It’s not big, it’s large: Mapping and characterizing urban landscapes of a different magnitude based on EO-data

The United Nation’s “World Urbanization Prospects” numeralise a migration process of a huge dimension – from rural to urban areas. While in 1975 only 37.7% of the world’s global population were urban dwellers, in 1990 already 43.0% and today little over 50% of all earth-dwellers are living in urban areas. For the year 2050 the expected number is even 67.2% (UN, 2011). This recent and prospective urbanization trend leads to new spatial dimensions of urban landscapes. One new trend is the spatial evolution of once polynuclei urban areas to so-called ‘mega-regions’. Because in literature clear definitions for the term ‘mega-region’ are missing or at least fuzzy and only qualitative we aim to derive quantitative physical spatial characteristics possibly defining mega-regions. For this purpose we use multi-temporal and multi-source satellite data to classify urbanized areas for an exemplary mega-region – the Hong Kong-Shenzhen-Guangzhou mega-region in Southern China – for the years 1975, 1990, 2000 and 2011. Furthermore, we suggest a set of spatial features potentially characteristic for the evolution of mega-regions. In particular we apply a multitude of spatial metrics at a defined spatial unit for the entire mega-region. The result is a novel spatial approach to capture, measure and analyze new dimensions and shapes of urban landscapes

Factory Europe – changes in trade and GVC

Artykuł został przygotowany na konferencję ETSG 2019 Conference in Bern, Universiy of Bern 12-14.09.2019. Po wprowadzeniu niewielkich zmian zostanie przygotowany do publikacji.Three main regions can be distinguished: Factory Asia, Factory Europe, and Factory North America with three main hubs: Germany, China, and the USA. These headquarters economies link Factories. The paper presents changes that have occurred in the regional pattern of supply-chain trade in the global economy and in the Factory Europe from 2005 to 2015. I2E trade matrixes are prepared for the first and last year of the analyzed period. Changes in sourcing and sales patterns are discussed in the same years. The article uses data in gross terms and measured by value added. As a result, I analyze the developments that took place at the beginning of the 21st century in the global economy and Factory Europe. Global value chains combined with China are gaining importance in the global economy. In Factory Europe, in connection with the enlargement of the European Union, new member states are becoming an essential part of GVC combined with other mega-regional blocks by Germany

Mega-Sporting Events in Developing Nations : Playing the Way to Prosperity?

Supporters of mega-sporting events such as the World Cup and Olympics claim that these events attract hoards of wealthy visitors and lead to lasting economic benefits for the host regions. For this reason, cities and countries compete vigorously for the right to stage these spectacles. Recently, developing countries have become increasingly vocal in demanding that they get the right to share in the economic benefits of these international games. China, for example, has been awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics, and an African nation seems destined to host the 2010 World Cup. The specialized infrastructure and operating expenses required to host these events, however, can be extremely costly, and it is not at all clear that either the long or short-term benefits of the games are anywhere nearly large enough to cover these costs. This paper reviews other researchersÂ’ as well as our own previous work on mega-sporting events such as the Super Bowl and World Series as well as international events like the World Cup and Olympics. Independent researchers nearly unanimously find that boostersÂ’ projections of the economic impact of sporting events exaggerate the true economic impact of these competitions by a wide margin. In particular, in this paper we focus on the particular circumstances that face developing countries hosting these games. Our research suggests that in most cases mega-sporting events are an even worse investment for developing countries than for industrialized countries.Development Planning and Policy; Sports, Gambling, Recreation, Tourism

Metropolitan Trends and Challenges in China: The Demographic Dimension

Over the past century China has been transforming from a rural to an urban economy. In the course of this transition, significant regional variations have emerged in urban growth, with a gap forming between coastal and inland areas. This report focuses on Chinas metropolitan regions: Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangdong which are the most socioeconomically advanced regions in China. It is the first outcome of the joint IIASA and Beijing University project on "Regional Urbanization and Human Capital Projections for China," which focuses on demographic matters, and it will analyze the following major issues: What factors have contributed to the growth of Chinas metropolitan areas over the last two decades? What specific urbanization patterns occur in the transformation from a rural to an urban economy? How does demography drive the speed of urbanization, in particular, in the metropolitan areas? How is IIASAs multistate method used for urbanization projections and what are its advantages and disadvantages? What challenges will China face in the near future as a result of rapid metropolitan growth? This paper suggests that the growth of Chinese mega-urban regions will have knock-on effects at the global level in the medium term

Understanding city expansion into larger city-regions: the case of the Yangtze River delta

Global economic integration and urbanisation are two of the main processes which characterise contemporary globalisation. Urbanisation is so pervasive that urban landscapes now stretch far beyond the traditional city limits such that the city may no longer be the most appropriate unit to reflect how contemporary urban life is organised. Today, city-regions even mega city-regions are considered by some to be the primary spatial scale at which competing political and economic agendas are convened. Moreover, proponents of the new regionalism believe that decentralisation of state power is producing new forms of political economic regulation at supranational and subnational levels which are more appropriate for effective governance. However, it is argued that the geoeconomic logic for city-regionalism is focused too narrowly on the functional economic side of regional development, thereby overlooking how city-regions represent geopolitical constructions both of, and inside, the state. This thesis therefore aims to explore the constitutive role of politics in the construction of mega city-regions. The starting point is to complement North Atlantic accounts of city-regionalism by focusing on the geopolitics of city-regionalism in China. Using the Yangtze River Delta mega city-region as its case study, this thesis stresses that theories of new city-regionalism must increasingly be derived from, rather than applied to, the Chinese case. It is revealed how the unprecedented rate of city expansion, scale of urbanisation, and context of a highly centralised, one-party state, produces a distinctly Chinese city-regionalism that requires a combination of new conceptualisation, alongside refinement and modification of existing theories on mega city-regions

Understanding the relationships between the family structures and destinations of married migrants with children in China

As China transforms and experiences massive rural-to-urban migration, the destination decisions and family structures of internal migrants have become increasingly diverse. This study investigates how the family structures of married migrants with children relate to the geography of their migration destinations. Our analysis reveals that the family structures of married migrant workers are systematically related to the geography of their migration destinations, with couple migrants relatively more likely to be located in mega cities while entire family migrants are more likely to locate in less developed regions. Furthermore, this study found that migrant workers with different migration paths have distinct preferences for their destinations. Migrant workers who initially migrate with their whole families tend to avoid economically developed areas, whereas those transitioning from lone to couple migration are more inclined to move to developed eastern regions and mega cities. Those finding highlights the importance of family dynamics and social factors in shaping migration decisions, providing a more comprehensive perspective on the factors that influence destination beyond purely economic considerations

Production and R&D networks of foreign ventures in China: implications for technological dynamism and regional development

ManuscriptThis paper analyzes the nature of FDI local networks in production and R&D activities in China and discusses their implications for technological dynamism and regional development. We investigate foreign ventures (or foreign-invested enterprises, FIEs) in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry, based on a large-scale survey of ICT firms conducted in three mega-city regions of China: Beijing, Shanghai-Suzhou, and Shenzhen-Dongguan. Our data show that FIEs in China are gradually localizing their production, but the extent of local embeddedness is contingent upon home country effects, local specific contexts and FDI-host region relationships. We have also found significant influence of industrial agglomeration on FDI location and network decisions. Beijing tends to have broader FDI sources and better integrated global-local networks, while in those regions dominated by FDI such as Suzhou and Dongguan, FIEs are thinly embedded with local economies and tend to establish global-local networks among themselves; local embeddedness is limited by a series of technological, institutional, spatial, and structural mismatches. Shanghai and Shenzhen are in between. More efforts are still needed to better integrate FDI with local economies and strengthen China's local innovative capacities

The inhabited environment, infrastructure development and advanced urbanization in China's Yangtze River Delta Region

This paper analyzes the relationship among the inhabited environment, infrastructure development and environmental impacts in China's heavily urbanized Yangtze River Delta region. Using primary human environment data for the period 2006-2014, we examine factors affecting the inhabited environment and infrastructure development: urban population, GDP, built-up area, energy consumption, waste emission, transportation, real estate and urban greenery. Then we empirically investigate the impact of advanced urbanization with consideration of cities' differences. Results from this study show that the growth rate of the inhabited environment and infrastructure development is strongly influenced by regional development structure, functional orientations, traffic network and urban size and form. The effect of advanced urbanization is more significant in large and mid-size cities than huge and mega cities. Energy consumption, waste emission and real estate in large and mid-size cities developed at an unprecedented rate with the rapid increase of economy. However, urban development of huge and mega cities gradually tended to be saturated. The transition development in these cities improved the inhabited environment and ecological protection instead of the urban construction simply. To maintain a sustainable advanced urbanization process, policy implications included urban sprawl control polices, ecological development mechanisms and reforming the economic structure for huge and mega cities, and construct major cross-regional infrastructure, enhance the carrying capacity and improvement of energy efficiency and structure for large and mid-size cities