| Description |
During the past three decades, China was experiencing a transitional economy driven by both the market and the state. At the same time, the economic transitions brought a tremendous urban land expansion in China and other transitional socialist countries, which drew scholars' attention. This dissertation aims to examine urban land use change, urban land expansion and their mechanisms in Chinese cities in the context of economic transition. First, this study investigates the relationship between the hierarchical structure of the Chinese urban administrative system and urban land expansion. Urban land expansion coincides with administrative hierarchy, and cities at higher ranks tend to expand more rapidly. Spatial regime models reveal that economic and demographic drivers of urban growth are also sensitive to a city's administrative rank. Second, we find that the agglomeration phenomenon of proportional increases and regional construction land increase expanded from coastal regions to some key interior cities during 1998-2008. The urbanization is the major driving force for urban land expansion for all the provinces of China, while the industrial adjustment and globalization play the most significant roles in the development of the industrial land use of East China. The decentralization is the most important determinant of transportation land change in South China. Third, we conduct a case study of Shanghai in China. We find that the development iv zones (DZs) are the most significant components of urban growth in Shanghai. Regressions reveal that, though the market has been an important driving force in urban growth, the state has played a predominant role in the implementation of urban planning and the establishment of DZs to capitalize fully from globalization. Fourth, this study integrates geographical, socioeconomic, and physical factors to explore the underlying patterns and dynamics of urban land expansion in the Greater Mekong Region with an explicit emphasis on institutional conditions. Urban developments in the GMR not only are sensitive to local contexts, such as distance to coastal line, topographic gradient and population growth, but also are closely associated with the country-level factors, such as the political system, economic growth, and foreign investment. |
