Towards the Analysis of Urban Livability in China: Spatial-Temporal Changes, Regional Types and Influencing Factors

The increasing drift of urbanization and its impact on urban human settlements are of major concern for China cities. Therefore, demystifying the spatial-temporal patterns, regional types and affecting factors of urban livability in China are beneficial to urban planning and policy making regarding the construction of livable cities. In accordance with its connotation and denotation, this study develops a systematic evaluation and analysis framework for urban livability. Drawing on the panel data of 40 major cities in China from 2005 to 2019, an empirical research was further conducted. The results show that urban livability in China has exhibited a rising trend during the period, but this differs across dimensions. The levels of urban security and environmental health are lower than those of the three other dimensions. Spatially, cities with higher livability are mainly distributed in the first quadrant divided by the Hu Line and Bole-Taipei Line. Cities in the third quadrant are equipped with the lowest livability. In addition, the 40 major cities can be divided into five categories, and obvious differences exist in terms of the geographical distribution, overall livability level and sub-dimensional characteristics of the different types. Furthermore, the results of the System GMM estimator indicate that the overall economic development exerts an inhibiting effect on the improvement of urban livability in present-day China, but this logical effect exhibits obvious heterogeneity in different time periods and diverse city scales. Finally, there are also differences in the influencing direction and degree of specific economic determinants.

The Influence of Subjective and Objective Characteristics of Urban Human Settlements on Residents’ Life Satisfaction in China

Under the guidance of people-oriented development concepts, improving residents’ life satisfaction has gradually become the goal of urban governance. Based on Chinese household tracking survey data and national socio-economic statistics, this study used the entropy method, multi-layer linear regression model and geographically weighted regression model and discusses the spatial heterogeneity of the impact of objective environmental characteristics and subjective perceived characteristics of urban residential environments on residents’ life satisfaction. It is of great importance to study the mechanisms through which subjective and objective characteristics of urban human settlements influence living satisfaction among residents. It is also important to discuss how to improve living satisfaction levels through the urban human settlements and to realize high-quality urban development. The research results show that in 2018, the overall level of life satisfaction among Chinese urban residents was relatively high. However, it is still necessary to continue to optimize the urban human settlements to improve residents’ life satisfaction. The objective characteristics of the urban human settlements, such as natural environmental comfort and environmental health, have a significant positive impact on residents’ life satisfaction. Residents’ subjective perceptions of government integrity, environmental protection, wealth gap, social security, medical conditions and medical level, as well as residents’ individual gender, age and health status also have a significant impact on residents’ life satisfaction. The direction and intensity of effects of different elements of the urban human settlements and residents’ personal attributes on urban residents’ life satisfaction have different characteristics in different regions.

Air Quality and the Spatial-Temporal Differentiation of Mechanisms Underlying Chinese Urban Human Settlements

Urban air has its typical structural characteristics. With the continuous optimization of urban human settlement indicators, the key issue and single system of “air quality” in urban human settlements needs to be further discussed. Based on air conditions, this paper attempts to visually measure the spatial-temporal distribution of human settlements in 283 prefecture-level cities in China using ArcGIS and Matlab and tries to reveal the influencing mechanisms: (1) There is no significant difference between the average of the comprehensive score of human settlements in 6 years. The overall level of those in all cities decreases from 0.6581 to 0.6004 year by year, and the average level order in the seven regions of China is Southern China (0.7310) > Southwest China (0.6608) > East China (0.6515) > Northeast China (0.6496) > Northwest China (0.6049)> Central China (0.5901) > North China (0.5565). (2) The global Moran’s I index of China’s human settlements is between 0.3750–0.7345, showing a positive spatial correlation, and the comprehensive development level has the characteristics of local spatial convergence of low-value clusters in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and high-value clusters in the south coast and Heilongjiang Province. (3) The spatial econometric model tests the influencing mechanism. There is a significant spatial positive correlation between science and technology investment in each city. The urbanization rate, the degree of advanced industrial structure, and the urban average elevation have a certain spatial spillover, showing a negative correlation. Science and technology investment and the degree of advanced industrial structure have the greatest impact.

Spatiotemporal Evolution and Driving Forces of Sustainable Development of Urban Human Settlements in China for SDGs

As the world’s largest developing country, China has actively implemented the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Sustainable development of urban human settlements is the result of localization and the deepening of sustainable development theory in China. This study combines SDGs to construct an evaluation index system for the sustainable development of urban human settlements in China, using optimization methods, such as natural breaks (Jenks), exploratory spatial data analysis, and GeoDetector, to conduct systematic research on the spatiotemporal evolution of the current sustainable development level and analyze the core driving forces of urban human settlements in 285 prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2019. Our study revealed that: (1) The overall sustainable development level of urban human settlements and their subsystems in China has improved steadily, but the levels of subsystems are quite different; (2) the sustainable development level of the urban human settlements in China can be expressed as a spatial pattern of “high in the east and low in the west, high in the south and low in the north” and has relatively significant spatial correlation characteristics; notably, the development level of each subsystem has different spatial characteristics; (3) the sustainable development level of urban human settlements is mainly based on medium sustainability, and the main development model is to progress from a medium-low development level to a medium-high development level; (4) the sustainable development level of urban human settlements is mainly driven by the per capita gross domestic product (GDP), housing price-to-income ratio, investment in education and scientific research, Internet penetration, and PM2.5.

Spatial differentiation of comprehensive suitability sustainable development for urban human settlements based on GIS：A case study of Liaoning Province, China

The comprehensive suitability of regional human settlements is of great significance to the development and spatial distribution of regional human settlements and regional social and economic development. In this study, based on the traditional evaluation of the natural suitability of the human settlements, this study adds humanistic indicators to comprehensively evaluate the suitability of the human settlements in Liaoning, China. In particular, we sought to uncover the spatial differentiation law of the comprehensive suitability of these settlements and its correlations with population density and GDP density, provide a theoretical basis for urban human settlements planning and governance. The main conclusions were as follows: (1) the natural suitability index in Liaoning Province presents the law of longitudinal spatial differentiation from northeast to southwest, which follows the direction of the mountains; (2) the highest to lowest humanistic suitability indexes were as follows: the central, eastern, and western regions; (3) the highest to lowest spatial differentiations of the comprehensive suitability of the human settlements were as follows: the central and coastal, eastern, and western regions;(4) the spatial distribution of population–economy density in Liaoning Province was basically consistent with the spatial distribution of the comprehensive suitability index of human settlements, The population economy is concentrated in the areas with the best and moderate human settlements. Ultimately, we found that the distributions of population–economy and human settlement suitability were relatively coordinated and that highly suitable land was already fully utilized.