Research on the Spatial–Temporal Changes of Regional Morphology of Residential Neighborhoods in County-Level Cities of China: Cases Studies on Qingcheng County, Wu’an City, Changxing County, Lianjiang County, and Jintang County

Abstract

The extensive growth in most Chinese cities at the expense of local identities of living settlement. Taking the 60 residential neighborhoods in county-level cities of varied climate zones in China as examples, this paper explores their spatial–temporal changes and differences in morphology, based on 12 morphological indicators through Principal Component Analysis and correlation analysis by ArcGIS 10.2, SPSS 22, and Origin 2021. The results show that 1) the construction dating of the 60 sample neighborhoods conforms to the development of China’s housing reform; 2) the spatial morphology of residential neighborhoods in county-level cities of different climate zones could be charaterized by 5 factors, i.e. neighborhood shape, development intensity, neighborhood size, layout order, and aggregation degree; 3) the disparities in the spatial morphology of residential neighborhoods in the same climate zone in different period of time are mostly indicated with 3 morphological indicators, i.e. Building Density, Neighborhood Area, and Green Space Ratio; rather, the morphology of residential neighborhoods built during a same period of time varies largely between climate zones, mainly indicated with Green Space Ratio, Degree of Building Angle Disorder, and Degree of Building Distance Disorder; and 4) China’s housing policies, climatic conditions, residential building patterns, and the urbanization of each city together influence the spatial–temporal changes in the spatial morphology, offering references to policy making, planning, and construction to protect the regional characteristics in the future.

Keywords

Spatial Morphology / County-Level Cities in China / Residential Neighborhoods / Regional Differences / Principal Component Analysis / Correlation Analysis

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2021 Higher Education Press