Population and lifestyle trend changes in China: implications for environmental quality

Demographic changes have considerable impacts on a country’s long-term growth trajectory through the savings, consumption and labour market channels. Population changes, including ageing, migration and urbanization, as well as lifestyle shifts may affect growth for fast-growing countries like China. Rural population migrating to cities consumes more energy services and produces larger emissions since urban lifestyles are generally more energy- and carbon-intensive. Household structures also keep changing across the majority of Chinese cities. Migration and urbanization together drive China’s energy consumption, CO₂ emissions upwards and environmental quality downwards if the current trend continues over time. It is, thus, necessary for China to draw useful lessons from experiences in other countries by reconciling population development and environmental changes. This study provides insights into the challenge of environmental sustainability, resulting jointly from population and lifestyle changes in China over the period 1978–2012. The empirical analysis generates empirical findings documenting that population changes and consumption behavioural changes contributed significantly to increased carbon emissions over the last three decades. The modelling results are highly relevant for policymakers who seek to adopt new policies to mitigate lifestyle change-driven environmental challenges that China has to cope with in the foreseeable future.     

皖江示范区流出人口管理创新研究--以庐江县为例

城市化进程的加速使越来越多的劳动力涌向城市，流动人口管理成为服务型政府建设的重要内容。流出人口管理从根源上保证流动人口的有序流动，成为流动人口管理的新趋势。皖江示范区大部分地区尚处于经济建设起步阶段，人口流动方向以流出为主，因此，研究流出人口管理具有更强的现实意义。文章通过皖江示范区中合肥市庐江县流出人口现状的描述及庐江县政府在流出人口管理中成绩和问题的总结，探索流出人口管理的新途径。     

Determinants of sustainable mode choice in different socio-cultural contexts: A comparison of Rome and San Francisco

This paper is a part two of a study investigating the relative importance of the built environment, socio-demographic, and attitudinal factors on mode choice. A semi-experimental approach that aims to measure causal effects of the built environment is utilized. This paper reports spatial analysis, survey and modeling results for San Francisco, CA, USA and compares the results with a previous similar study in Rome, Italy. Results reveal that the local street network's integration is important in both cities and that in both cases built environment seems to have higher impact on mode choice than attitudes and socio-demographic factors. Built environment is especially impactful when diversity, design quality, density and syntactical accessibility are combined. In San Francisco willingness to spend time walking, biking or taking transit is lower than in Rome, and residents are more sensitive to concerns about safety and security. Work travel is more affected by demographic and attitudinal factors in San Francisco than in Rome implying that in San Francisco, nonwork travel behavior may have slightly higher potential to respond positively to improvements in the built environment than work trips. In Rome, peer pressure, cost sensitivity, and probiking attitude can compensate for lack of some built environmental characteristics, but not in San Francisco, where only protransit attitude has this effect. Moreover, lack of any built environmental characteristics reduces the possibility of sustainable mode choice more dramatically in San Francisco pointing to the higher importance of investments on improving the built environment rather than marketing efforts to change attitudes.     

苏南现代化建设示范区经济、人口与社会医疗保险——以常熟市居民基本(农村合作)医疗保险为例

经济社会发展、人口老龄化和现代化社会医疗保险制度建设的关系,是当前苏南现代化社会医疗保险制度建设的重大课题。文章基于对常熟市居民基本(农村合作)医疗保险的研究,发现:政策延续与经济发展是以常熟市为代表的苏南现代化建设示范区社会医疗保险制度建设取得改革发展先机的重要因素;持续加深的人口老龄化程度对社会医疗保险基金安全和补偿支出结构的负面冲击已经逐步显现;提高补偿标准和改革支付方式在一定程度上优化了参保居民就诊结构,增强了社会医疗保险的宏观经济保障能力,但长期对提高社会医疗保险制度的宏观经济保障能力的作用非常有限。基于以上研究发现,提出政策建议:通过吸纳外来务工人员以优化参保人群年龄结构是解决人口老龄化挑战的关键;重视疾病预防,特别是慢性病早期预防,加强多部门疾病预防协同合作是应对人口老龄化的重要措施。     

The impacts of population and agglomeration development on land use intensity: New evidence behind urbanization in China

The impacts of population growth and agglomeration development on urbanization are complex. They cannot be effectively disentangled by simple fixed-effect regression analyses. This study introduces the land use intensity (LUI) metric to measure urbanization, and further applies quantile and threshold regression models to examine the impacts of population (POP) and agglomeration development (AGD) on land use intensity using a sample of 297 Chinese cities. The results reveal the heterogeneous effects that POP and AGD have on LUI. Variation is also observed in the effects of POP and AGD on LUI by POP/AGD intervals. As POP increases, its pressure on LUI increases. In contrast, the accumulative effects of development are beneficial in restraining overdevelopment of land resources within a specific range. The findings suggest that understanding complex human and development effects provides valuable insights, references, and implications for urban development and land use policies, which can guide cities with greater potential land development space in reducing the risk of unsustainable urbanization. Policies are recommended for ecological construction, city grouping, and sustainable land use.     

休闲旅游农庄水生态承载极限研究——以四川省为例

随着生活水平的提高,人们越来越向往绿色生态的生活方式,然而,生态环境已经伴随着经济的发展不断恶化,水资源利用也逐渐偏离可持续发展理念。文章以可利用水资源量、人口和城镇化、农业用水、生态环境用水作为关键因素构建了休闲旅游农庄的水生态承载极限定量计算模型。通过对主要部门用水量和相关指标数据调查和总结,根据定量模型计算结果显示,总体看,四川省水生态承载能力足以维持远景规划,其中,成都平原、四川盆地、川东平行领谷区、川中丘陵区、川西高原等5个地区的水生态承载力分别为15 628万人、10 215万人、8 301万人、5 504万人、4 809万人。     

关于构建科学合理的区域人口长寿评价指标体系的尝试

人类社会的长寿水平与其生存发展的生态环境、社会经济等因素有着十分密切的联系。本项研究从影响区域人口长寿的诸多因素出发，用定性与定量相结合的系统分析方法，筛选出若干主要影响因素，采用多指标综合评价的方法，通过权重的量化处理，构建出了一个具有国际通用性的区域人口长寿指数，用以评估各区域的人口长寿化水平。     

Future shock: mega-events in Rio de Janeiro

In preparation for the mega-events of 2014 and 2016, the city of Rio de Janeiro has been going through a permanent shock of agenda, characterised by important urban reengineering projects, population removal and favela (shanty town) pacification. This essay explores the Rio of (sports and other) mega-events and questions the place of the social, in a paradigm marked by futurism and by techno-culture that may be announcing a new political economy: the political economy of mega-events.     

Is the high school dropout rate an increasing function of the proportion of the population in the US cities that is Hispanic? Exploratory evidence

This empirical note seeks to provide preliminary insights into factors that may have influenced the high school dropout rate in the US cities. For some 300-plus cities for the year 2011, OLS estimates reveal that the dropout rate is a decreasing function of both the per cent of the population that is Hispanic and per pupil public education spending at the elementary and secondary levels. In addition, the estimates find that the dropout rate is an increasing function of the per cent of the population that consisted of families with children and that was classified as being at or below the poverty level and the per cent of the population aged 25 years and older that did not have a high school diploma.     

基于优胜劣汰原理的3D打印技术种群演进机理

基于生态学的优胜劣汰原理,应用演化博弈的动态复制方程分析具有竞争关系的两个3D打印技术种群的博弈问题。结果表明:处于同一技术生态系统环境中的两种竞争性3D打印技术种群,由于争夺的资源有限和市场相同,因此博弈中只有具有技术优势的3D打印技术种群才能最终生存下来。