Xigang Zhu

Digital platforms are reshaping urban consumption spaces and altering the trajectory of commercial gentrification. However, research on how physical and virtual factors jointly shape commercial gentrification at the city scale remains limited. Taking the main urban area of Nanjing as a case, this study integrates platform and spatial data and applies machine learning methods to identify patterns of commercial gentrification and examine the roles of physical and virtual factors across different spatial types. The results show that: (1) typical commercial gentrification spaces in Nanjing exhibit a clear core-oriented pattern, concentrated in the traditional urban center and a limited number of emerging districts; (2) virtual factors become significantly more important as commercial gentrification intensifies, with online interaction intensity emerging as the most influential factor overall, while sentiment evaluation, influencer presence and proximity to platform hotspots play stronger roles in specific spatial types; and (3) physical and virtual factors have differentiated effects, combining in different ways to produce four distinct spatial patterns of commercial gentrification. This study reveals the differentiated roles of virtual and physical factors in shaping commercial gentrification at the city scale and enriches current understanding of urban commercial restructuring in the platform era.

Amid the accelerating agenda of Chinese-style modernization, China’s territorial spatial planning is undergoing a major transition and facing mounting challenges, while the theoretical foundations that support this transition remain at an early stage and require further integration. Drawing on holism, this paper operationalizes a cognition–relation–testing governance chain and develops an analytical framework to explain the institutional evolution and governance performance of China’s territorial spatial planning. Using clause- and paragraph-level evidence units from policy and planning texts, the study reviews and compares five historical stages of China’s territorial spatial planning, emphasizing simultaneous consistency across the three levels and a replicable diagnostic procedure. Building on this analysis, the paper proposes a holistic coordination pathway oriented toward modernization governance: it anchors implementation in auditable trade-off rules and executable boundary instruments, strengthens collaboration and conflict-adjudication procedures, and embeds a closed loop of “evaluation–adjustment–accountability” across the full planning life cycle, thereby providing an analytical approach and indicator toolkit for assessing the degree of governance closure in planning practice.

It is a key issue for the Chinese government to improve eco-efficiency and realize green development. As a spatial organization mode of industrial labor division, industrial agglomeration has a complex impact on eco-efficiency. However, it is still debatable which industrial agglomeration modes have a positive impact on eco-efficiency. This paper employs a panel threshold model, enterprise micro-level data, and relevant economic environment data from 283 cities in China from 2004 to 2012. It tests the nonlinear effects of specialized, related diversified, and unrelated diversified agglomeration on industrial eco-efficiency. The results show that the impact of specialized and related diversified agglomeration on industrial eco-efficiency is first inhibited and then promoted. The unrelated diversified agglomeration has a significantly negative impact on industrial eco-efficiency, but the negative impact weakens when agglomeration reaches a certain level. Furthermore, the impact of the three agglomeration modes on industrial eco-efficiency depends on city size. The impact of specialized agglomeration on industrial eco-efficiency is insignificant in small- and some medium-sized cities, but it has a significant inhibitory effect on industrial eco-efficiency when the city surpasses medium size. The role of related diversified agglomeration in promoting industrial eco-efficiency is further enhanced with the growth of city size. The impact of unrelated diversified agglomeration on industrial eco-efficiency gradually changes from negative to positive, but it plays a promoting role only when the city reaches the scale of super-large and mega-cities. Finally, this paper suggests that policymakers should formulate differentiated agglomeration policies according to changes in industrial agglomeration level or city size to improve industrial eco-efficiency.

The change of urban construction land is most obvious and intuitive in the change of global land use in the new era. The supply and allocation of construction land is an important policy tool for the government to carry out macro-control and spatial governance, which has received widespread attention from political circles, academia, and the public. An empirical study on the change of construction land and its driving factors in 70 county-level cities in Guangxi, China based on the GeoDetector method reveals the driving mechanism of the construction land change in county-level cities and provides more detailed information and a more accurate basis for county-level city policy makers and decision makers. The study shows a significant heterogeneity in the action intensity and interaction between construction land change and its driving factors in county-level cities, where population and GDP size, transportation, and industrial structure are determining factors. Besides, the factors of fiscal revenue, social consumption, utility investment, and real economy have a very weak action force individually, but they can achieve significant synergistic enhancement effects when coupled with other factors. In the end, urban construction land change at different scales and their driving mechanisms are somewhat different, and it is recommended to design differentiated and precise construction land control and spatial governance policies according to local conditions.

Gentrification, as a term introduced into China 20 years ago, has now become a topical word in scholarly discussion. This paper for the first time used the software of multiple pieces to analyze literature on gentrification between 1996 and 2017 in China based on bibliometrics, aiming to get the overview of the study, identify and expound the research themes, and analyze their evolution. It showed that the study on gentrification had entered into an exploratory stage with fluctuation from the early germination stage; gentrification research mainly concentrated on two disciplines, namely Geography and Urban and Rural Planning; the top 10 influential authors were identified and collaborative research teams leading the gentrification research had initially been formed. The themes of gentrification research in China were decided by visual analysis method, including urban renewal and dynamic mechanism of gentrification, evaluation and response to the effects of gentrification, new types of gentrification, and historical and cultural heritage conservation and creative industry, on which deeper content and information were described in detail. In terms of research themes evolution analysis, the results showed that the gentrification research in China had experienced the shift from initial concept and literature introduction to current empirical research and theory construction. There are significant signs showing the future trends of gentrification will move to the construction of a theoretical system of gentrification with Chinese characteristics, gentrification consequences evaluation and urban policies, new types of gentrification, gentrification driven by cultural consumption and authenticity protection of gentrification-stricken historical and cultural heritages, application of new technology to gentrification research, and relationship between shantytown renovation and gentrification in China. As to this paper, as far as the authors know, it is the first comprehensive systematic summary within this field based on bibliometric analysis.