Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy最新文献

Indonesia has serious crime issues. Since there are pieces of evidence that economic inequality may cause crime incidences, various studies have been carried out to verify the relationship. However, very few of these studies considered the geographical pattern and spatial linkages between crime and its determinants, particularly inequality. This paper examines the geographical pattern of economic inequality and crime as well as local and spillover effects of within and across-districts/cities inequality on the crime rate. Using data from 483 Indonesian districts/cities from 2010 to 2020, this study employed local indicators of spatial association (LISA) analysis to examine geographical patterns between economic inequality and crime and the panel spatial Durbin model to investigate the spatial effects, including local and spillover effects. LISA analysis yielded geographic-based information regarding clusters of economic inequality and crime, thus providing insight into the spatial pattern of those variables. Furthermore, panel spatial Durbin results have shown that using property and other crime rate as the dependent variable, strong positive local and spillover effect of within-region and across-region economic inequality on crime rates was observed.

The improvement of well-being of residents is the core of the people-centred urbanization. Inhabitants’ emphasis on healthy lifestyle draws attention to the provision of sports infrastructure. However, the spatial pattern of sport infrastructure development and in particular the driving forces from urbanization across China have not been examined yet in the literature. This paper aims to explore how the national sports infrastructure in mainland China is driven and scaled by urbanization, using data from the sixth National Sports Venues Census and a multi-scale geographically weighted regression approach. The results revealed strong regional inequality in the development of sports infrastructure in the stage of accelerating urbanization in China, with better provision of sports infrastructure in eastern than in western regions. The three dimensions of urbanization (urban population, public financial expenditure and built-up area) significantly explained the spatial disparity between 289 cities at prefecture-city level. There should be a feedback loop between the accumulative developments of urbanization and sports infrastructure. The contributing driving forces and subsequent regional heterogeneity suggest that sports space theory, the inequality amplification model, and hysteresis effect are comparatively suitable for explaining the spatial inequality characteristics of sports infrastructure development in China. A Sport Inequality Alert was conceptualized as a policy instrument for monitoring regional inequality and governing the development of sports infrastructure. It is argued that sports infrastructure development should be integrated into the national strategy for sustainable New-type Urbanization.

In the recent decade, increasing vessel sizes, infrastructure developments, intermodal connections, and digital transformation again have raised questions about the development of container ports. This transformation is expected to continue to affect the port industry in the future. While the Port of Rotterdam is the busiest container port in Europe, its top-ranking place is under pressure, and competition between the top three ports has become fiercer. This contribution provides insights into the concentration, inequality and competition evolution of Europe’s top three ports through several measurement methods and the ternary diagram. Several measurement methods are used to report the concentration, inequality, and competition of these ports. The study confirms that ternary diagram indicators and traditional measures reveal similar results. Findings also suggest that no port has a dominating position in this competitive port system, and these ports are engaging in efficient competition. SSA analysis indicates that the Port of Hamburg is the major loser in the last two periods; the Port of Rotterdam and Port of Antwerp are the major winners respectively in the last two periods. Moreover, the prospects are salient for a tendency towards concentration and inequality. The findings of the study provide insights and visualizations for policymakers, enabling them to gain a deeper understanding of the development and prospects of the three major port hubs in Europe.

High-speed rail (HSR) improves urban accessibility, changes the inter-city flow pattern of human and capital factors, and has a potential impact on urban economic vitality. A real GDP data is used to characterize urban economic vitality, and the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index(HHI) is used to characterize the urban economic vitality structure. Geodetector is used to study the influence of HSR on the level and structure of urban economic vitality. The main conclusions are as follows: The HSR frequency improves accessibility, promotes consumption, employment, investment in real estate development, tertiary industry development and the supply of urban construction land, and thus has a stronger positive impact on urban economic vitality. The magnet effect of HSR stations makes the station area attract resources to gather and develop, and the interaction with consumption, investment in real estate development and the supply of urban construction land has a stronger impact on urban economic vitality. More HSR lines extend the reach of cities, promote the development of consumption-related industries and real estate development, thus increasing economic vitality. The higher the HSR frequency, the more the HSR lines and HSR stations, the more dispersed the urban economic vitality structure. The layout of HSR stations in areas close to the city center will enhance the attractiveness of the city, which will increase the employment density, thus strengthening the economic vitality of the central urban area, and the urban economic vitality structure will be more concentrated. The results confirm that only when the variables related to HSR work together with the socio-economic variables, can the intensity of the influence of HSR on the level and structure of urban economic vitality be enhanced. In addition, HSR stations are the most important factors controlling the urban economic vitality structure, which has certain indicative significance for the future urban spatial planning.

The paper utilizes panel data from 278 cities in China spanning the years 2010 to 2020 to comprehensively assess the impact of digital inclusive finance on urban ecological efficiency. The study shows that digital inclusive finance significantly contributes to the enhancement of urban ecological efficiency, primarily attributed to the deepening of digital inclusive finance's usage depth and degree of digitization. Mechanism analysis further indicates that digital inclusive finance can expedite the concentration of human capital, foster technological innovation, and boost foreign direct investment, ultimately promoting the advancement of urban ecological efficiency. Moreover, the spatial spillover effect analysis demonstrates that digital inclusive finance not only enhances the ecological efficiency within a region but also notably elevates the ecological efficiency levels of neighboring cities. Additionally, our findings indicate that the development of digital inclusive finance has a more pronounced positive effect on improving ecological efficiency in the central and western regions, larger cities, and cities with higher levels of digital inclusive finance compared to the eastern region, small and medium-sized cities, and cities with lower digital inclusive finance development.

Although land-use change driven by general economic factors has been discussed substantially, rarely has any work been done within the perspective of economic geography – considering the impact of economic spatial differences. This study applies the 3Ds (Density, Division and Distance) framework published by the World Bank to explore their impacts on urban land-use change – focusing on urban land and stand-alone industrial land. Employing the dynamic system-GMM (Generalized Method of Moments) model and a mediating effect model, we examine the direct and indirect effects of 3Ds on land-use change in cities with different income levels and in different regions. Our results find that deepening spatial differences facilitate the expansion of urban land and stand-alone industrial land use. Furthermore, the 3Ds has indirect effects on land use through the interactions between density and distance, as well as between division and distance. These impacts are divergent in cities with different income levels and region-specific. The main contribution of this paper is twofold. Theoretically, the study develops a new systematic framework to explain land-use change within the field of economic geography. Empirically, we examine the theoretical framework of spatial inequality by considering both direct and indirect effects. This study also has important policy implications for improving the economic value of land use.

It has been commonly recognised that school quality has significant impacts on housing prices in Western cities, however, how such school-housing relationships vary across different types of housing and urban space in transition economies is less explored. Our study aims to investigate the relationship between schools and housing in transitional China, where both commercial and Danwei housing coexist within the housing sector. This study makes three contributions to the literature. First, this study distinguishes the school-housing relationship across two types of housing—commercial versus Danwei housing as the unique housing characteristics in transition economies. Second, this study fully considers the neighbourhood effect on housing prices and unveils the spatial heterogeneity of school-housing relationships by spatiotemporal analyses and spatial modelling techniques. Third, this study establishes an analytical framework that can be applied to different contexts, and augmented in an assessing manner for the long-term evaluation of future education and housing policies.

Our study investigates the economic growth and catch-up of the NUTS3 regions of 6 Central and Eastern European (CEE) member states of the European Union (EU), 4 countries acceding in 2004 (Czechia, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia) and further two admitted in 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania), compared to the average of 14 older members of the EU between 2000 and 2019. We based our analysis on the urban–rural region types of the EU in the case of 185 regions, identifying predominantly urban, intermediate, and predominantly rural types. We apply Theil Index to examine the development of disparities and test the phenomena with unconditional β-convergence hypothesis. The analysis indicates that the growth of all CEE countries and their regions is faster than the EU14 average; the capitals considerably exceed it, the catch-up of other urban regions is also relatively fast, while it is very slow in the case of other regions. The convergence between the 185 regions is weak, based on the EU region typology it was initially strong between the capitals, moderate in the case of intermediate and rural types, while divergence can be observed in the urban types. The catch-up of less developed regions is very slow despite EU cohesion funding, even though 80% of the population live here. The stagnation of regional disparities and slow catch-up of less developed regions indicate the poor efficiency of the EU cohesion policy.

The coastal community is confronted with heightened risks posed by climate change. Mobile Bay in the United States is a large estuarine system along the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) coast, providing critical ecosystem services for the nation. This region is however subject to increased urbanization and uncertain impacts of climate change. To ensure sustainability of this important ecosystem, it is imperative to examine the changing spatial patterns of community vulnerability to environmental changes in this region. Using data from the U.S. Census of multiple years, we investigate the changing spatial patterns of social vulnerability at the census block group level in Mobile Bay consisting of Mobile County and Baldwin County over the past 20 years (2000 – 2020). Additionally, we utilize hotspot and cluster analyses to formalize the observations of the spatiotemporal changes. Further, we examine how land use and land cover (LULC) changes co-occur with social vulnerability changes across Mobile Bay. We identify several hotspots where land cover has been converted to urban land and social vulnerability has increased. The investigation of the spatial patterns over a relatively long period helps to deepen the insight into the dynamic spatiotemporal changes of social and environmental vulnerability. This insight can better inform future plans to cope with climate change and ensure sustainability. Specifically, hotspots that have undergone urbanization and increased social vulnerability demand special attention from policy makers for future risk mitigation and disaster planning.