マルチスケールの視点からみた中国における都市開発と人口移動の関係に関する研究

Development is the main problem facing cities in the world today. Urban development is inseparable from the support of labor. The population movement between regions provides a guarantee for the sustainable development of the city. Therefore, the interactive relationship between urban development and population mobility needs more in-depth research. This research combines official statistics and emerging big data to study the interactive relationship between urban development and population mobility from the macro, meso and micro levels. In addition, with the help of exploratory spatial data analysis methods, the spatial effects between urban development and population mobility can be captured, including spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity. The use of spatial econometric models reveals the driving forces that affect population mobility. The results of the empirical analysis can provide a theoretical reference for the future development of China’s urbanization.北九州市立大

Empirical essays on real estate, local public goods and happiness: evidence from Beijing

This thesis explores the real estate and happiness consequences of public investment in local public goods improvements by using unique micro-geographical data from Beijing; it focuses on the spatial variations in park amenity values, and on the impact of transport improvements on land prices and homeowners’ happiness. Despite intense public interest, little is known about these effects. This thesis aims to fill these gaps. First, I explore the impact and sources of variations of park proximities as capitalized into the residential land prices. This analysis, using geographically-coded data from Beijing, provides new insights on the ways in which land markets capitalize the values of proximity to parks and suggests that this is highly dependent on the parcel’s location and local contextual characteristics. Next, I examine the real estate consequence of public investment in transport improvements using a rich data set of vacant land parcels in Beijing. I use a multiple intervention difference-in-difference method to document opening and planning effects of new rail stations on prices for different land uses in affected areas versus unaffected areas. Residential and commercial land parcels receiving increased station proximity experience appreciable price premiums, but the relative importance of such benefits varies greatly over space and local demographics. Finally, I investigate the impact of transport improvements on happiness that altered the residence-station distance for some homeowners, but left others unaffected. My estimation strategy takes advantage of micro happiness surveys conducted before-and-after the building of new rail stations in 2008 Beijing. I deal with the potential concern about the endogeneity in sorting effects by focusing on “stayers”and using non-market housings with pre-determined locations. I find the significantly heterogeneity in the effects from better rail access on homeowners’ happiness with respect to different dimensions of residential environment. The welfare analysis results suggest strong social-spatial differentiations. In combination, the three papers of this thesis make important contributions to a growing literature on public infrastructure, land market and happiness

Essays on Fine Particulate Matter, Health and Socioeconomic Factors in China

The thesis contains three empirical essays that investigate the relationship between air pollution, economic growth, and health in China. The first chapter investigates the relationship between air pollution and economic growth, based on Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). We examine the EKC hypothesis based on data in Beijing from 2008 to 2017, with quarterly data. Land use and dummy variables for seasons are controlled. The results confirm an “N” shaped EKC in Beijing, with the first turning point at 60,000 RMB and the second point at 132,000 RMB. The “N” shaped EKC indicates that although air pollution is decreasing now, the pressure for the future is high. The second chapter explores the effects of income and air pollution on health at individual level. The air pollution includes ambient PM 2.5 concentration level, and household air pollution. Ambient concentration comes from official observing sites, and household air pollution is measured with dummy variables on energy consumption and active and negative smoking. The household air quality data, along with data at individual level, comes from micro dataset called CHARLS (Chinese Health and Retirement Longitude Survey), together with socio-economic factors, Probit models are employed to investigate the health effect of income and air pollution, and spatial probit models are also deployed due to the high spatial correlation of air pollution. It is found that the health of individuals is affected by the local air pollution and income, and the pollution from neighbouring cities. The third chapter focuses on the effect of income, exposure level of air pollution on health. Compared with concentration level, exposure level is a better description of human interaction with air pollution. With the Mass Balance Equation, household air concentration is a function of ambient concentration and emission of household pollutant sources. Two scenarios, window open and closed, are considered due to the difference of air exchange rate and penetration rate. We find that poor lung health is associated with high exposure level and low income in both scenarios. Exposure reduction should not only include the ambient concentration target set by the government, and improvement on the household emissions, such as kitchen extraction and transfer from coal and crop residual to electricity and natural gas

The politics of CO2 emissions

Includes vita.Climate change poses a severe threat to humanity for the last few decades. Various forms of natural disasters, extreme weather events, the outbreak of deadly diseases, life, and food insecurity are among common threats of climate change. The dissertation examines the relationships between political institutions and climate change. The three political institutions examined are political regimes, federalism, and political ideology. The study provides data analysis that has implications for understanding the relationship between governance structures and responses to climate change. Given the conflicting theoretical arguments and contrary empirical findings of the role of these political institutions in existing literature, the results of the dissertation expect to improve existing knowledge by increasing our understanding of how different measures and statistical methods affect research findings. With this view into consideration, the study provides robustness of existing findings for the relationship between democratic institutions, federalism, and partisan ideology and climate change at a cross-national perspective using multiple measures and multiple models to cross-check the consistency of the empirical findings of the existing literature. The first study of the dissertation investigates whether democracy as a political institution performs better in reducing per capita CO2 emissions than non-democracies. Applying seven different empirical research designs, including the TSCS and multilevel model, the study intends to understand if consistent results are found in favor of any specific regime type between democracy- authoritarian spectrum when using different measures of democracy. Using the World Bank data and five different democracy indices, the study estimates the effect of political regimes on the per capita CO2 emissions. The study finds a moderate relationship between democracy and per capita CO2 emissions. The second study of the dissertation estimates the relationship between political decentralization through federalism and per capita CO2 emissions. The analysis is based on three different measures of federalism for 176 countries from 1990 to 2014. The results show a null effect. This is not surprising given the argument that federalism may create both a race to the bottom and a race to the top tendencies in its various subnational units culminating into a net insignificant result at a national level. The third study of the dissertation examines the relationship between partisan ideology and per capita CO2 emissions to explore if any variation exists in the levels of emissions in response to differences in the left-right political ideology spectrum. The study applies three different indices of political ideology to analyze the effect of partisanship on per capita CO2 emissions behavior of 120 countries from 1990 to 2014. Using time-series cross-sectional research designs, the study finds a less-than-moderate effect of political ideology in tackling the climate change problem. Scholars underscore the importance of institutions because they provide guiding norms and incentive structures that shape the actions of human and organizational behaviors. Steinmo and Tolbert (1998) hold that institutional context frame actor's strategic choices and thereby shape public policy. With that goal into consideration, the dissertation provides empirical tests of existing theories that improve upon the literature. The findings of the studies inform that some of the institutions may matter in responding to tackling climate change problems. Therefore, investment and strategic intervention for maintaining institutional quality and adopting institutional reform where needed merit more in-depth research initiatives.Includes bibliographical references (pages 144-157

A study of the outdoor environmental design of high -rise residential area (HRFRAs), China: application and investigation of the environmental- behaviour theories and research methods for landscape design

Designers often believe that environmental design improves quality of life. Preference as an index of motivation has influences on many aspects of people. Based on a study of the relationship between actual uses and preferred outdoor environments, this research aims to deepen our understanding of place via public input and to improve the design quality of the central community garden (CCG) of high -rise flat residential areas ( HRFRAs) in China.With a total of 902 respondents from six HRFRAs, the investigation was carried out in three major Chinese cities, Beijing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou, in September 2006. Analysis at a general level reveals the preferred environmental patterns and significant predictors of the respondents' actual use. The comparisons at the city level indicate the territorial differences and characteristics of each city, respectively.Analysis of the results indicated that a quiet, green environment in an informal design style was the preferred environment which would improve residents' frequency of use. Of the environmental elements, waterscape and evergreens were particularly important to users. Although both of them are important to people's actual use, the effect of the prospect indicator (perspective of the CCG looking from a resident's window) was relatively weaker than the indicator of affordances, such as exercise facilities and children's playgrounds, etc.On the other hand, the results of the study explain the gap which often occurs between landscape architects' intentions and the manner in which the elements of the design actually work, in users' opinion. Landscape designers of the HRFRAs in China need to reorder the emphasis of the design aspects and adjust the contents of the environment to satisfy users' social, functional and psychological needs

City Space + Globalization: An International Perspective

City, Space, + Globalization presents ways in which globalization affects the built environment of people in cities around the world. Architects, urban planners, geographers, historians and sociologists address topics ranging from transportation to historic preservation, from housing for different population sectors to economic change and city growth patterns. A significant common element of these papers is their shared concern with the life space of city fabric, beyond economics, beyond world markets and world trade. This life space is the neighborhood and community space of city residents. It refers to memory, to history, to tradition in the face of homogenizing global forces.https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/books_fac/1002/thumbnail.jp