Exploring the Association between Urban Form and Air Quality in China

Abstract

This article aims to evaluate the association between urban form and air quality in China through the use of empirical evidence. The relationship between a variety of urban form metrics and concentrations of air pollutants were analyzed through linear regressions using a data set of cross-sectional observations from 157 Chinese cities. After controlling for other explanatory variables, higher population density and lower urban continuity are commonly associated with better air quality, and urban form could play a modest but important role in improving air quality for Chinese cities.

Spatial Heterogeneity in the Determinants of Urban Form: An Analysis of Chinese Cities with a GWR Approach

“…The policy implications emerging from this study lies in shaping sustainable urban form for China's decision makers and urban planners.Sustainability 2019, 11, 479 2 of 16 and aggregation index are usually applied to represent urban expansion, urban shape irregularity, and urban compactness, respectively [7]. Different urban form is likely to result in diverse economic, social, and ecological effects [8], due to which a range of previous studies have investigated the impacts of urban form on a series of socioeconomic and environmental factors, such as carbon emissions [9], air pollution [10][11][12], and urban-rural income [13].More importantly, an increasing number of studies have turned their attention to the determinants of urban form. Foremost, factors influencing urban expansion have been addressed from various perspectives.…”

How Does Polycentric Urban Form Affect Urban Commuting? Quantitative Measurement Using Geographical Big Data of 100 Cities in China

“…The VIF values for polycentricity, CT, PC, PB, PUA, and PD were 1.073, 1.228, 2.065, 1.987, and 1.632, respectively. Values that are less than 4 indicate that the multiple collinearity between variables does not affect the analysis of the results [4]. The statistics of variables in the regression equation are shown in Table 1.…”

“…Urban spatial structure is the result of various natural, social and economic factors in a city. Its rationality affects the production, life, environment and traffic of the city [1][2][3][4][5]. Polycentric urban form is generally considered as an ideal urban spatial structure which can produce great agglomeration externalities and promote social, economic, and environmental goals [6,7].…”

Urban Form, Air Quality, and Cardiorespiratory Mortality: A Path Analysis

“…Simulation studies usually explore different land use scenarios and support the notion that compact development improves urban air quality [28,29]. On the other hand, empirical studies in this field generally agree that urban form and land use features have modest but important impacts on urban and regional air quality [22,24,[30][31][32][33][34]. Urban size, density, shape and contiguity (irregularity), fragmentation of urban patches, and urban forest amount and mixing level have been identified as valid urban form dimensions that can potentially capture these effects [22,24,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37].…”

“…Meanwhile, there have been clear connections between urban spatial structure and air pollution. Relevant urban form policies have the potential to improve urban energy efficiency [14,15], carbon emissions [16][17][18], and human exposure to air pollution [19][20][21][22][23][24]. It is also worthwhile to note that relevant urban form strategies to mitigate air pollution are relevant not only because of their clear impacts on air pollutants, but also due to the potential co-benefit to combat climate change [2,3].…”