Modelling and simulating land development processes in Shanghai

This thesis groups four papers to investigate the growth and evolution mechanisms behind urban land use change through multiple computer-based modelling and simulation approaches. The first paper theorizes land development in Shanghai into five modes and then delineates the location and estimates the magnitude of each of the land development modes in Shanghai. This paper lays down the groundwork for the following papers on land use change modelling and simulation in Shanghai. The second paper develops the Population-Driven Urban Land Development (PDULD) to simulate the land development and population dynamics of Jiading New City, one of the suburban districts in Shanghai. The third paper develops the Location-based Firm Profit (LbFP) model to delineate how urban land use growth may lead to the spatial structural transformation of industries. The fourth paper then furthers the industrial land use study and proposes the Industrial and Residential Land Use Competition Model (IRLUCM) to simulate the dynamic spatial transformation of industrial land use in Shanghai.ATIC, TECTERRA, AMETHYST, University of Lethbridge, Mitac

The transformation of urban industrial land use: A quantitative method

A large number of cities around the world today owe their land use growth to the rapid development of industrial areas. The spatial structure of industrial distribution in cities shape urban spatial morphology linking with land use, transportation, economic activities, and housing. Meanwhile, growth and expansion of city population and land use reconfigure the spatial structure of industrial distribution. Research into urban industrial spatial distribution and its transformation process may help urban planners and decision makers understand the land use and population dynamics of a city. Genetic algorithms are believed to be one kind of the promising methods to simulate this dynamic process. In this paper, we propose a novel method to simulate urban industrial spatial distribution and its transformation process in Shanghai, China. The results show that along with increasing urban land price over time, industries are going to move outward from the city center. However, the maximum profit of a firm tends to decrease, which could lead industrial factories to move beyond city boundary. The analysis of the current industrial spatial distribution in Shanghai indicates that, when land price in a city rises above a specific threshold, new government policies and other competitive advantages need to be enacted if the city wants to retain industrial firms within the city boundary

The Suburbanization and Revitalization of Industrial Land in Shanghai, China

Land use efficiency is one of the critical indicators of sustainable development. Increasing land use efficiency can help build a more compact urban form and reduce the urban footprint. Industrial development is often considered a major driving force of urban land use expansion and use change. Both industrial development and urban land use change are constrained and facilitated by urban planning and management, constantly shaping the spatial trajectory of urban transformation. Taking the suburbanization and revitalization of industrial land uses in Shanghai as a case study, this research uses thematical analysis and geospatial data change detection methods to investigate how the evolution of industrial spatial structure leads to urban land use growth, and how urban planning and governance reconfigure the industrial spatial structure of a city through revitalization. This study found that the unplanned suburbanization of industrial land use brought about significant residential and commercial land use expansion. The city was able to consolidate its industrial land uses by adopting the designated industrial blocks strategy to curb the sprawl of industrial land use and enhance land use efficiency. With the transformation of industry structure, the city achieved great success in transforming underutilized industrial land in the city’s central area and consolidating scattered industrial land into industrial blocks in the city’s suburban areas