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Abstract:Given the rapidly developing processes in the housing market of China, the significant regional difference in housing prices has become a serious issue that requires a further understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Most of the extant regression models are standard global modeling techniques that do not take spatial non-stationarity into consideration, thereby making them unable to reflect the spatial nature of the data and introducing significant bias into the prediction results. In this study, the geographically weighted regression model (GWR) was applied to examine the local association between housing price and its potential determinants, which were selected in view of the housing supply and demand in 338 cities across mainland China. Non-stationary relationships were obtained, and such observation could be summarized as follows: (1) the associations between land price and housing price are all significant and positive yet having different magnitudes; (2) the relationship between supplied amount of residential land and housing price is not statistically significant for 272 of the 338 cities, thereby indicating that the adjustment of supplied land has a slight effect on housing price for most cities; and (3) the significance, direction, and magnitude of the relationships between the other three factors (i.e., urbanization rate, average wage of urban employees, proportion of renters) and housing price vary across the 338 cities. Based on these findings, this paper discusses some key issues relating to the spatial variations, combined with local economic conditions and suggests housing regulation policies that could facilitate the sustainable development of the Chinese housing market.

Gated communities have become a common feature in recent decades and have been shown to lead to social inequality to the detriment of the poorest social classes. Because access to urban green space is crucial for both physical health and spiritual pleasure, it is often regarded as an indicator of social justice; however, there are many references to the current inequity in urban green space accessibility. Our study aimed first to measure the potential spatial accessibility of green space in the central urban area of Beijing; then to evaluate the socio-economic disparities in green space accessibility; and finally, to assess the effect of the policy of “opening up gated residential communities” on urban green space accessibility. We adopt the Gaussian-based two-step floating catchment to assess the spatial accessibility of green spaces in each residential zone in the central area of Beijing, and the ordinary least squares model was used to evaluate the inequity in accessibility caused by socio-economic disparities. The results reveal that lower income residential zones have remarkably lower access to green spaces. Next, by comparing the differences in accessibility equity between two comparable scenarios in which all communities have dismantled their fences, we unexpectedly find that the inequity of access to urban green space does not improve but becomes more pronounced. We attribute this result to socio-spatial polarization. Our findings can be used by urban planners to target current urban planning system reform and by policymakers to focus closely on the gradual spatial polarization between the rich and the poor.

Air pollution in China is a serious problem and an inevitable threat to human health. This study evaluated the relationship between air quality and urban growth pattern in China by conducting empirical research involving 338 prefecture-level and above cities. Spatial regression techniques considering spatial autocorrelation were applied to correct the calculation bias. To obtain local and accurate results, a conception of eight economic zones was adopted to delineate cities into different groups and to estimate regression separately. An additional six urban form and socioeconomic indicators served as controlling variables. Significant and positive relationships between the aggregated urban growth pattern index and air pollution were observed in Northeast China, northern coastal China, and Northwest China, indicating that a high degree of urban aggregation is associated with poor air quality. However, a negative parameter was obtained in southern coastal China, showing an opposite association on urban aggregation and air quality. Nonsignificant connections among the other four zones were found. The findings also highlighted that land use mix, population density, and city size exerted varied and significant influence on air quality across eight economic zones. Overall, this study indicated that understanding the quantitative relationships between urban forms and air quality can provide policymakers with alternative ways to improve air quality in rapidly developing China.