A Hierarchical Allometric Scaling Analysis of Chinese Cities: 1991–2014

Chen, Yanguang; Feng, Jiao

doi:10.1155/2017/5243287

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The explosive growth of Chinese cities and the general demographic and economic restructuring of the country via massive urbanization are the principal manifestations of this monumental transformation [2]. Certain quantities, such as GDP, land area, and road length [3, 4], follow scaling laws also in the Chinese urban system. However, relatively little is known quantitatively about the development trajectory of Chinese cities among other quantities on the aggregate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growth and development in prefecture-level cities in China

Zünd

Bettencourt

2019

PLoS ONE

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Nowhere has the scale and scope of urbanization been larger than in China over the last few decades. We analyze Chinese city development between the years 1996 and 2014 using data for the urbanized components of prefecture-level cities. We show that, despite much variability and fast economic and demographic change, China is undergoing transformations similar to the historical trajectory of other urban systems. We also show that the distinguishing signs of urban economies—superlinear scaling of agglomeration effects in economic productivity and economies of scale in land use—also characterize Chinese cities. We then analyze the structure of economic change in Chinese cities using a variety of metrics, characterizing employment, firms and households. Population size estimates remain a major challenge for Chinese cities, as official numbers are often reported based on the Hukou registration system. We use the information in the residuals to scaling relations for economic quantities to predict actual resident population and show that these estimates agree well with data for a subset of cities for which counts of total resident population exist. We conclude with a list of issues that must be better understood and measured to make sense of present urban development trajectories in China.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growth and development in prefecture-level cities in China

Zünd

Bettencourt

2019

PLoS ONE

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“…In contrast, if the power law is not well developed, the OLS can give approximate calculation values, while the MLM gives abnormal calculation values. This suggests that OLS can be used to make an approximate estimation of fractal dimension and scaling exponents, while the MLM can be utilized to distinguish power laws from fake power laws [ 75 ]. In short, each method has its advantages and disadvantages.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multifractal scaling analyses of urban street network structure: The cases of twelve megacities in China

Long

Chen

2021

PLoS ONE

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Traffic networks have been proved to be fractal systems. However, previous studies mainly focused on monofractal networks, while complex systems are of multifractal structure. This paper is devoted to exploring the general regularities of multifractal scaling processes in the street network of 12 Chinese cities. The city clustering algorithm is employed to identify urban boundaries for defining comparable study areas; box-counting method and the direct determination method are utilized to extract spatial data; the least squares calculation is employed to estimate the global and local multifractal parameters. The results showed multifractal structure of urban street networks. The global multifractal dimension spectrums are inverse S-shaped curves, while the local singularity spectrums are asymmetric unimodal curves. If the moment order q approaches negative infinity, the generalized correlation dimension will seriously exceed the embedding space dimension 2, and the local fractal dimension curve displays an abnormal decrease for most cities. The scaling relation of local fractal dimension gradually breaks if the q value is too high, but the different levels of the network always keep the scaling reflecting singularity exponent. The main conclusions are as follows. First, urban street networks follow multifractal scaling law, and scaling precedes local fractal structure. Second, the patterns of traffic networks take on characteristics of spatial concentration, but they also show the implied trend of spatial deconcentration. Third, the development space of central area and network intensive areas is limited, while the fringe zone and network sparse areas show the phenomenon of disordered evolution. This work may be revealing for understanding and further research on complex spatial networks by using multifractal theory.

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“…By researching allometric scaling in hierarchies of cities, we will be able to find the inherent correlations between spatial patterns, temporal processes, and dynamic mechanisms of urban evolution. The allometric scaling has been applied to urban studies based on census data and statistical data [ 7 , 23 , 30 , 31 , 57 ]. However, the observational data of natural cities provide better evidences for the hierarchical allometric scaling laws.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The urban hierarchy with cascade structure can be described from two complementary angles of view. The longitudinal distributions can be described with exponential functions, and the latitudinal relationships can be described with power functions [ 7 , 23 ]. Considering a geographical region with n cities, we can organize the cities into a hierarchy comprising M classes according to the generalized 2 n rule [ 7 , 24 ].…”

Section: Theoretical Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hierarchical Scaling in Systems of Natural Cities

Chen

Jiang

2018

Entropy

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Hierarchies can be modeled by a set of exponential functions, from which we can derive a set of power laws indicative of scaling. The solution to a scaling relation equation is always a power law. The scaling laws are followed by many natural and social phenomena such as cities, earthquakes, and rivers. This paper is devoted to revealing the power law behaviors in systems of natural cities by reconstructing the hierarchy with cascade structure. The cities of America, Britain, France, and Germany are taken as examples to make empirical analyses. The hierarchical scaling relations can be well fitted to the data points within the scaling ranges of the size and area of the natural cities. The size-number and area-number scaling exponents are close to 1, and the allometric scaling exponent is slightly less than 1. The results show that natural cities follow hierarchical scaling laws and hierarchical conservation law very well. The hierarchical scaling law proved to be derived from entropy maximization principle, and this suggests that the evolution of natural cities is dominated by entropy maximization laws. This study is helpful for scientists to understand the power law behavior in the development of cities and systems of cities.

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A Hierarchical Allometric Scaling Analysis of Chinese Cities: 1991–2014

Cited by 8 publications

References 53 publications

Growth and development in prefecture-level cities in China

Growth and development in prefecture-level cities in China

Multifractal scaling analyses of urban street network structure: The cases of twelve megacities in China

Hierarchical Scaling in Systems of Natural Cities

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