate the possible impact of urban sprawl on water quality, water samples in four locations were analyzed. The research affirms that urban sprawl has led to loss of about 19% of Tersa’s fertile agricultural lands between 2007 and 2017 and revealed many challenges facing farmers in the remaining fragmented lands due to urban sprawl, including polluted irrigation water, diminishing soil fertility, increased labor wages, reduction of institutional support, and alteration of crop type. The similarity of these challenges with other challenges identified in the international literature provided the needed background to propose a framework exploring the interrelationship between urban sprawl and agricultural activities. This framework can highlight entry points for various interventions to ameliorate and address the negative impact of urban sprawl in remaining agricultural areas. In addition to the most foremost intervention of intensifying efforts to control urban sprawl, ensuring sustained good quality of irrigation water, efficient institutional support, and building channels of communication and trust among members of the communities can support the sustainability of agricultural activities and enhance food security in these areas.

With the advancement of globalization and urbanization, the coexistence of growth and shrinkage in urban areas has become increasingly prominent and has implications for urban transformation. This research provided a comprehensive case study of Yiwu and used multisource spatial data to identify and analyze urban growth and shrinkage according to an analytical framework based on multidimensional changes in the population, economy, and landscape from 2012 to 2018. Township-level resident population data and the records of investment data among business enterprises are referred to as macroscopic indicators, and monthly nighttime light image data are employed to evaluate microscale environmental changes of Yiwu. The results showed a rapidly urbanizing process along with some local shrinkage areas in Yiwu. The growth areas were mainly in central Yiwu, while shrinkage occurred in the northern and southern areas. Based on the theoretical framework following the interaction between globalization and localization, both the quantitative analysis and the qualitative analysis indicated that the changes in the international trade environment and domestic environment; the advancement of machine replacement; the development of e-commerce economy; the renovation and improvement of the environment, which was predominantly carried out by the government of Zhejiang province, and the reform of the household registration system are all contributing to Yiwu's growth and shrinkage.

In China, county-to-district conversion (CTDC) is a major form of administrative division adjustment (ADA) and an important element of national regime policy. In this study, the authors used the synthetic control method to analyze the economic growth effect and mechanism of the CTDC that occurred in Xiaoshan and Yuhang in 2001, and to explore the dialectical relationship between CTDC and city shrinkage. The research results are as follows. First, the economic growth following CTDC in Xiaoshan and Yuhang exhibited different patterns of variation. Economic growth in Xiaoshan increased progressively from 2002 to 2012, and the difference in annual growth of per capita GDP between the actual Xiaoshan and synthetic Xiaoshan reached 5.77%. However, the economic effect of CTDC had a time lag in Yuhang, with the growth curves of actual Yuhang and synthetic Yuhang largely coinciding in 2002–2006. Since 2007, the difference of annual growth rate was 2.2%. Second, the reduced shielding effect of administrative boundaries is the key to greater economic growth after CTDC. Thus, CTDC stimulates economic growth indirectly via urban integration planning, amplification of consumption and urban investment, and retention of financial and administrative power. Third, for Hangzhou, a city with strong development, CTDC will not cause economic recession. However, it is not suitable to add municipal districts to shrinking cities by CTDC, because it has the risk of aggravating the unbalanced urban development. Fourth, the study provides evidence for evaluating policy effects of CTDC and explains China's city shrinkage and urbanization from the perspective of ADA.