Dynamic multi-dimensional scaling of 30+ year evolution of Chinese urban systems: Patterns and performance

Ying Ning; Shuguang Liu; Andrew R Smith; Yi Qiu; Haiqiang Gao; Yonglong Lu; Wenping Yuan; Shuailong Feng

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160705

Dynamic multi-dimensional scaling of 30+ year evolution of Chinese urban systems: Patterns and performance

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Mar 10:863:160705. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160705. Epub 2022 Dec 7.

Authors

Ying Ning¹, Shuguang Liu², Andrew R Smith³, Yi Qiu⁴, Haiqiang Gao¹, Yonglong Lu⁵, Wenping Yuan⁶, Shuailong Feng¹

Affiliations

¹ National Engineering Laboratory for Applied Technology of Forestry & Ecology in South China, Central South University of Forestry and Technology (CSUFT), Changsha 410004, China; College of Life Science and Technology, CSUFT, Changsha 410004, China.
² National Engineering Laboratory for Applied Technology of Forestry & Ecology in South China, Central South University of Forestry and Technology (CSUFT), Changsha 410004, China; College of Life Science and Technology, CSUFT, Changsha 410004, China. Electronic address: shuguang.liu@yahoo.com.
³ Environment Centre Wales, School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor LL57 2UW, UK.
⁴ College of Business, CSUFT, Changsha 410004, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
⁶ School of Atmospheric Sciences, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Climate Change and Natural Disaster Studies, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, Guangdong 510245, China.

PMID: 36496025
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160705

Abstract

Understanding the co-evolution and organizational dynamics of urban properties (i.e., urban scaling) is the science base for pursuing synergies toward sustainable cities and society. The generalization of urban scaling theory yet requires more studies from various developmental regimes and across time. Here, we extend the universality proposition by exploring the evolution of longitudinal and transversal scaling of Chinese urban attributes between 1987 and 2018 using a global artificial impervious area (GAIA) remotely sensed dataset, harmonized night light data (NTL), and socioeconomic data, and revealed agreements and disagreements with theories. The superlinear relationship of urban area and population often considered as an indicator of wasting land resources (challenging the universality theory β_c = 2/3), is in fact the powerful impetus (capital raising) behind the concurrent superlinear expansion of socio-economic metabolisms (e.g., GDP, total wage) in a rapidly urbanizing country that has not yet reached equilibrium. Similarly, infrastructural variables associated with public services, such as hospitals and educational institutions, exhibited some deviations as well and were scaled linearly. However, the temporal narrowing of spatial deviations, such as the decline in urban land diseconomies of scale and the stabilization of economic output, clearly indicates the Chinese government's effort in charting urban systems toward balanced and sustainable development across the country. More importantly, the transversal sublinear scaling of areal-based socio-economic variables was inconsistent with the theoretical concept of increasing returns to scale, thus validating the view that a single measurement cannot unravel the intricate web of diverse urban attributes and urbanization. Our dynamic urban scaling analysis across space and through time in China provides new insights into the evolving nexus of urbanization, socioeconomic development, and national policies.

Keywords: Cross-sectional scaling; Power law; Temporal scaling; The evolution of cities; Urban growth; Urban sustainability.