Habitat International 53 (2016) 87e96

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Habitat International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/habitatint

An evaluation model for urban carrying capacity: A case study of

China's mega-cities
Yigang Wei a, b, Cui Huang b, *, Jing Li c, Lingling Xie d
a

School of Economics and Management, Beihang University, Beijing, China

School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
c
Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
d
Institute of Management Science and Engineering, Guangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanning, China
b

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 14 April 2015
Received in revised form
27 October 2015
Accepted 28 October 2015
Available online 23 November 2015

China experienced unprecedented urbanization development in the last two decades. During the rapid
urbanization, cities have been attracting large population inows from rural areas, and concentrating a
wide range of social and economic activities. However, an over-concentration of population and human
activities has lead to severe and diverse challenges for sustainable urban development, such as environmental degradation, poor infrastructure, and inadequate public services etc. Against this backdrop,
concepts within urban carrying capacity (UCC) have received growing attention. It provides local government and urban planners key conceptual underpinnings to improve urban sustainability. However,
there remain huge ambiguities in its denitions, implications, particularly measurable indicators, and
analytic procedures. These deciencies signicantly hamper the effective implications of UCC concepts in
routine urban management. Using the mean variance analysis method, this paper aims to establish an
integrated UCC analytic framework to improve decision-making on sustainable urban land use and
development. 30 representative indicators drawn from literature are selected to systematically evaluate
the UCC conditions. 30 provincial capital cities and municipalities in China are selected as data sample.
The results reveal several important ndings. First, there exists a positive link between the city scale and
UCC. Second, this exists a geographical pattern that costal cities have a high UCC than the central and
western regions. Third, infrastructural and environmental factors are of salient weights in evaluating the
UCC. Through the broad validations in China's mega-cities, this system has demonstrated capabilities of
simplifying, appropriately quantifying, and evaluating the complex process of urban planning and
management towards sustainability.
2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords:
Urban carrying capacity
China's mega-cities
Sustainability
Urban planning and management
Urban land use

1. Introduction
Urbanization has been an important feature in the process of
human development all throughout history. This trend is often
associated with a sweeping population migrating from the countryside to the cities (McKinsey Global Institute, 2011). Onishi (1994)
summarized three features of a city that can attract a large population in a densely developed area. First is the centrality of public
administration and private decision-making. For example, the
centrality of decisions in peripheral regions signicantly reduces
the communication costs. Second is security for urban residents'

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: cui_huang@163.com (C. Huang).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.10.025
0197-3975/ 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

daily livings and commercial opportunities. And the third is higher

efciency, due to a benet of relatively easier cooperation and
concentration of various factors of production. From a resident's
perspective, these incentivizing features guarantee clear advantages for living and doing business, relative to rural or suburban
areas. Therefore, attracted by the richer economic opportunities
that cities can provide, people migrate from the rural areas to cities
in search of better lives. Particularly in the last two centuries, cities
with fast advancements in economy, technology, and transport,
have contributed to unparalleled afuence and far better lives than
the rural areas of many countries. Nowadays, the urbanization
process has been increasing across the world. According to data
from the United Nations, a new city with 1.3 million inhabitants will
be built every week for the next four decades (Bentham, 2014).
Meanwhile, rapid urbanization forms an important impetus for

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Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 53 (2016) 87e96

economic growth (Li & Yao, 2009). Therefore, urban areas are of
signicant importance for the society since a large population and
substantial social and economic activities are concentrating there.
China is currently at the stage of rapid urbanization. Heikkila
and Xu (2013) have systematically analyzed the history, incentives, and means by Chinese government to promote the
development of urbanization. They argued that the Chinese government holds a pro-urbanization stance, i.e., the government is
proactively guiding and controlling this unprecedented urbanization process. Promoting urbanization is not an end in and of itself,
but to serve the strategic goals of the government. Urbanization is a
centrally important step in China's reform and opening up and
socioeconomic development plans because the government treats
it as a strategy for driving economic growth (Heikkila & Xu, 2013).
China's present urbanization rate remains low and is not compatible with its per capita income level (World Bank, 2014). The Chinese government has thus committed to signicantly promoting
the urbanization in the next two to four decades. World Bank
predicts that China's urbanization rate will increase consistently
from the current 50%e70% by 2030 (World Bank, 2014).
Backed by strong government willpower, China's urbanization
has been encouraged to grow on a fast and unprecedented scale. In
the past 35 years, China's urbanization increased rapidly from less
than 20% in 1978 to 52% in 2012, much faster than that of the U.S.
and U.K., although slightly slower than the rates of Japan and South
Korea from the same development phrases (World Bank, 2014).
Fig. 1 compares the urbanization process in China and U.S. The incremental population in China's urban areas will reach 425.53
million from 2000 to 2030, compared with 93.13 million new urban
residents in U.S. in the same period, meaning that China's new city
dwellers will far exceed the total U.S. population.
With the fast-paced urbanization process, continuous congregation of larger population, urban services, production, consumption, and social wealth have been occurring in most cities around
the world. However, these factors have made cities vulnerable in
terms of achieving sustainable development and providing
comfortable living standards for urban inhabitants (Chen, Tao, &
Zhang, 2009). A host of urban symptoms induced by excessive
population inows and overdevelopment of the urban areas have
been emerging and growing more severe (Abernethy, 2001; Oh,
Jeong, Lee, Lee, & Choi, 2005). Due to the worsening living environments in urban areas, particularly in mega-cities, concerns
related to the urban carrying capacity (UCC) concept have often
been voiced when debating whether the current rate of urban
development has exceeded inherent limit of the city (Wei, Huang,
Lam, & Yuan, 2015). The issue of overladen urban carrying capacity has become a widespread challenge, despite the immensity and
variety of global cities (Oh et al., 2005; Onishi, 1994).
Currently, China has 288 cities categorized at the prefectural

levels or above. According to the CEIC database in 2013, there have

been 31 cities with a population of 2e4 million, and 14 cities with a
population over 4 million. According to the Green Book of Small and
Medium-sized Cities released in 2010, cities with a population of
3e10 million are dened as mega-city in China. Since the megacities have been the highest concentrated areas of people and human activities, resources, and environmental pollution (Liu, 2012),
they are thus more prone to the issues of overloaded UCC than
small and medium cities. Thus, the mega-city is especially subjective to the occurrence of various urban diseases, reected in a
degrading environment, poor infrastructure, and insufcient public
services, etc. Hence, to develop a reliable UCC evaluation model is of
strategic importance to China's sustainable development. The
government has understood the importance of promoting urban
sustainability as a priority policy objective. The phrase urban
carrying capacity improvement, which has been permeating ofcial documents and regulations, has been fully institutionalized in
national development planning and policies (see Table 1).
Sustainable urban development may be dened as a process of
synergetic integration and co-evolution among the great subsystems making up a city (economic, social, physical and environmental), which guarantees the local population a non-decreasing
level of wellbeing in the long term, without compromising the
possibilities of development of surrounding areas and contributing
by this towards reducing the harmful effects of development on the
bio-sphere (Camagni, 1998, p.4). Progressing sustainability is
essential responsibility for urban planning and development. The
UCC concept provides a useful theoretical foundation and methodological base for guiding sustainable urban development. According to the UCC concept, there is a certain inherent limit on a
given urban area, beyond which will lead to irrecoverable changes,
degradation or damages to the environment (Liu & Borthwick,
2011). Therefore, a UCC assessment can provide an indication on
the maximum potential population, and also serve as an important
guide to the service load of the region, which should be maintained
above a specied/minimal/acceptable standard (Summers, 2004).
UCC has become a popular term in the eld of urban planning
and management, environmental, and social studies. However,
there remain huge ambiguities on its denitions, implications, and
particularly, its measurable indicators and evaluative methods. The
elusiveness surrounding UCC concept is mainly attributed to the
integrative elements and properties associated with urban development. These problems become inhibitors for the effective implications of UCC concept in routine urban management and
planning. This study aims to develop an effective UCC evaluation
framework to ll the gap of previous studies. The evaluation model
can systematically assess the present state of UCC and identify its
decient factors. The applicability of the model is then widely
demonstrated in China's 30 mega-cites. This research is of

Fig. 1. Comparisons on urban-rural population in China and the U.S. Source: http://www.unhabitat.org/stats/Default.aspx (Accessed on 14 November 2013).

Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 53 (2016) 87e96

89

Table 1a
Milestones of UCC improvement in national policy and regulations.
Year Policy and regulations

Contents

2010 The 12th Five-year Plan

The 12th Five-year Plan explicates the requirements for improving the comprehensive UCC, i.e. increasing
population density, avoiding excessive urban sprawls, optimizing land use structures, remedying various
urban diseases, improving the urban service and infrastructure, strengthening city management,
promoting ecological and humanistic environment, etc.
2006 The 11th Five-year Plan
The 11th Five-year Plan raised the detailed requirements for China's urbanization i.e. to promote urban
comprehensive carrying capacity. The plan addresses that the scale and layout of urban development
should be scientically designed, consistent to natural carrying capacity (such as water and land resources,
environmental endowments, geological conditions), economic development, employment potentials, and
urban services and infrastructure.
2005 Notications on strengthening formulation, examining, In January 2005, the Ministry of Construction require the local government to improve the comprehensive
and approval of urban master plan.
UCC, by addressing the main tasks including resource conservation, ecological construction, and key
infrastructure projects.

Table 1b
Criteria for indicator selection.
Items

Contents

i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
vii.
viii.

Scientic accuracy, operability, hierarchy, completeness and dynamic (Yu & Mao, 2002, p.181).
Representative and sensitive to the state of present conditions.
Direct link between human's impacts and their causing activities and events (Button, 2002).
Rich policy implications for forecasting the trends of changes.
Offering a meaningful ground for testing the relevant theories.
Avoiding the repetitive information due to the inclusion of too many indicators.
Reliably measurable and quantiable (Button, 2002; Graymore et al., 2010).
Ensuing the uniformity and consistency of indicators across different city prototypes (Button, 2002).

important theoretical and practical implications.

3. Relationships between UCC and urban sustainability

2. Development of the carrying capacity concept

There has been no consensus on the denitions of sustainability

or sustainable development. The World Commission on Environment and Development dened sustainable development as
meeting the needs of current generations without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World
Commission on Environment Development, 1987, p.8). Achieving
sustainable urban development is an ultimate goal that planners,
city managers, and residents seek. Thus, the task for addressing the
present needs without compromising regenerative capacity to
meet the demand raises a great challenge for planners and city
managers (World Commission on Environment Development,
1987). Integrating sustainability concepts in the realms of environmental, social and economic concerns have played a centrally
important role in the formulation of urban management decision
and policies (Button, 2002). Organizations such as the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), the
World Trade Organization (WTO) have proposed various indicators
for assessing the status of sustainable development (Oh et al.,
2005). These indicators, as suggested by various organizations,
primarily focus on the natural environment such as air, water,
forest, and biodiversity and have yet adequately considered other
more comprehensive factors (Oh et al., 2005). In general, the
concept of sustainability often leads to substantial confusions, and a
need to understand how such a growth limit can be dened and
identied.
The concept of carrying capacity encompasses sustainability.
Sustainability is a necessary and sufcient condition for a population to be at or below carrying capacity (Daily & Ehrlich, 1996,
p992). For achieving sustainability, carrying capacity assessment is
an important yardstick to gauge the level and state of urban sustainability (Sarma et al., 2012), and thus to better guide urban
development. The carrying capacity concept also provides valuable
evaluation methods and measurable indicators for assessing

Carrying capacity is conventionally expressed as the number of

individuals that a standard area of land can support over a long
period of time, in ecological studies. According to the logistic
growth model, animal population growth can be constrained to an
upper asymptote, i.e., the carrying capability. It suggests that there
exists a nite carrying capability for a given species, either the
optimum or maximum, and being close to this optimum level of
population density is secure for their future survival and proliferation (Campbell, 1998). An excessive population growth exceeding
this limit leads to dramatic negative impacts, manifested as overcrowding and shortages of foods (Campbell, 1998). Therefore, the
carrying capacity concept provides guidance for a sustainable size
in population relative to the supporting ecosystem.
Likewise, there may exist a maximum or optimum level of
population size for the human society (Campbell, 1998). Thomas
Malthus rstly proposes human carrying capacity concept. It is
dened as the total size of human population that the earth or a
region can sustain without destroying the natural, cultural, and
social environment and damaging the perpetuity of future carrying capacity (Abernethy, 2001, p9; Wei et al., 2015). Natural endowments are also vitally important for human carrying capacity.
For example, economic activities rely on the natural capitals
including the ecological services and natural resources. The
excessive use of natural capital beyond the regenerative capacity
will lead to the depletion in natural capital stock. Sustainability
necessitates humanity development within the world's biosphere
regenerative capacity. Ecological carrying capacity only considers
natural resources as a primary dimension for understanding carrying capacity. However, human carrying capacity concept consists
of more mad-made and complex factors such as social, economic,
cultural etc. aspects, making it different from the ecological carrying capacity.

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Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 53 (2016) 87e96

sustainability of a region (Baldwin, 1985; Liu & Borthwick, 2011).

Graymore, Sipe, and Rickson (2010) support the recognition of
carrying capacity as a sustainable threshold. If the population
exceeds this threshold of carrying capacity, it leads to negative
impacts on the integrity, function, productivity, and resilience of
the social, economic, and ecological supporting systems (Graymore
et al., 2010; Yue, Tian, Liu, & Fan, 2008), and the damage could be
irreversible and even calamitous. UCC helps determine the optimal
level of population growth and urban development that the environment in a specied locality can support without degrading longterm sustainability. It also reminds the society to what extent
natural and man-made resources, in terms of quantity and quality,
should be adequately maintained above a specied standard.
Fig. 2. The components of UCC.

4. Determining components of UCC

The UCC concept derives from the above-mentioned carrying
capacity theories, but with a special focus on the urban setting. UCC
is of practical signicance for urban sustainable development. For
example, Onishi (1994) argued that a city cannot expand innitely,
but has limits on population and economic activities, alongside
with which the citizens can utilize urban facilities and services
comfortably (p. 40). Intuitively, a city with a higher UCC leads to
its residents love to live in and take pride in being part of it, where
the environment makes its residents physically, spiritually, and
culturally devoted to the city (Wang, 2013, p.13). Some researchers
have attempted to provide clear denitions of UCC. Onishi (1994),
for example, dened UCC as human activities engaged in the city at
a comfortable level. Since comfort is difcult to be judged objectively, UCC can be more precisely dened as an adequate supply of
man-made and natural resources for demands of the public (Onishi,
1994). Likewise, Joardar (1998) and Oh et al. (2005) mainly pay
attention to the physical or infrastructural factors of a city by
assessing them against acceptable norms and standards.
Sustainable development necessitates harmonious and
balanced relationship among natural resources, bio-ecology, demographic growth, and human socioeconomic activities. As a
yardstick for measuring urban sustainability, UCC is also a multidimensional assessment (Jin, Xu, & Yang, 2009). However, previous denitions, either focusing on infrastructure or urban ecology,
seem fragmented and incomplete (Sarma et al., 2012; Summers,
2004; Tan, Shi, & Sun, 2008). This study adopts the denition of
UCC as the limits of sustainable urban development from the
perspective of ve determining components: infrastructure and
urban services, environmental impacts and natural resources,
public perception,1 institutional setting, and society supporting
capacity2 (Wei et al., 2015) (See Fig. 2). The measurable criteria for
each dimension respectively are sufcient and well-maintained
infrastructure and urban service, green environment and endurable resource uses, perceptual (both psychological and visual)
satisfaction, institutional viability, economic afuence.

5. Limitation of existing literature

Through an extensive literature review, the limitation of the
previous study is summarized as follows:

1
Public perception refers to the behavioral psychology perceived by the urban
residents, such as senses, attitudes, anticipations etc. towards the overall improvements of the urban settings.
2
Society supporting capacity is dened as the economic, scal and technological
capacity of a society to improve its UCC by means of proactive investment.

Yue et al. (2008) proposed a general denition of carrying capacity as the maximum population of human, livestock, or wild
animals that can be supported indenitely without generating
permanent damage to the earth. Presently, based on different
underlying theories and emphasis, carrying capacity studies
have been conducted in ve research strands: tourism/recreational carrying capacity,3 safety or disaster carrying capacity4
(e.g. Chen et al., 2009), ecological carrying capacity,5 human
carrying capacity6 (Graymore et al., 2010), and UCC (Li et al.,
2009; Liu, 2012; Oh et al., 2005; Onishi, 1994; Sarma et al.,
2012). An integration of these above analytical dimensions is
necessarily important to establish a complete UCC evaluation
framework for city managers. However, this has yet been
appropriately addressed.

Current UCC related studies have been conducted alongside two
strands (Liu, 2012), either concentrating on the single factor
carrying capacity of a limited resource such as water and land, or
focusing on the comprehensive carrying capacity by encompassing the economic, ecological, and social aspects of human
activities. Currently, researchers have paid more attentions to
the physical factors during UCC assessment, particularly
focusing on infrastructure, pollution, and resources availability,
but leaving socio-economic and institutional factors out of the
analysis. Therefore, single carrying capacity can only provide
partial understandings of urban sustainability. A comprehensive
perspective is adopted in this study. Comprehensive UCC should
completely cover all aspects of economy, environment and society (Liu, 2012). How to coordinate the relationships between
various UCC elements while ensuring their consistent improvements is an important issue.

Traditional economic disciplines are limited in scope for integrating the environmental components and ecological signicance into the economy (Pillet & Odum, 1984). The
environmental components, unlike their economic counterparts

3
Tourism carrying capacity focuses on the negative impacts of tourisms on the
destinations from ecological, physical, and experiential aspects.
4
With the fast urbanization pace, continuous congregation of population, urban
services, production and wealth have been occurring in most cities of the world,
and these factors make those cities vulnerable when sudden disasters happen
(Chen et al., 2009). Disaster carrying capability refers to the capacity of a city or
region to predict, prevent, rescue, or recover from disasters and accidents (Guo &
Liu, 2003). These disasters and accidents broadly include natural disasters, industrial accidents, and public health and social safety incidents (Chen et al., 2009,
p.50).
5
Based on biometric perspective, ecological carrying capacity speculated on the
probable maximum number of species a specic region could indenitely support.
6
Human carrying capacity refers to the maximum scale of human's consumptions of renewable resources, which can be indenitely supported without causing
irreversible damage to a dened region.

Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 53 (2016) 87e96

such as human labors and capital investment, are usually not

valued their true worth by the economy and the market
(Campbell, 1998). Since the neglect of real value by the market,
ecological systems that contribute to the creation of products
and services are vulnerable to depletion without supplementary
or remedial provisions being made for their consequent
replacement and rehabilitation (Campbell, 1998; Repetto, 1992).
However, as summarized by Oh et al. (2005), current related
studies primarily focus on environmental dimension, rather
than a holistic perspective integrating socioeconomic, environmental, and institutional lenses.

Current UCC assessment studies seem rather subjective and
rudimentary, while the complexities involved require a more
scientic and objective means. The existing literature still lacks
of quantitative-based framework for UCC assessment. There are
three key reasons for the scarcity of empirical studies. First,
carrying capacity assessment is both a quantitative and qualitative study (Summers, 2004). The highly subjective attributes
makes it particularly impossible to quantify and calculate in any
accurate way (Sarma et al., 2012). Second, assessment on the
UCC is complicated by the numerous factors, large varieties of
natural and man-made resources, etc. Third, UCC assessment
should ideally address the variability in technology, institutions,
and human lifestyle (Sarma et al., 2012).

91

From a different classication perspective, Beijing, Shanghai, and

Guangzhou are rst-tier cities. They are the most economically
developed cities in China. The rest are second-tier cities, which are
of signicant importance to the associated regions and provinces in
terms of economic, social, political aspects. This study uses the data
of 2011, which is sourced from published consensus, including the
China City Statistical Yearbook 2012, China Statistical Yearbook For
Regional Economy 2012, and the China Urban Construction Statistical
Yearbook 2011.

6.2. Research process

Fig. 4 illustrates the procedure for the development of UCC

6. Data and research methodology

6.1. Data and investigated cities
This study evaluates the UCC conditions of 30 provincial capital
cities and municipalities in China. Fig. 3 provides the geographic
positions of the cities investigated. The four municipalities consist
of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing. They are directly
governed by the central government in the administrative order.

Fig. 3. Map of Chinese cities investigated.

Fig. 4. Research procedure.

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Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 53 (2016) 87e96

evaluation model. It mainly consists of three steps i.e. indicators

selection, evaluation method determination, and data processing.
6.3. Indicator selection
In general, various estimate techniques have demonstrated in a
general ways that some determining factors are involved. For a
critical analysis, several rules for variables selection is determined
through literature review (See Table 1). Based on the selection
principles, 56 indicators were originally selected. Then, in reference
to expert consulting and a correlation test, a nal 30 indicators
were developed into an evaluation system. The system consists of
ve subcategories of variables, i.e., economic, resources, environmental, infrastructural, and transportation. Due to the important
role of transportation for a mega-city, this study separates transportation from infrastructure as an individually focused analytical
dimension.
6.4. Research methodology

Table 3
The major methods for determining indicator weights.
Subjective-based

Objective-based

A$J$Klee method
Delphi
Analytical Hieratical Process (AHP)

Deviation method
Mean-Variance Analysis
Principle Components Analysis (PCA)
BP Neutral Network

methods, such as Analytical Hieratical (AHP), Principle Components

Analysis (PCA), etc. (See Table 3). These methods can be classied
into either subjective or objective-based approach. The main advantages and limitations of each quantitative method are compared
in Table 4. Generally, the results by objective-based methods will
not be affected by the whim or subjective opinions of the investigated individuals, and therefore leads to objective estimation results. To select the appropriate evaluation method, the rationales
and features of sustainable urban development should be considered. The methodology should be effective in identifying the
determining limitation of urban sustainability, and be useful to

Related studies have provided a wide range of evaluation

Table 2
Indicator system.
Sector

Indicators & unit

Attributes

Data source

Economic

X1-Urban registered unemployment rate (%)

X2-Per capita disposable income of urban households
X3-Per capita Fiscal income (Yuan)
(X3 Fiscal income/population)
X4-Per capita GDP (Yuan)
X5-Annual GDP growth rate
X6- Per capita water supply (ton):
(X6 Total water supply of urban districts/total urban population)
X7-Per capita daily domestic water consumption (liter)
X8-Per capita constructive land (m2)
(X8 urban constructive land/total urban population)
X9-Per capita gas supply (m3)
(X9 Total gas supply in urban districts/total urban population)
X10-Per capita domestic electricity consumption (kwh)
(X10 Total domestic electricity consumption in urban districts/total urban population)
X11- industrial wastewater discharged per 10,000 Yuan GRP (ton)
(X11 Total volume of industrial wastewater discharged*10,000/GRP)
X12- industrial CO2 emissions per 10,000 Yuan GDP (kg)
(X12 Total volume of industrial CO2 emissions*10,000/GRP)
X13-The ratio of industrial solid waste which is comprehensively utilized
X14- The ratio of sewage treated (%)
X15-Living garbage treatment rate
X16-The number of days with air quality above Grade-2 standard per years
X17-Per capita green area (m2)
(X17 Green areas of urban district/urban population)
X18-Green coverage rate of urban built-up areas (%)
X19-Number of hospital beds per 10,000 persons:
(X19 Total hospital beds*10,000/total population)
X20-Per capita oor space of urban residents (m2)
X21- The density of drainage pipe in urban built-up areas (km/km2)
X22-water access rate (%)
X23-gas access rate (%)
X24-Number of Internet per 10,000 persons (user)
(X24 Urban Internet users*10,000/total population)
X25- Number of mobile phone users per 10,000 persons (user)
(X25 Urban mobile phone*10,000/total population)
X26-Number of xed telephone users per 10,000 persons (user):
X26 Urban xed telephone users*10,000/total population
X27-Number of bus per 10,000 persons (unit)
X28-Number of private cars per 10,000 persons (unit):
X28 Number of private cars*10,000/total population
X29-Per-capita urban road areas (m2)
X30- Highway density (km/km2):
X30 Length of highway/land area

a
a
b

b
b
b

c
b

b
c
c
b
b

b
b

a
c
c
c
b

d
a

b
a

Resources

Environmental

Infrastructural

Transport

Note: a refers to data sourced from China Statistical Yearbook for Regional Economy 2012; b refers to data sourced from China City Statistical Yearbook 2012; c refers to data
sourced from the China Urban Construction Statistical Yearbook 2011; d refers to data sourced from (Liu, 2012); indicates benet indicator that is the bigger the better; indicates cost indicator that is the bigger the worse.

Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 53 (2016) 87e96

93

Table 4
The pros and cons of qualitative-based approaches.
Approach

Strength

Delphi

Expert's experience and opinions are solicited by means of brainstorming.

AHP
Principle
Components
Analysis (PAC)
BP Neutral Network
Mean-Variance
Analysis

Limitations

The estimation results are highly subjective to

evaluators' judgments.
The method combines the qualitative and quantitative merits and provides a multi-dimensional Expert's opinions may subjectively affect the
analysis.
results.
The statistical methods can effectively summarize the multiple variables to a limited number of The evaluation relies on exigent data quality.
synthesized indices, and avoids the correlation among these indices.
The method leads to a mutual evolution process with relatively objective results reecting the real
state.
This method leads to high-accuracy estimation results and the underling rationales are easy for
understandings.

A large number of training sample data are

essential for appropriate evaluation.
The estimation results are sensitive to the
quality of historical data.

Note: A$J$Klee method is a derivative from AHP approach. The characteristics of A$J$Klee method are in reference to AHP.

improve the UCC. Table 4 summarizes the cons and pros of each
method. This study determines the weight of each individual indicator based on two basic principles regarding conceptual
framework and data quality: i) prefer objective-based approach to
subjective-based approach; ii) prefer a wider range of indicators/
indicator system to a few representative variables. Principle i) excludes the methods of Delphi and AHP, and Principle ii) excludes
the methods of PAC and BP Neutral Network. The Mean-Variance
Analysis method is thus chosen for its accessibility for a general
stakeholder of urban development and high-accuracy estimation
results.
6.5. Data processing




yij xij  xjmin = xjmax  xjmin

i 1; 2; 3; ; n; j

1; 2; 3; ; m

(1)




yij xjmax  xij = xjmax  xjmin
1; 2; 3; ; m
Note: xjmin and xjmin

i 1; 2; 3; ; n; j
(2)

respectively refers to the minimal value and maximal

value of Ij .

After the dimensionless processing, the conformity and consistency of data across different indicator units is ensured.
6.5.2. Mean variance analysis
This study uses the method of Mean Variance Analysis to
determine the relative weights of each individual indicator. The
analysis procedure consists of three steps (Equations (3)e(5)).

Sample mean:

Mean square error of Ij:

v
u n 

 uX

2
yij  E Ij
s Ij t

(4)

i1

,
n

 X


u4 s Ij
s Ij

(5)

j1

The aggregate weights of each hieratical levels are derived by

adding the weight coefcients of subcategory indicators (see
Table 5). The estimation results are derived by means of multiobjective linear weighting function as Equation (6):

RA w

m
X

yij ui

i 1; 2; 3::; n

(6)

i1

7. Results and discussion

For the group of cost indicators, data is transformed by

equation (2):

(3)

Weight coefcient of Ij:

6.5.1. Dimensionless standardization

The indicators are grouped into two types, i.e. benet indicators and cost indicators (see Table 2). The former refers to
the ones that result in improving carrying capacity with their
values increasing. Cost indicator is on behalf of deteriorating
carrying capacity with their values increasing, such as CO2 emission, wastewater discharged, etc. The rst step for data analysis is to
conduct the dimensionless standardization to remove the data
contamination issues due to different units indicators among
indicators.
For the group of benet indicators, data is transformed by
equation (1):

n



 1X
E Ij E Ij
y
n i1 ij

Table 5 shows the weights of the evaluative indicator system.

Among the ve key UCC subcategories, infrastructural and environmental aspectsdwith a statistical weight of 0.260 and 0.259
respectivelydare the most important determining factors, followed by resources and economic factors. Transportation has
lowest contribution to urban carrying capacity in our model.
7.1. Urban infrastructure
Urban infrastructure, such as utilities, communication, healthcare, amenity facilities, are essentially important for sustainable
urban development and comfortable resident's living. It is the basic
responsibility of the local government to provide versatile,
adequate, and well-maintained infrastructural facilities. Due to the
data limitation, this study only investigates healthcare (determined
by the number of hospital beds), housing, public utility, and
communication factors. Various age groups may have different
preferences regarding their infrastructure needs: the elderly may

94

Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 53 (2016) 87e96

Table 5
The weight of indicator system.
Sector

Evaluative areas

Indicators

Weight

Economic (0.177)

Employment (0.034)
Afuence (0.07)

X1-Urban registered unemployment rate (%)

X2-Per capita disposable income of urban households
X3-Per capita Fiscal income (Yuan)
X4-Per capita GDP (Yuan)
X5-Annual GDP growth rate
X6- Per capita water supply (ton)
X7-Per capita daily domestic water consumption (liter)
X8-Per capita constructive land (m2)
X9-Per capita gas supply (m3)
X10-Per capita domestic electricity consumption (kwh)
X11- industrial wastewater discharged per 10,000 Yuan GDP (ton)
X12- industrial CO2 emissions per 10,000 Yuan GDP (kg)
X13-The ratio of industrial solid waste which is comprehensively utilized
X14- The ratio of sewage treated (%)
X15-Living garbage treatment rate
X16-The number of days with air quality above Grade-2 standard per years
X17-Per capita green area (m2)
X18-Green coverage rate of urban built-up areas (%)
X19-Number of hospital beds per 10,000 persons
X20-Per capita oor space of urban residents (m2)
X21- The density of drainage pipe in urban built-up areas (km/km2)
X22-water access rate (%)
X23-gas access rate (%)
X24-Number of Internet per 10,000 persons (user)
X25- Number of mobile phone users per 10,000 persons (user)
X26-Number of xed telephone users per 10,000 persons (user)
X27-Number of bus per 10,000 persons (unit)
X28-Number of private cars per 10,000 persons (unit)
X29-Per-capita urban road areas (m2)
X30- Highway density (km/km2)

0.034
0.037
0.033
0.038
0.034
0.030
0.044
0.037
0.031
0.037
0.039
0.029
0.040
0.034
0.029
0.030
0.025
0.032
0.029
0.034
0.029
0.037
0.038
0.030
0.027
0.035
0.031
0.031
0.036
0.029

Resources (0.180)

Economic Scale (0.038)

Growth (0.034)
Water (0.074)
Land (0.037)
Energy (0.068)

Environmental (0.259)

Pollution (0.068)
Treatment (0.133)

Green (0.057)
Infrastructural (0.260)

Healthcare (0.029)
Housing (0.034)
Utility (0.104)

Communication (0.092)

Transport (0.126)

consider availability to healthcare services as most important. The

working population may prioritize housing conditions and public
utilities. Younger generations may be more dependent on
communication access than other age groups.
7.2. Environment
Environment is another important dimension for UCC monitoring
and evaluation. The environment is an envelope around human activities (Abernethy, 2001). The environment supplies essential inputs
to economic production and consumption, and also has to incorporate the waste generated. This study mainly focuses on the pollution
discharged and associated treatment effect by man-made phenomenon. Pollution indicators include the industrial wastewater and CO2
emission. Pollution treatment variables mainly consist of the treatment rates of various wastes. Green areas, recognized as an important environmental asset, are included in the evaluation.
7.3. Resource
Resource is also treated as a key subcategory in the UCC indicator evaluation system. Resources should not be exploited faster
than they are regenerated or produced. Resources in this study refer
to both the natural and man-made resources, including land, water,
energy, all crucial to the city development and the lives of urban
residents. Introducing the important concept of appropriated
carrying capacity is necessary. Appropriated carrying capacity
refers to import carrying capacity (i.e., resources) from remote
places to sustain the urban development of the destination city. In
this study, appropriated carrying capacity concept is considered.
For example, water, gas, and electricity supply are often partially
outsourced through domestic or even international trade. Beijing,
as a water-decient city, has to divert substantial water resources
for nearby regions. Therefore, to ensure sustained resources supply
and efcient utilization are two indispensable factors for

sustainable resource consumption.

7.4. Economics
The concept of UCC cannot be understood in isolation from
economic dimension of the urban environment. Economic vitality
and diversity is an essential feature of urban sustainability. The key
mission of the effective daily function of a city is to promote economic well-being, which ensures a high quality of life and is
fundamental for the capability of urban services and facilities
provision. Economic conditions in this study is systematically
represented by several areas of variables, such as employment,
afuence of the citizens, economic scale, and growth rate.
7.5. Transportation
Transportation is also investigated in the study. In terms of data
availability, buses represent public transportation; the conditions
of road and private cars are also taken into account.
8. Discussion and conclusions
Table 6 shows each city's rank in terms of their current UCC
conditions. Both the comprehensive UCC and individual UCC are
presented. Major ndings are as follows:
Firstly, Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shanghai are the
highest-ranking cities. Their high UCC is substantially supported by
their strong economic and infrastructural strength. For example,
although Beijing suffers from the poor transportation and a lack of
water resources, it performs best in terms of economic development. Strong economic capacity is fundamental for government to
proactively enhance UCC by means of direct investment and imported carrying capacity. In addition, economic afuence, as shown
by low unemployment rates and high disposable income of urban
household, can ensure the high material standards of living of the

Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 53 (2016) 87e96

95

Table 6
The UCC Ranks of mega-city in China.
Rank

UCC

Economic

Resources

Environmental

Infrastructural

Transport

Beijing
Guangzhou
Nanjing
Shanghai
Wuhan
Changsha
Shenyang
Urumqi
Jinan
Hefei
Hangzhou
Tianjin
Haikou
Chengdu
Changchun
Fuzhou
Nanchang
Taiyuan
Xian
Yinchan
Hohhot
Kunming
Shijiazhuang
Zhengzhou
Nanning
Harbin
Chongqing
Guiyang
Lanzhou
Xining

0.617
0.598
0.597
0.589
0.553
0.549
0.546
0.545
0.545
0.543
0.542
0.541
0.536
0.514
0.512
0.507
0.489
0.481
0.472
0.470
0.467
0.462
0.454
0.444
0.392
0.379
0.372
0.363
0.355
0.321

0.121
0.118
0.097
0.100
0.065
0.092
0.075
0.054
0.063
0.057
0.104
0.108
0.062
0.068
0.049
0.072
0.049
0.042
0.054
0.043
0.073
0.066
0.033
0.074
0.036
0.044
0.052
0.055
0.044
0.028

0.098
0.050
0.074
0.078
0.087
0.050
0.081
0.126
0.084
0.078
0.050
0.087
0.060
0.066
0.096
0.048
0.072
0.098
0.057
0.128
0.114
0.100
0.094
0.080
0.054
0.079
0.073
0.043
0.097
0.081

0.177
0.176
0.193
0.181
0.171
0.199
0.196
0.154
0.186
0.192
0.158
0.158
0.196
0.185
0.182
0.187
0.183
0.152
0.163
0.115
0.123
0.138
0.125
0.151
0.151
0.116
0.136
0.159
0.105
0.089

0.177
0.180
0.152
0.167
0.147
0.138
0.137
0.182
0.134
0.115
0.168
0.134
0.161
0.126
0.112
0.130
0.110
0.146
0.139
0.118
0.106
0.104
0.114
0.090
0.095
0.091
0.065
0.066
0.056
0.097

0.044
0.073
0.081
0.062
0.083
0.070
0.056
0.029
0.078
0.100
0.061
0.054
0.057
0.069
0.074
0.070
0.075
0.044
0.059
0.066
0.051
0.053
0.089
0.048
0.056
0.049
0.045
0.040
0.054
0.026

urban residents, even though it may also indicate higher work

pressure and longer working hours.
Secondly, cities in eastern regions generally have high UCC
rankings. Most of the low-ranked cities are located in central and
western parts of China. Eastern cities generally perform well in
terms of economic and infrastructural development, since they are
major beneciaries of reform and opening policies that were
initiated from the eastern coastal regions. In the strand of literature
on regional disparity, it is demonstrated that China's economic
inequality is attributed to various factors, i.e., favorable government
policy for coastal regions, unequal infrastructure development, labor market distortion, and imbalanced migration pattern. In recent
years, such disparity seems to be lessened due to the Chinese
government's Western Development Strategy (Fan & Sun, 2008).
However, our estimation suggests that UCC still bears a pattern
where coastal regions are more attractive to inland regions.
Whether the One Belt (Silk Road Economic Belt) and One Road
(21st Century Maritime Silk Road) projects will have signicant
impact on regional disparity in economic growth and infrastructure
development remains debatable, but labor markets and migration
patterns cannot be altered easily. Hence large cities located in the
eastern coastal regions would be rst choices for university graduates, rural and inland migrants to reside. And ironically, megacity
problems such as air pollution, trafc jams, and expensive housing
may persist in high-ranked UCC cities for the foreseeable future.
Thirdly, the study shows a positive link between the city scale
and UCC. By denition, UCC indicates how much a city can hold its
population, under a variety of economic, social and environmental
constraints. Although there is no causal relationship between city
scale and UCC by denition, our results suggest that the largest
cities, including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Wuhan (China's
four most densely populated cities, each with over 10 million
people) also rank in the top ve of the UCC evaluation. It is conjectured that a larger population scale leads to the more economic

and efcient human activities patterns: Larger cities tend to have

urban agglomeration effect, which increases labor demand for
high-tech or high-skilled workers. Better urban public infrastructure facilitates business activities and improves labor productivity
too, which contributes to the efcient operation of cities (Eberts &
McMillen, 1999). It is therefore not surprising that larger cities also
rank top in UCC, although the hazard of urban sprawl cannot be
ignored.
Fourth, environmental capacity has a salient impact factor in
evaluating a lively and attractive mega-city. According to Chen et al.
(2013), life expectancies in northern China (considered north of the
Huai River) are about 5.5 years lower than in southern China
(considered south of the Huai River), due to an increased incidence
of cardiorespiratory mortality caused by free provision of coal for
boilers for winter heating. Our model concurs that in terms of
environmental capacity, cities in southern China has 23% higher
average rate than cities in northern China. Indeed, industrial carbon
emission per 10,000 yuan GRP (ton) is in the north is on average
11% higher than in the south, thus exerting more negative impact
on environmental capacity. The number of days with air quality
above Grade 2 standard per years in the south is on average 27%
higher than that in the north.
In view of the individual subcategory rankings, several other
ndings appear as follows.
First, economic performance is an important determining factor
for UCC conditions. In general, economic strength shows a positive
relationship with UCC performance. Beijing shows the strong economic strength. It ranks the lowest in unemployment rate, the third
highest in average household disposable income, and the most
abundant in scal income per capita, although the GRP growth rate
is the lowest.
Second, in terms of resource carrying capacity, most of the topranked UCC cities do not have consistently high levels of resource
endowment. It suggests that the safe and adequate supply of

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Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 53 (2016) 87e96

resources is a short board for these high ranked mega cities.

Interestingly, some of the low-ranked cites shows a high level of
resource endowment. For example, Yinchuan and Hohhot, ranked
20th and 21st, have the highest and third highest resource capacity.
The imbalanced distribution between resource endowment and
UCC suggests low efciency in the allocation between natural
capital and human capital, a prevailing problem underlying China's
regional inequality. Although the central government has endeavored to attract capital ows from coastal to inland regions, most of
the money has poured into the real estate sector rather than industrial and manufacturing sectors. This capital ow trend generates a growing property bubble, which is featured by China's ghost
cities (marked by extremely high residential vacancy rates),
particularly in inland and western provinces. Since these inland
cities lack prosperous economic conditions and lag in UCC rankings,
it is difcult to attract prospective enterprises but easy to attract
speculators. This further lowers the efciency of capital allocation,
resulting in a chain of actions and reactions in which larger cities
become even larger while smaller cities become less competitive.
Third, in terms of transportation, Hefei performs best, which is
followed by Shijiazhuang and Wuhan. Beijing is ranked the forth
lowest. Although Beijing has the largest number of bus per pita and
a relatively high road density, the highest per capita private car
ownership leads to a deciency in road space and trafc congestions. Considering sustainable transportation strategy for a smart
city, the government could control the private car ownership and
encourage green and high-efciency carpooling at rst glance, and
propose different measures which t different cities: For middle
and small sized cities with lower work pace, reducing vehicle miles
travelled by car, promoting shorter distances and encouraging all
modes of transport such as walk and bicycling are feasible solutions. For large cities with an intense work pace, the technological
transition to low carbon emission transport system would not only
enhance the efciency of trafc regulation but also reduce air
pollutants.
The concept of sustainable urban development is receiving wide
recognition. The ndings in this study may assist city managers in
identifying problems and then in nding means to make improvements. Meager government investment and distribution of
resources should be more fairly invested in the sectors mentioned
above to improve the urban sustainability. This research still remains limited. The analytic dimensions mainly consist of the economic and physical aspects of UCC, due to the limits of available
data. Other important factors such as technological, institutional,
and perceptual factors have been rarely integrated. Future studies
should conduct wider investigations on the perceptual and institutional aspects of UCC when given an improvement in data
availability.
Acknowledgment
The rst author would like to thank the China Postdoctoral
Science Foundation (Grant No.: 2014M550755) and the Chinese
Academy of Engineering (Grant No.: 2013-XZ-25) for the nancial
support. The fourth author would like to thank Key Laboratory of
Carrying Capacity Assessment for Resource and Environment, the
Ministry of Land and Resources P.R.C for the nancial support
(Grant No.: CCA2015.06).
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