Urbanization, land use, and sustainable development in China

摘要

More profound knowledge about urban land use and expansion is needed to better understand the growth and sustainability of Chinese cities. This special issue is dedicated to addressing land use and environmental issues arising from the urbanization process, and aims to identify and model the mechanisms of land use and environmental changes. It draws from papers that were presented in the sessions titled "Urbanization, Land Use, and Regional Development in China Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ" at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in New York, February 24-28, 2012. In addition, we have also collected papers presented at the "International Conference on Urbanization and Development in China" held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, August 26-28, 2011, and through an open call for papers. Articles published in this special issue have all successfully gone through a very selective and rigorous anonymous peer-review process in order to secure a fairly high standard and a good balance between the different topics, debates, and study regions. This special issue has thus contributed to the broadening of the geographical scope and scale of research.