Rural residential concentration was one of the important tasks of the “Three Concentrations” strategy implemented in the suburbs of Shanghai in the mid-1990s. The aims of this paper are to comprehensively evaluate the process, pattern and effects of residential concentration in the suburbs of Shanghai over the past 20 years, clarify the direction and focus of development, and propose suggestions for existing deficiencies. Based on remote sensing images and statistical data, the implementation and effects of the rural residential concentration strategy from 1990 to 2015 were analysed using landscape indexes and geospatial analysis. The results are as follows: (1) according to the changes in the landscape pattern and spatial structure, the trends in population concentration in the suburbs of Shanghai are obvious. (2) Before 1995, the trend of population diffusion was conspicuous. After 1995, the period of population diffusion gradually shifted to a period of population agglomeration. The rate of population concentration increased rapidly from 2000 to 2010 and then became moderate after 2010. (3) In 1990, most of the rural residential areas were distributed within 14–52km of the city centre, the distribution of residential area in each ring was relatively uniform, and the overall distribution was scattered and uniform. By 2015, the rural population gradually converged in the inner suburbs, and the centralized distribution gradually changed to within 16–32km of the city centre. (4) In 1990, most of the rural residential areas were located north-northwest, southeast, and southwest of the People’s Square. By 2015, the areas southwest and southeast of the People’s Square became the focus of rural residential distribution. These findings provide a useful reference for future rural planning and construction.

Urban sprawl concerns the high-quality and sustainable development of large cities. Due to the ambiguous definition, diversity of measurement indices and complexity of the driving mechanism of urban sprawl, the research results are rich but controversial. How does one carry out multidimensional measurement of urban sprawl? How does one reveal the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of urban sprawl dynamically? First, according to the three common characteristics of urban sprawl (discontinuity of land use, low population density and inefficiency of land use), we, respectively, measure the urban sprawl of Shanghai metropolitan area by single index and comprehensive indices based on multi-source geospatial data. Next, using geographic information system (GIS) method, the temporal and spatial characteristics of urban sprawl in Shanghai are quantitatively and dynamically analyzed. The results show that (1) land use continuity reveals that fringe expansion is the main mode of urban sprawl, population density exhibits an upwards trend, and land use benefit shows that the sprawl increased first, then decreased and increased again, i.e., “N” type trend. The results of the above three comprehensive superpositions indicate that the urban sprawl in Shanghai changed from severe in 1995 to mild in 2010 and in 2020. (2) From 1990 to 2020, urban sprawl in Shanghai showed a trend of decreasing first, then increasing and decreasing again, which is consistent with an evolutionary trend of newly increased construction land. The larger the sprawl area was, the lower the land use efficiency of the sprawl area was. (3) The main directions of urban sprawl were southeast and southwest, and Songjiang District and Pudong New Area were the main sprawl areas. The peak value of urban sprawl mainly occurred at 20–30 km and was located in the area between the outer ring and the suburban ring. (4) Through time series analysis, we found that the effective supply of housing significantly affected the intensity and scale of urban sprawl but not the speed of urban sprawl in Shanghai metropolitan area. These findings are helpful to reasonably evaluate the real picture of urban sprawl in Shanghai metropolitan areas and provide reference for the formulation of urban sprawl governance policies.

The World Health Organization predicted that depression will become the second greatest disease burden after coronary heart disease by 2020. However, there are few quantitative studies on the spatial relationship between environmental factors and characteristics of patients with depression. In this paper, mathematical statistics, geographical information system and regression methods were used to conduct a quantitative analysis of the individual attributes of hospitalized patients with depression in a Class 3A hospital in Shanghai from 2013 to 2019 and to explore the relationship between individual attributes and circumjacent environmental factors. The results show that (1) the total number of patients with depression has increased in recent years, and the proportion of women was increased 2.5-fold compared with that of men. The risk was significantly increased in middle-aged and young adults aged 45–69 years compared with other age groups. The average hospitalization time was 20–30 days. The lower the level of education, the greater the risk of depression. (2) Within a certain spatial range, the closer to city parks and coffee shops, the lower the distribution density of depressed patients. (3) Medical insurance for patients with depression needs to implement a “people-oriented” differentiation policy. (4) Expanding urban public space, improving urban leisure and entertainment infrastructure, and introducing coffee shops into large-scale residential communities are three important strategies to prevent and treat depression.