Drawing from the key research results of the National Natural Science Foundation supported youth project "Study on industrial cluster restructuring mechanism from the perspective of local entrepreneurship—Case study in the Pearl River Delta, China" (No. 41301109), this article summarizes the literature and research results on the interacting relationships between local entrepreneurship and industrial clusters. It focuses on two aspects—the cluster environment that facilitates the emergence and growth of local entrepreneurship, and the agency and strategies of local entrepreneurs in industrial cluster restructuring. The primary research results are as follows. First, successful entrepreneurs in the clusters enhance the entrepreneurial intentions of others. Also, the embeddedness in personal relations with suppliers and customers has proven to exert significant impact on the locational preferences toward the clusters of origin, thus driving the localization of entrepreneurial activities. Second, cluster ecology and entrepreneurial ecosystem should become the focal point of study on the growth of entrepreneurial activities. The dynamic organizational relations with the parent companies are also important for the growth of spin-offs in the clusters. Meanwhile, local entrepreneurs active make and shape the clusters. In the mature industrial cluster in the core city of Guangzhou of the case study area—the Pearl River Delta, it is found that the new-generation start-ups could influence the spatial evolution of industrial cluster by their locational choice behaviors. In the periphery city, Jieyang, the institutional entrepreneurship carried out by the local entrepreneurs is an important way to upgrade and restructure the traditional industries. The interscalar strategies are applied by the local entrepreneurs to build up global pipelines, by which the resources and networks at different spatial scales are flexibly converged and leveraged. At the end of the article, future prospects with regard to the interacting relationship between local entrepreneurship and industrial cluster, both in terms of research context and methodology, has been discussed.
With the shift from Fordist to post-Fordist production, producer services have replaced manufacturing as the central activities in shaping regional economies and reorganizing the city systems of the "post-industrial" societies. Based on a critical evaluation of the existing literature, and an elaboration of the deliveries of the project" A study of the multi-scalar growth dynamics of producer services and its urbanization effects: from the political economy perspective" supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, this article discusses the applicability of the existing theories when they are used to understand the growth dynamics of producer services and its spatial effects in China. The main findings include: (1) producer services development shows similar pattern to that in the West, but exhibits its unique characteristics as well; (2) due to the distinctive relationships between the state and the market, the state and enterprises, and the central and local governments in China, existing theories and explanations, developed on the basis of the Western experiences, have yielded important insights but at the same time show limitations to account for the uneven growth of producer services in China; and (3) the dramatic expansion of producer services has led to the rapid growth of large cities and the emergence of mega-city regions, which have reshaped the economic space and reorganized the urban system in China. However, different from its Western counterparts, the spatial effects in China need to consider the impacts from the manufacturing industry.
Crime prediction is of great significance for the formulation of police tactics and the implementation of crime prevention and control in different time periods. Machine learning and density mapping are two common approaches for crime hotspot prediction. However, there exists few published work that systematically compares the predicted results of these two approaches. This study aimed to fill the gap. With crime patterns uncovered from 2013 to May 2016, we predicted hot-spot distribution of theft crimes in the period of first two weeks of June, July, and August in 2016 by random forest algorithm and traditional space-time kernel density method and compared the two sets of predictions. The research area was divided into grid cells of 50 m×50 m. Each cell was predicted as either hot-spot or non-hot-spot area in the next predicting period. Then we overlaid the forecast results and location of real cases to evaluate the accuracy of the two methods. The results show that both the hit rate of area and cases of the random forest classification hot-spot prediction method are higher than that of the space-time kernel density within different periods. Both methods can effectively identify high-crime areas of crime hot spots in prediction. In a relatively short period of time and small area, the random forest classification hotspot prediction method is more effective than the space-time kernel density method. However, in a relatively long term and large area, the space-time kernel density crime risk estimation method yields better result in identifying high crime areas.
In recent years, pluvial flash floods (PFF) have caused serious traffic congestion and disruption in many big cities. This study investigated the traffic congestion pattern due to PFFs in an intra-urban area through a macro traffic simulation method. A macro traffic flow model was built based on trip distribution and the characteristics of roads and routing. We incorporated rainfall data and simulated the hourly traffic volume on each road segment under two PFF scenarios of 50-year and 100-year return periods by the macro traffic flow model. Next, the variation of volume/capacity (V/C) on each road was calculated to derive the spatial pattern of traffic condition under different PFF scenarios. The results were contrasted to demonstrate the change of congestion pattern on the main roads and entrances/exits of the expressways in the city center of Shanghai to analyze the influence of different PFF scenarios on traffic congestion. The results indicate that ①PFFs of 50-year return period may have a marginal effect on the traffic system, but PFFs of 100-year return period can pose great threat to the traffic system in the central urban area of Shanghai. Seven exits and entrances of the expressways are closed due to serious inundation and a large portion of the road network becomes more congested; ②the effect of PFFs on V/C also exhibits spatial disparity over the entire network. Overall, 13.35% of the roads become more congested under 100-year return period. Additionally, the most obvious change of congestion pattern is found on the first-class highways (23.31%), such as Dalian Road, Wuning Road, Zhoujiazui Road, and Changshou Road.
Identifying urban boundaries is the basis of qualitative and quantitative study of cities. Most of the existing studies on the identification of urban boundaries rely on predefined distance thresholds or incorporate census data. Although fractal geometry method using building vector maps to identify urban boundaries can overcome this problem, the research of urban boundary identification in China is often hindered by the difficulty of obtaining vector building distribution data. This study draws upon existing research results and puts forward a new method to identify urban boundaries by clustering street nodes based on neighborhood dilation curves. The results show that the key to this method that uses street nodes from electronic map as data source lies in finding the optimal distance threshold corresponding to the maximum curvature. The distance threshold for extracting urban boundaries of Chengdu, Xian, Wuhan, Nanjing, and Changsha are 133, 114, 139, 124, and 129 m; and the area of city clusters are 769, 350, 270, 317, and 359 km2, respectively. The method of using street nodes vector data to identify urban boundaries is simple and feasible, and the data are easy to obtain. So the results of this study may provide some reference for the study of urban morphology, urban evolution, and urban planning.
Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration and Tokyo metropolitan area have similar features of diverting non-capital functions and optimizing urban spatial structures, as well as dealing with similar categories of pollution sources and pollutants in the atmospheric pollution control process. To compare Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration and Tokyo metropolitan area, this article introduces the atmospheric pollution control processes and effects in Tokyo metropolitan area, and analyzes the atmospheric pollution control policy paths in Tokyo. Based on these analyses, combining the atmospheric pollution characteristics of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, the atmospheric pollution control policy system, and problems to be solved, this research provides recommendations for atmospheric pollution control policy-making of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration from the perspectives of policy formation, policy framework, and policy implementation.
As one of the most important activities in urban life, the impact of housing relocation on residents' physical and mental health has become a rising concern by sociologists and psychologists. However, although housing relocation involves many geographic factors such as dwelling environment and direction and distance of relocation, little research has been undertaken by geographers. Taking Guangzhou City as an example, and based on data from a questionnaire survey conducted in 2016, this study applied binary logistic regression analysis to evaluate the impact of spatial and temporal factors on residents' self-rated physical and mental health from a geographic perspective. The result shows that housing relocation impacts residents' self-rated physical and mental health negatively both on the long term and the short term. On the long term, frequent relocations before 18 years old impacts residents' physical and mental health negatively. On the short term, housing relocation impacts residents' mental health negatively. In the most recent move, active relocation has positive impact on physical health, while moving away from the city center affects mental health positively but long distance moving affects mental health negatively. The conclusions are of significance to studies on residents' housing relocation choice and community development.
With the rapid urbanization, urban sprawl growth and the contraction of ecological space have become a common phenomenon in China. Ground surface hardening is the main characteristic in urban landscape expansion, which has become widely concerned. Landscape expansion index (LEI) has been an important tool to describe and quantify this process. However, in the period of new urbanization, with the adjustment and optimization of urban internal structure and the improvement of urban greening rate, the shrinkage and extinction of hardened ground landscape have been another important form of urban landscape evolution. It is urgent to find a new and effective method to describe the emerging features of urban development. Therefore, a new landscape index based on the neighborhood characteristics of patches—landscape evolution characteristic index (LECI), including landscape evolution pattern index (LEPI) and landscape evolution area index (LEAI)—is proposed to comprehensively analyze the dynamic features of the landscape pattern. Collaborative analysis can be implemented by this index to recognize the expansion and shrinkage of the hardened landscape patches during the landscape pattern evolution in two or more periods. This index also can overcome the difficulty of LEI in identifying the pattern of special shaped patches. The LECI was applied to study the urban landscape expansion of metropolitan development area in Wuhan City during 1990-2010, and compared with LEI based on minimum bounding box. The results indicate that (1) LEPI can accurately identify the three modes of urban expansion—the infilling type, the edge-expansion type, and the outlying type, as well as for the isolated type, the adjacent type, and the surrounded type of urban shrinkage, and LEAI can perfectly reflect patch expansion/shrinkage intensity and landscape expansion/shrinkage direction; (2) Patch shrinkage of the hardened ground landscapes in the study area is clearly intensified. The recognition of shrinkage modes of these patches through LEPI can reveal the spatial distribution of urban ecological restoration and contribute to the construction of urban green infrastructure and residential land remediation; (3) Based on the analysis of LECI in the study area during 1990-2010, it was found that the speed of urban landscape expansion has been slowed but still rapid, and the outlying type and edge-expansion type are the dominant modes of patch change. As the distance from the central city increases, the spatial distribution pattern of different evolution modes is clearly distinctive, which are infilling/surrounded type, edge-expansion/adjacent type, and outlying/isolated type.
Changes in water storage of the lakes on the Tibetan Plateau are regarded as one of the most critical consequences of regional hydrological response to climate change. Different from the conventional hydrological approaches, in this study we investigated the storage change of the Qinghai Lake based on a conceptual lake storage model and the most recent (2001-2016) available satellite observation on lake area and water level. The water surface areas and water levels were derived from MODIS and LEGOS altimetry data respectively. The results show that, in the past decades, the area of the Qinghai Lake expanded at a rate of 11.6 km2/a and the water level rose at the speed of 0.10 m/a. Based on the regression function between water level and lake area (R2=0.83), the net water budgets of the Qinghai Lake were estimated for the study period, and the result shows that water storage of the lake increased at the rate of about 4.5 billion m3/a. The increase of water storage could be attributed to the increase of precipitation and decrease of evaporation in the region.
Music is an important part of local culture and in Lijiang ancient town more people feel that the originally dominant role of Naxi traditional music is being replaced by modern folk music due to increasing tourism. This change, in the music scene, gives us a deeper understanding of the local cultural transition under the influence of tourism. To examine how local music changes, we investigated the performing practices and places of local music in Lijiang ancient town through participant observation. We conducted semantic analysis of musical lyrics to grasp the content and emotions of the songs. We also conducted interviews with musical performers, shopkeepers, and tourists in Lijiang ancient town. The findings of the study indicate that tourism influences traditional music that used to be the soul of local residents integrated into local social life, and has turned it into a variety of commercial performances for tourists. However, the transformation of these music has not received deserved recognition from tourists. It is "out of place" in the flourish of tourism. Modern folk music has become the mainstream iconic music form in Lijiang ancient town. It is "in place" from the atmosphere of "petty bourgeoisie". However, the traditional music constructs the uniqueness of the ancient town, which motivates tourists with idiosyncratic sense and makes tourists feel the place other than their hometown. Modern folk music exaggerates the "petty bourgeoisie" culture. Both music forms play an important role in the emotional construction of tourists. We hope our findings can enrich the research perspective of cultural change in tourism destination, respond to the relationship between tourism and local traditional culture, and provide some useful ideas on the relationship between music and place in china.
：The concept of "embeddedness" is useful for understanding the process and mechanism of interactive coupling of transferred enterprises, the industrial clusters of receiving places, and the global or trans-regional production network. Since the introduction of the concept of "embeddedness" in economic geography, there exist a debate of "active" and "passive" local embedded intentions of transferred enterprises in the academic circles, as well as two different views of positive effect and negative effect of local embedding of transferred enterprises. By systematically examining studies on the main motivations, influencing factors, evolution processes, regional effects, and so on of the local embeddedness of transferred enterprises, this research finds that, regardless of the willingness of enterprises, the local embeddedness of transferred enterprises is a geographic sensitive strategy to protect and strengthen their competitiveness in the evolution of firm-territory nexus. The embedding process is affected by the condition of the undertaking places and the quality of the transferred enterprises. The embedding process follows the path of "foster relationship-value chain cohesion-build global-local production network ," and gradually achieves relational embedding and structural embedding. The local embeddedness of transferred enterprises provides a "window of locational opportunity" for the transformation and upgrading of the enterprises and industrial clusters of the undertaking places. Finally, this article puts forward four research directions that need to be deepened and strengthened: (1) building a comprehensive research framework that uses "relation-network-evolution" as the main line; (2) strengthening quantitative research of the network role and performance of transferred enterprises; (3) enhancing the research of the interaction of the economic, technological, and social embeddedness of the transferred enterprises; and (4) promoting the research of the "two-way embeddedness" of transferred enterprises and the industrial clusters of the undertaking places.
Sociospatial differentiation, which reflects the uneven spatial distribution of urban social factors, is a classical research topic in urban geography and a realistic problem that the Chinese society is facing at present. Based on a large number of theoretical and empirical studies, the classical research paradigm focusing on the residential space was formed. However, with the reconstruction of urban structure and the rapid development of transportation and information and communication technologies, the activities of urban residents have become increasingly diversified and personalized. In this context, the differentiation and segregation exist not only in residential space, but also in daily activity space of residents, so the traditional research paradigm appears to be insufficient, and it is necessary to understand the sociospatial differentiation pattern from a perspective of people's activity space. Some existing studies aboard have paid attention to this new perspective and attempted to propose new research paradigms or approaches of sociospatial differentiation based on activity space using different hypotheses, methods, and data. This article reviewed existing studies and grouped them into three categories, which are social segregation and communication based on activity space, the differentiation of individuals' activity spaces, and the dynamic sociospatial differentiation. The first type of research emphasizes the social environments in which people could contact in their activity space, usually using individual data to derive activity space and census or statistical data to reflect the social background. The second category of work takes the activity space as the object of differentiation, and examines the spatiotemporal patterns based on individual behavioral data. The third kind of research focuses on the temporal dimension of sociospatial differentiation, and mobile location data and other new types of data are often used to detect the dynamic change of activity space. Based on theories and methodologies of space-time behavior and a people-based spatial research paradigm, this study built a research framework of "people-activity space-social space" to study sociospatial differentiation based on daily activity space, in order to promote the diversification of the research paradigm of sociospatial differentiation, and to understand urban space and people in cities from a human-oriented perspective.
