How Does ICT Expansion Drive “Smart” Urban Growth? A Case Study of Nanjing, China

Bibliographic Data

ID22018633
AuthorsZipan Cai (0000-0001-7219-2222, KTH Royal Institute of Technology), Vladimir Cvetkovic (0000-0002-5665-747X, KTH Royal Institute of Technology), Jessica Page (0000-0002-5925-019X, Stockholm University)
Year2020
Volume5
Issue1
Pages129-139
Publication date2020-03-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueUrban Planning (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2183-7635 • E-ISSN: 2183-7635
PublisherCogitatio (PUBLISHER • PT)
DOI10.17645/up.v5i1.2561
OpenAlexW3011852875
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited27

In the context of accelerated urbanization, socioeconomic development, and population growth, as well as the rapid advancement of information and communication technology (ICT), urban land is rapidly expanding worldwide. Unplanned urban growth has led to the low utilization efficiency of land resources. Also, ecological and agricultural lands are continuously sacrificed for urban construction, which in the long-term may severely impact the health of citizens in cities. A thorough understanding of the mechanisms and driving forces of a city’s urban land use changes, including the influence of ICT development, is therefore crucial to the formation of optimal and feasible urban planning in the new era. Taking Nanjing as a study case, this article attempts to explore the measurable “smart” driving indicators of urban land use change and analyze the tapestry of the relationship between these and urban land use change. Different from the traditional linear regression analysis method of driving force of urban land use change, this study focuses on the interaction relationship and the underlying causal relationship among various “smart” driving factors, so it adopts a fuzzy statistical method, namely the grey relational analysis (GRA). Through the integration of literature research and known effective data, five categories of “smart” indicators have been taken as the primary driving factors: industry and economy, transportation, humanities and science, ICT systems, and environmental management. The results show that these indicators have different impacts on driving urban built-up land growth. Accordingly, optimization possibilities and recommendations for development strategies are proposed to realize a “smarter” development direction in Nanjing. This article confirms the effectiveness of GRA for studies on the driving mechanisms of urban land use change and provides a theoretical basis for the development goals of a smart city

Business · China · Civil engineering · Driving factors · Economic growth · Economics · Environmental planning · Environmental resource management · Geography · Information and Communications Technology · Internet of Things · Land use · Land use, land-use change and forestry · Population · Population growth · Regional science · Smart city · Smart growth · Socioeconomic development · Urban planning · Urbanization · Computer Science · Engineering · Human Mobility and Location-Based Analysis · Land Use and Ecosystem Services · Smart Cities and Technologies