Small housing has gained prominence in the housing market due to substantial shifts of both population and household structures in Korea. The study aims to examine the spatial clustering pattern of urban residential houses (URHs) in terms of the spatial statistics, and analyze the impacts of both locational and neighborhood residential factors on the formation of the spatial clustering pattern in the Seoul metropolitan area. It is found that the URHs represent a significant spatial clustering pattern based on the census tracts. The hotspots are mostly found in the outskirts of Seoul, where the development of small houses has been concentrated for ten years. Also, both locational and neighborhood residential factors have significant effects on the hotspot formation of the URH. The hotspots are more likely to be found in areas having many available sites for development, high demand for habitation, and high expected profits from developing small residences. Another significant factor is access to public transit, amenities, and employment centers. Therefore, it is necessary to design a rent subsidy program for potential residents and to encourage the development of housing in nearby hotspots with relatively lower land values. It is also important to establish policies and strategies for planning the housing supply and managing the residential environment in low-rise residential areas. Full article

This paper contributes to the existing debate on the co-location hypothesis, by devising a proximity measure and controlling for a set of other urban form measures. Utilizing the LEHD (Longitudinal Employer–Household Dynamics) Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) data that provide the number of jobs by a finer geography, this paper measured the degree of centralization, proximity, and job–housing mismatch. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the job–worker proximity leads to a shorter commuting time. In addition, the results focusing on suburban areas revealed that the impact of the job–worker imbalance and the impact of job–worker mismatch on the commuting time are greater in the suburb in comparison with the city center. Full article

Visitor mobility is an important element for facilitating sustainable local economics and management in urban tourism destinations. Research on visitor mobility often focuses on the patterns and structures of spatial visitor behavior and the factors that influence them. This study examines the relationship between visitor mobility and urban spatial structures through an exploratory analysis of visitors’ movements and characteristics, which were collected from surveys with global positional system (GPS) tracking technologies and questionnaires. The Ueno district, one of the most popular tourism destinations in Tokyo, Japan, was selected as the study area. For local stakeholders, the low accessibility levels between this district’s park zone and downtown zone have become a major destination management issue. We compared visitor movements and flow networks in various places from different major trip origins (railway stations) by using several analysis techniques (GPS log distribution, spatial movement sequences, and network analysis), and examined physical and human factors that caused the different mobility patterns. The results demonstrated that physical factors, including major transport hubs (railway stations), topography, commercial accumulation, and POI distribution, affected intra-destination visitor behavior, and segmented visitor markets into different main zones. Such findings could inform future destination management policies and planning in local urban tourism destinations. Full article

The urban heat island (UHI) and its consequences have become a key research focus of various disciplines because of its negative externalities on urban ecology and the total livability of cities. Identifying spatial variation of the land surface temperature (LST) provides a clear picture to understand the UHI phenomenon, and it will help to introduce appropriate mitigation technique to address the advanced impact of UHI. Hence, the aim of the research is to examine the spatial variation of LST concerning the UHI phenomenon in rapidly urbanizing Lagos City. Four variables were examined to identify the impact of urban surface characteristics and socio-economic activities on LST. The gradient analysis was employed to assess the distribution outline of LST from the city center point to rural areas over the vegetation and built-up areas. Partial least square (PLS) regression analysis was used to assess the correlation and statistically significance of the variables. Landsat data captured in 2002 and 2013 were used as primary data sources and other gridded data, such as PD and FFCOE, were employed. The results of the analyses show that the distribution pattern of the LST in 2002 and 2013 has changed over the study period as results of changing urban surface characteristics (USC) and the influence of socio-economic activities. LST has a strong positive relationship with NDBI and a strong negative relationship with NDVI. The rapid development of Lagos City has been directly affected by conversion more green areas to build up areas over the time, and it has resulted in formulating more surface urban heat island (SUHI). Further, the increasing population and their socio-economic activities including industrialization and infrastructure development have also caused a significant impact on LST changes. We recommend that the results of this research be used as a proxy tool to introduce appropriate landscape and town planning in a sustainable viewpoint to make healthier and livable urban environments in Lagos City, Nigeria. Full article

The accurate prediction of urban growth is pivotal for managing urbanization, especially in fast-urbanizing countries. For this purpose, cellular automata-based (CA) simulation tools have been widely developed and applied. Previous studies have extensively discussed various model building and calibration techniques to improve simulation performance. However, it has been a common practice that the simulation is conducted at and only at the spatial extent where the results are needed, while as we know, urban development in one place can also be influenced by the situations in the broader contexts. To tackle this gap, in this paper, the impact of the simulation of spatial extent on simulation performance is tested and discussed. We used five villages at the rural–urban fringe in Chengdu, China as the case study. Urban growth CA models are built and trained at the spatial extent of the village and the whole city. Comparisons between the simulation results and the actual urban growth in the study area from 2005 to 2015 show that the accuracy of the city model was 7.33% higher than the village model and the latter had more errors in simulating the growth of small clusters. Our experiment suggests that, at least in some cases, urban growth modeling at a larger spatial extent can yield better results than merely modeling the area of interest, and the impacts of the spatial extent of simulation should be considered by modelers. Full article

The pollution problem caused by urban black and odorous waters has received much attention from the Chinese government. Our research aims at systematically identifying the characteristics and the influential factors of spatial differentiation of urban black and odorous waters across China. The research, based on the data of 2100 black and odorous waters in China, was conducted with the spatial analysis tool of ArcGIS. We found that the amount of Chinese urban black and odorous waters varied in spatial distribution, which was an agglomerated type with significant agglomeration. The kernel density was characterized by independent single kernel centers with ribbon-like and sporadic distributions of subcenters. The cold and hot spots showed a gradient distribution pattern of cold in the southwest and hot in the central east. These spatial distribution characteristics could be attributed to the following core factors, total wastewater discharge, length of urban drainage pipelines, municipal solid waste collection, daily urban sewage treatment capacity, and investment in urban pollution treatment of wastewater. The findings reveal the current geospatial distribution of black and odorous waters pollution and provide reference for the Chinese government to treat the pollution from several key points. Lastly, it is suggested that the Chinese government should establish joint control, joint prevention, and joint treatment mechanisms in the black and odorous waters areas and improve the safety standards of the whole water environment, so as to promote the treatment and elimination of urban black and odorous waters. Full article

The objective of this study is to map direct and indirect seasonal urban carbon emissions using spatial micro Big Data, regarding building and transportation energy-use activities in Sumida, Tokyo. Building emissions were estimated by considering the number of stories, composition of use (e.g., residence and retail), and other factors associated with individual buildings. Transportation emissions were estimated through dynamic transportation behaviour modelling, which was obtained using person-trip surveys. Spatial seasonal emissions were evaluated and visualized using three-dimensional (3D) mapping. The results suggest the usefulness of spatial micro Big Data for seasonal urban carbon emission mapping; a process which combines both the building and transportation sectors for the first time with 3D mapping, to detect emission hot spots and to support community-level carbon management in the future. Full article

This article summarized the spatiotemporal pattern of land use/land cover (LU/LC) and urban heat island (UHI) dynamics in the Metropolitan city of Tehran between 1988 and 2018. The study showed dynamics of each LU/LC class and their role in influencing the UHI. The impervious surface area expanded by 286.04 (48.27% of total land) and vegetated land was depleted by 42.06 km² (7.10% of total land) during the period of 1988–2018. The mean land surface temperature (LST) has enlarged by approximately 2–3 °C at the city center and 5–7 °C at the periphery between 1988 and 2018 based on the urban–rural gradient analysis. The lower mean LST was experienced by vegetation land (VL) and water body (WB) by approximately 4–5 °C and 5–7 °C, respectively, and the higher mean LST by open land (OL) by 7–11 °C than other LU/LC classes at all time-points during the time period, 1988–2018. The magnitude of mean LST was calculated based on the main LU/LC categories, where impervious land (IL) recorded the higher temperature difference compared to vegetation land (VL) and water bodies (WB). However, open land (OL) recorded the highest mean LST differences with all the other LU/LC categories. In addition to that, there was an overall negative correlation between LST and the normal difference vegetation index (NDVI). By contrast, there was an overall positive correlation between LST and the normal difference built-up index (NDBI). This article, executed through three decadal change analyses from 1988 to 2018 at 10-year intervals, has made a significant contribution to delineating the long records of change dynamics and could have a great influence on policy making to foster environmental sustainability. Full article

Rapid urbanization has dramatically spurred economic development since the 1980s, especially in China, but has had negative impacts on natural resources since it is an irreversible process. Thus, timely monitoring and quantitative analysis of the changes in land use over time and identification of landscape pattern variation related to growth modes in different periods are essential. This study aimed to inspect spatiotemporal characteristics of landscape pattern responses to land use changes in Xuzhou, China durfing the period of 1985–2015. In this context, we propose a new spectral index, called the Normalized Difference Enhanced Urban Index (NDEUI), which combines Nighttime light from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System with annual maximum Enhanced Vegetation Index to reduce the detection confusion between urban areas and barren land. The NDEUI-assisted random forests algorithm was implemented to obtain the land use/land cover maps of Xuzhou in 1985, 1995, 2005, and 2015, respectively. Four different periods (1985–1995, 1995–2005, 2005–2015, and 1985–2015) were chosen for the change analysis of land use and landscape patterns. The results indicate that the urban area has increased by about 30.65%, 10.54%, 68.77%, and 143.75% during the four periods at the main expense of agricultural land, respectively. The spatial trend maps revealed that continuous transition from other land use types into urban land has occurred in a dual-core development mode throughout the urbanization process. We quantified the patch complexity, aggregation, connectivity, and diversity of the landscape, employing a number of landscape metrics to represent the changes in landscape patterns at both the class and landscape levels. The results show that with respect to the four aspects of landscape patterns, there were considerable differences among the four years, mainly owing to the increasing dominance of urbanized land. Spatiotemporal variation in landscape patterns was examined based on 900 × 900 m sub-grids. Combined with the land use changes and spatiotemporal variations in landscape patterns, urban growth mainly occurred in a leapfrog mode along both sides of the roads during the period of 1985 to 1995, and then shifted into edge-expansion mode during the period of 1995 to 2005, and the edge-expansion and leapfrog modes coexisted in the period from 2005 to 2015. The high value spatiotemporal information generated using remote sensing and geographic information system in this study could assist urban planners and policymakers to better understand urban dynamics and evaluate their spatiotemporal and environmental impacts at the local level to enable sustainable urban planning in the future. Full article

With the accelerating urbanization process, the population increasingly concentrates in urban areas. In view of the huge population in China and a series of problems in the process of rapid urbanization, there are no unified measures for characterizing the population pattern. This study explores the distribution pattern of the Chinese population and proposes a spatial distribution structure of population using GIS (Geographic Information System) analysis. The main findings are as follows: (1) In 2015, the distribution of population density in China presents a pattern of high in the southeast and low in the northwest based on the county-level administrative regions. The population main lives in the southeast of China based on the “Hu Huanyong Line”. (2) There is a great difference of the spatial correlation between land area, population and GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in China. The economic concentration in China is higher than the population concentration. In the areas where population and GDP are aggregated, per capita GDP is higher. (3) Based on the areas with highly aggregated population and GDP, the spatial distribution structure of population of “1 + 4 + 11” for China’s urbanization is put forward, namely, one national-level aggregated area of population and GDP, 4 regional-level aggregated areas of population and GDP, and 11 local regionally aggregated areas of population and GDP. This spatial structure represents an attempt to explore the direction of China’s urbanization, and it can be used to optimize the spatial development pattern and provide scientific guidance for the future urbanization plan. Full article

The development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is an important national regional development strategy and a strategic engineering development system. In this study, the evolution of urban spatial patterns in the YREB from 1990 to 2010 was mapped using the nighttime stable light (NSL) data, multi-temporal urban land products, and multiple sources of geographic data by using the rank-size distribution and the Gini coefficient method. Through statistical results, we found that urban land takes on the feature of “high in the east and low in the west”. The study area included cities of different development stages and sizes. The nighttime light increased in most cities from 1992 to 2010, and the rate assumed an obvious growth tendency in the three urban agglomerations in the YREB. The results revealed that the urban size distribution of the YREB is relatively dispersed, the speed of urban development is unequal, and the trend of urban size structure shows a decentralized distribution pattern that has continuously strengthened from 1990 to 2010. Affected by factors such as geographical conditions, spatial distance, and development stage, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River have developed rapidly, the upper and middle reaches have developed large cities, and a contiguous development trend is not obvious. The evolution of urban agglomerations in the region presents a variety of spatial development characteristics. Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai have entered a phase of urban continuation, forming a more mature interregional urban agglomeration, while the YREB inland urban agglomerations are in suburbanization and multi-centered urban areas. At this stage, the conditions for the formation of transregional urban agglomerations do not yet exist, and there are many uncertainties in the boundary and spatial structure of each urban agglomeration. Full article

Rapid urbanization in China has blurred the boundaries between rural and urban areas in both geographic and conceptual terms. Accurately identifying this boundary in a given area is an important prerequisite for studies of these areas, but previous research has used fairly simplistic factors to distinguish the two areas (such as population density). In this study, we built a model combining multi-layer conditions and cumulative percentage methods based on five indicators linking spatial, economic, and demographic factors to produce a more comprehensive and quantitative method for identifying rural and urban areas. Using Xi’an, China as a case study, our methods produced a more accurate determination of the rural-urban divide when compared to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China. Specifically, the urbanization level was 3.24% lower in the new model, with a total urban area that was 621.87 km² lower. These results were checked by field survey and satellite imagery for accuracy. This new model thus provides local governments and other interested parties a theoretical and technological foundation for more accurate rural/urban planning and management in the future. Full article

The horizontal two-dimensional (2D) urban land use approach is not sufficient to trace rapid changes in urban environment. Hence, a three-dimensional (3D) approach that is different from the traditional geographical method is necessary to understand the mechanism of compound urban diversity. Using remote sensing data captured in 2010/2011 and geospatial tools and techniques, we quantified the urban volume (UV, consisting of urban built volume (UBV) and urban green volume (UGV)) and retrieved and mapped the land surface temperature (LST) of two cities in Japan (Tsukuba, a planned city, and Tsuchiura, a traditional city). We compared these two cities in terms of (1) UBV and UGV and their relationships with mean LST; and (2) the relationship of the UGV–UBV ratio with mean LST. Tsukuba had a total UBV of 74 million m³, while Tsuchiura had a total of 89 million m³. In terms of UGV, Tsukuba had a total of 52 million m³, while Tsuchiura had a total of 29 million m³. In both cities, UBV had a positive relationship with mean LST (Tsukuba: R² = 0.31, p < 0.001; Tsuchiura: R² = 0.42, p < 0.001), and UGV had a negative relationship with mean LST (Tsukuba: R² = 0.53, p < 0.001; Tsuchiura: R² = 0.19, p < 0.001). Tsukuba also had a higher UGV–UBV ratio of 54.9% in comparison with Tsuchiura, with 28.7%. Overall, the results indicate that mean LST was more intense in the traditional city (Tsuchiura). This could have been due to the difference in urban spatial structure. As a planned city, Tsukuba is still a relatively young city that has more dispersed green spaces and a well-spread (so far) built-up area. Full article

Along with the globally increasing concern for environmental sustainability, improving urban industrial land use efficiency (UILUE) is critically important for China’s development trajectory. However, the existent studies on UILUE in China are mainly conducted at the provincial level, which significantly undermines their value for tailoring practical policy formulations for lower-level governments. To fill this gap, this paper aims to investigate the spatial and temporal pattern of UILUE in China at the prefectural level, examining the underpinning influential factors for the period 2000–2014. Employing the means of spatial autocorrelation and regression, it is found that UILUE in China has improved significantly over the past decade in general but is also accompanied by significant spatial variations. UILUE is positively related to the agglomeration of industries, labour, capital, and technology, in which technology has fundamental effects upon the other factors. It is suggested to policy makers that government policy interventions should be placed predominantly upon technology regulation, i.e., setting admittance criterion for foreign direct investment (FDI), and industrial investment. For future studies, consistent efforts ought to be exerted to examine UILUE at and even under the prefectural level to achieve better understanding among academics and policy practitioners. Full article

This paper introduces a performance level concept for industrial land use. The performance level concept uses ecological principles to evaluate index systems for industrial land. We used this concept to integrate local economics, land use, development potential, environmental health and ecosystem management with innovation, harmony, floral preservation, and shared land use. The concept helps promote the efficient use of industrial land and the sustainable use of land resources. We used the chemical medicine manufacturing industry in Chongqing Changshou Economic and Technological Development Zone as a case study. We selected eight companies for analysis and calculated an industrial land performance level for each company. We created three industrial land performance levels: growth potential type, positive development type, and inefficient recession type. To determine economic development and land sustainability, we applied administrative, economic, legal and technical measures to evaluate the entire lifecycle of industrial land. This lifecycle included preliminary project audit access, mid-period dynamic supervision and post land exit management. We conclude by proposing measures to mitigate environmental harm occurring from the intensive use of land for industrial use. Full article

Simulating future land use/cover changes is of great importance for urban planners and decision-makers, especially in metropolitan areas, to maintain a sustainable environment. This study examines the changes in land use/cover in the Tokyo metropolitan area (TMA) from 2007 to 2017 as a first step in using supervised classification. Second, based on the map results, we predicted the expected patterns of change in 2027 and 2037 by employing a hybrid model composed of cellular automata and the Markov model. The next step was to decide the model inputs consisting of the modeling variables affecting the distribution of land use/cover in the study area, for instance distance to central business district (CBD) and distance to railways, in addition to the classified maps of 2007 and 2017. Finally, we considered three scenarios for simulating land use/cover changes: spontaneous, sub-region development, and green space improvement. Simulation results show varied patterns of change according to the different scenarios. The sub-region development scenario is the most promising because it balances between urban areas, resources, and green spaces. This study provides significant insight for planners about change trends in the TMA and future challenges that might be encountered to maintain a sustainable region. Full article

A series of negative effects of urban development have emerged owing to the imbalance of population, industry, and built-up land spatial agglomeration. This study proposes an integrated coupling coordination index system in sustainable urbanization evaluation based on population, industry, and built-up land, to evaluate the spatial-temporal evolution of coupling and coordination degree in Guangxi from 2005 to 2015. In addition, we adopted the exploratory spatial data analysis method to reveal the spatial pattern of coupling and coordination degree and its impact on sustainable urbanization. Finally, local indicator of spatial association (LISA) analysis was employed to identify the spatial heterogeneity of the coupling and coordination index values. The results, on the one hand, show that the coupling coordination degree of all counties increased yearly, but extremely slowly. The 88 counties in Guangxi are still in a low level of urbanization. On the other hand, a spatial agglomeration effect of urbanization levels is observed in this study. We found that the urbanization development is not independent. In other words, the urbanization level of each county will more or less be affected by its surrounding counties. In conclusion, in China, sustainable urbanization is closely related to the rational allocation of population, industry, and land resources. To promote the sustainable development of urbanization, it is necessary to strength the role of land use control and to rationally allocate these three elements in general. Full article

A quantitative analysis of spatial influencing factors on urban sprawl can offer better support for urban planning and management. There are many concerns regarding the influence of each factor. However, a quantitative analysis to detect the interactions between factors is limited because of the complexity of the urban systems, especially the role of planning. Additionally, spatial heterogeneity is often overlooked. This study aims to improve and strengthen the knowledge in this field through a spatial statistical method known as GeoDetector. A new spatial quantification of urban expansion was presented in this study and the spatio-temporal characteristics and mechanism of urban growth in Beijing from 2010 to 2015 were also analyzed. The results show that urban expansion presents spatial heterogeneity with different grid cells, and the optimal scale was 4500 m. At this scale, urban expansion in Beijing linearly expands along the traffic trunk. In addition, urban expansion in Beijing is jointly influenced by socioeconomic, geographical, and policy factors. Population density has had the greatest influence on urban expansion from 2010 to 2015, and policy factors rank first. The impact of economic factors on urban growth is gradually weakening. It is important for urban geographical research to further plans and guide urban development. Full article