Evaluation of Urban Spatial Growth Performance from the Perspective of a Polycentric City: A Case Study of Hangzhou

Liang Zhang, Linlin Zhang and Xue Liu
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Liang Zhang: College of Urban Construction, Zhejiang Shuren University, Hangzhou 310015, China
Linlin Zhang: Law School, Zhejiang University City College, Hangzhou 310015, China
Xue Liu: School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 8, 1-20

Abstract: Although polycentrism is widely promoted by city planners and policymakers as a potential solution for alleviating the sprawl of central urban areas, there is no sufficient empirical evidence to verify the validity of this claim. Our study aims to complement this experience by providing solid evidence on whether polycentric urban structures can mitigate the problem of urban sprawl. In this study, the corresponding evaluation factors are selected from four perspectives: socioeconomic, spatial form and organization, and ecological environment, to measure the performance of Hangzhou’s polycentric spatial development. The results show that the performance in Hangzhou has improved significantly, and the performance improvement is more prominent over the 2010–2020 period. Third, the changing characteristics of the spatial development performance of the city centers show a significant diversity. During the study period, the development of Jiangnan city started early, but the development performance of Xiasha city improved significantly, and the development of Linping city was relatively the weakest. Fourth, socioeconomic and urban spatial organization are the main factors causing the temporal stage and spatial variability of the performance in Hangzhou. It can be seen that market-driven endogenous factors are more conducive to improving spatial development performance than government-led exogenous factors.

Keywords: spatial performance; polycentric structure; polycentricity; Hangzhou (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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