Editor's Notes: At present, an increasing number of metropolitan regions are planning second and even third airports, yet there remains a lack of well-established references to guide such efforts. Against this backdrop, the Perspectives and Debates section of this issue examines how to plan and develop multi-airport systems in a high-quality manner from multiple perspectives and offers policy-oriented insights. The first article explores the evolutionary modes and pathway choices of dual-nuclei aviation hubs and, from a strategic perspective, identifies the appropriate timing for the entry and development of new airports. Dual-nuclei aviation hubs (DAHs) represent a key form of the “one city, two airports” multi-airport system. There are currently 15 DAHs worldwide. Based on historical data from ten hubs with annual passenger throughput exceeding 50 million—including Beijing—this study identifies and synthesizes two evolutionary patterns of DAHs: the Parallel Evolution Model (PEM) and the Alternative Evolution Model (AEM). It further examines their development pathways and underlying mechanisms, providing decision-making references for the development of aviation hubs in China’s major metropolitan regions.
Editor's Notes: The second viewpoint article in this special issue focuses on development models, offering an in-depth discussion based on a review of international experiences in the evolution of multi-airport systems, and distilling key implications for China. Against the backdrop of sustained growth in aviation market demand, an increasing number of Chinese cities have acquired both the conditions and the need to develop multi-airport systems. However, developing of such systems faces critical challenges, including the precise functional positioning of multiple airports, differentiated route network planning, and efficient operational coordination. Taking five world cities—London, New York, Beijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo—as comparative case studies, this paper analyzes their multi-airport system development models from four perspectives: functional division of labor, air route network configuration, collaboration among operating entities, and infrastructure support. The findings indicate that these five cities have largely formed a pattern of synergistic and complementary multi-airport systems. Drawing on these international experiences, the paper proposes strategic recommendations for the planning and construction of China’s multi-airport systems along four dimensions: differentiated positioning, coordinated operations, integrated management, and orderly construction.
Editor's Notes: The third article in this special issue revisits a long-standing topic using new data, employing big data to address small questions. It explores the regularities underlying the catchment areas of multi-airport systems and passengers' airport choice, and on this basis puts forward development recommendations. Based on the market differentiation index, this study analyzes catchment competition patterns among hub airports in the Chengdu-Chongqing airport agglomeration. The research indicates that competition among hub airports exhibits a pattern of group competition and cooperation centered around cities. Competition is more intense among airports within the same metropolitan area, while the overlap of catchment areas between airports in Chengdu and Chongqing belonging to different metropolitan regions is relatively limited. Population size and distance from hinterland markets are key factors influencing passenger distribution within the multi-airport system. It is recommended to further clarify the development positioning of multi‑airport systems, strengthen both hard and soft connectivity between them to achieve a pattern of synergistic development.
Editor's Notes: The development of a multi-airport system (MAS) should not be confined to managing traffic flows but should also address how these flows can be effectively converted into local economic growth. Against this backdrop, the fourth article in this special issue reviews the spatial and socioeconomic effects of MASs and puts forward policy recommendations for the development of the MAS in Guangzhou from the perspective of airport hub-oriented economic development. With the goals of expanding domestic demand and boosting consumption, the potential of aviation hubs to promote consumption needs further exploration This paper reviews research on the economic development of aviation hubs from a consumption perspective and, combined with global airport practices, provides insights for Guangzhou to strengthen its role as a higher-level international comprehensive transportation hub, for the Guangzhou metropolitan area to advance the construction of the MAS, and for expanding the influence of Chinese culture. The Guangzhou metropolitan area can unleash its consumption potential by focusing on traffic agglomeration and consumption conversion at airport hubs, industrial agglomeration and consumption creation in airport-adjacent areas, and the integration of diverse business formats and innovation in consumption scenarios.
Editor's Notes: This article offers a theoretical lens of the politics of scale on Multi-Airport Systems (MAS), a core topic in transport geography, to further reflect on the spatial and governance logics of MAS planning and development. It serves as the culminating viewpoint in this special issue. Under the dual dynamics of the globalization of civil aviation and regional economic integration, the development of aviation hubs in megacities and their metropolitan regions has undergone a profound transition from single-airport models to MAS. MAS configuration should not be understood merely as a strategy of capacity expansion or hub redistribution. Rather, it functions as a cross-regional infrastructure governance arrangement that reproduces urban scales and regional power relations through the reorganization of airspace and route networks, the reconfiguration of accessibility, and the redistribution of environmental and social risks. Taking the Pearl River Delta Hub (Guangzhou New) Airport as a case study, this article scrutinizes how this cross-regional infrastructure reconfigures spatial relations and governance structures among Guangzhou, Foshan, and Zhaoqing. It argues that the “one city, two airports” arrangement reshapes multi-scalar relations among the national, regional, and local levels through airport infrastructure. While enhancing regional aviation service capacity, this arrangement may also generate asymmetries in power allocation, environmental risks, social risks, and cost–benefit distribution. In particular, the siting of Pearl River Delta Hub (Guangzhou New) Airport, the associated administrative boundary adjustment, and the reorganization of territorial governance reveal the potential tension between “upward concentration of benefits” and “downward displacement of risks” in the development of multi-airport systems. On this basis, the article suggests that MAS planning should move beyond a narrow logic of capacity expansion toward a more integrated governance approach. Future planning should further improve cross-regional benefit-sharing mechanisms, institutionalize noise mitigation and compensation, strengthen coordinated governance among airport systems, and enhance public participation. The article not only expands transport geography’s understanding of multi-airport systems, but also offers practical insights for airport system planning and cross-regional infrastructure governance in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Existing scholarship has inadequately integrated the needs of elderly and child-friendly street environments, with limited examination from the spatial justice perspective. To address this gap, this study constructs a comprehensive evaluation framework for street space resource allocation that balances fairness and inclusivity. Empirically, multi-source data integration is employed to develop an indicator system encompassing five dimensions: safety and stability, accessibility, comfort and health, ecological naturality, and social inclusiveness. Three case studies—Huaihe Road Pedestrian Street, Cuimei Road, and Huizhou Avenue in Hefei—are selected. Evaluation methods include field measurements, questionnaire surveys, street-view image semantic segmentation, and POI data analysis, and a combined weighting method is applied to calculate the composite index of elderly and child-friendly street spaces for each case.The evaluation results reveal structural disparities in the elderly and child-friendly levels across the three streets. Huaihe Road Pedestrian Street demonstrates distinct advantages in safety and social inclusiveness but exhibits prominent justice deficits in ecological quality and travel convenience. Cuimei Road, affected by micro-level disorder and coarse-grained management, shows significant justice deficits in management and quality dimensions. Huizhou Avenue prioritizes traffic efficiency, largely compromising human-scale rights, thereby creating a justice deficit at the level of basic rights. The needs of older people and children are characterized by “consensus on safety as a bottom line” and “divergence in higher-order demands.” Spatial justice requires not only equitable resource distribution but also attention to differentiated demands. Based on these findings, differentiated optimization strategies centered on “justice compensation” and “rights empowerment” are proposed for the three types of street spaces representative of commercial vitality, living services, and traffic circulation. This study provides theoretical and practical references for promoting the transformation of street spaces from efficiency-oriented to age-inclusive and justice-oriented in urban renewal.
The balanced allocation of primary school facilities is a crucial underpinning for ensuring equity in compulsory education and building a people-oriented city. The existing network of primary school facilities, formed during the era of incremental urban development, faces challenges such as insufficient service coverage and bidirectional imbalances between supply and demand amidst urban spatial expansion and dynamic demographic shifts. Taking Beijing as the empirical case, this study integrates spatial analysis and explainable machine learning techniques to systematically investigate the spatial differentiation patterns, core influencing mechanisms, and renewal optimization strategies regarding the supply imbalance of primary school facilities. The results indicate that: (1) The per capita supply level of primary schools in Beijing exhibits significant concentric gradient differentiation. This is characterized by structural mismatches in the core zone, overall insufficiency in the intermediate zone, and a polarization of shortages and local oversupply in the peripheral zone. (2) Factors across the four dimensions of population, land, transportation, and economy exert non-linear influences and threshold effects on facility supply, with micro-level land use patterns and development intensity acting as key variables for regulating the match between supply and demand. Accordingly, this paper constructs an optimization system that combines zonal differentiated regulation with multi-dimensional collaborative governance and proposes precise optimization strategies, providing a basis for the balanced allocation of urban primary school facilities.
Against the backdrop of the transition from increment-driven expansion to stock-based quality improvement, balancing physical urban regeneration with the preservation of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) has emerged as a critical challenge for sustainable urban development. Taking Shipai Village in Guangzhou as a case study, this research applies Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space to construct a ternary analytical framework, i.e., spatial practice, representations of space, and representational spaces. Using in-depth interviews and thematic analysis, this study investigates the mechanisms of the production of lion dance space within the context of urban village regeneration. The findings indicate that: (1) In terms of spatial practice, the retention of ancestral halls as core sites, along with daily training and festive parades, has facilitated the material continuity of the lion dance space. (2) Regarding representations of space, the policy guidance of local governments and the discursive construction by village collectives constitute the dominant power dynamics shaping the space. (3) Within representational spaces, the lion dance is deeply embedded in residents’ daily lives; through embodied transmission and emotional resonance, it reconstructs the identity and social networks of the inhabitants. This study reveals that the preservation of ICH in urban villages should shift from merely “protecting objects” to a systemic strategy of “preserving space, people, and practices.” The identified mechanism offers inclusive and sustainable insights for the micro-regeneration of high-density urban villages, contributing to the realization of the “People’s City”.
Ecosystem organization (EO) is a key indicator for evaluating the structural stability of ecosystems. However, variations in land classification scales may significantly influence the EO assessment results, and the optimal classification scale remains to be determined. This study aims to investigate the influence of classification scale on EO and to identify an appropriate scale for regional assessment. Using the Pearl River Delta (PRD) as the study area, seven land classification systems with different levels of detail (S1-S7) were constructed based on the China Land Resources Classification System. EO was evaluated at the municipal scale using a multi-dimensional framework, including landscape heterogeneity (LH), landscape connectivity (LC), and patch connectivity of important ecosystems (IC). The responses of these metrics to changes in classification scale were then analyzed. The results show that, as the classification scale becomes more generalized, LH continuously decreases, LC increases significantly at these more generalized scales, and IC shows a slight overall increase. Under the combined effects of these components, EO first decreases and then increases, with relatively lower values at intermediate scales and a recovery at more generalized scales. In addition, regional differences are evident: highly urbanized areas with fragmented landscapes exhibit greater sensitivity to scale changes, while regions with higher proportions of ecological land show relatively stable responses. Overall, land classification systems with a moderate level of generalization can effectively balance landscape information representation and assessment stability. The first-level classification of the China Land Resources Classification System (S4) is therefore recommended as the optimal scale for EO assessment in the PRD.
China’s industrial heritage represents a unique cultural legacy accumulated during the industrialization, exhibiting notable historical stages and spatial heterogeneity in its spatiotemporal evolution. To elucidate the spatiotemporal patterns of China’s industrial heritage and the mechanisms influencing its evolution, this study employs kernel density estimation, the center-of-gravity model, and a geographic detector to analyze the quantitative distribution, spatial evolution, clustering effects, and driving factors of industrial heritage. The results show: (1) In terms of quantitative distribution, a pronounced “two peaks and one trough” pattern emerges chronologically. The first peak formed between 1895 and 1917 alongside the rise of modern national industries. While a second peak emerged during the industrialization of New China from 1950 to 1980, whereas the period from 1937 to 1949 saw a low point due to the impact of war. In terms of typological structure, architectural relics are absolutely dominant, revealing a structural imbalance characterized by an overemphasizing on tangible assets and the neglect of intangible ones. (2) Spatially, industrial heritage followed a phased trajectory of “eastern rise and western expansion”. Early clusters formed along coastal ports in eastern China, leveraging institutional advantages to create belt-shaped concentrations centered on Shanghai and Guangzhou. Later phases saw gradual inland expansion driven by national strategies like the Industrial Salvation movement and Third Front Construction, completing a spatial restructuring from “port-hinterland to strategic depth”. (3) At the clustering effect level, industrial heritage underwent a macro-evolution from policy-driven high coastal concentration to strategic inland diffusion. Coastal core density surged significantly during the modern era, while the contemporary revival phase featured cluster-based distributions in the southwest and northwest regions. (4) Regarding influencing factors, economic sectors and foreign investment exert strong driving effects. Transportation networks and resource endowments constitute a synergistic natural-transportation dynamic. Policy-oriented investment growth variables and investments in cultural dissemination demonstrate moderate influence, while topographic conditions and highway mileage have relatively weaker impacts. The spatiotemporal evolution of industrial heritage is characterized by historical stages and spatial heterogeneity, and is driven by a combination of multiple factors such as the economy, policy, transportation, and resources.
To explore effective approaches to cultivating adolescents’ sense of place for conservation education practice, this study takes Weizhou Island in Beihai, Guangxi, as a case to design and implement an education program that integrates Place-Based Education (PBE) and the Learning-by-Teaching (LbT) pedagogy. A total of 31 adolescents participated in the three-month program, which focused on volcanic landforms, biodiversity, local culture, and Bryde’s whale conservation. Through lectures, artistic activities, intergenerational communication, and volunteer interpretation, the program guided students to experience place at personal, community, and environmental levels. Upon program completion, qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions and analyzed using grounded theory combined with thematic analysis. Results reveal that participants’ sense of place manifests primarily in two tiers: “connection to place” and “commitment to place”. Specifically, participants demonstrated expanded knowledge of local ecology and culture, increased sensitivity to local issues, strengthened place belonging, as well as growing conservation responsibility and behavioral intention. Some participants further expressed pride in Weizhou Island, willingness to promote locality, and a tendency to incorporate its long-term development into their personal future plans. This study indicates that curriculum integrating Place-Based Education and Learning-by-Teaching can effectively foster adolescents’ sense of place, and provides empirical references for developing conservation-oriented,locally rooted educational practices in island regions.
In the context of contemporary basic education reform, the development of geographical core literacy necessitates a departure from traditional teaching models. This study takes leaderless group discussion (LGD) as the entry point and, by comparing the practical effects of the lecture method, group discussion method, and LGD in middle school geography classrooms, systematically analyzes the coupling mechanism of LGD and geography teaching. In response to the problems of fragmented viewpoints and group polarization exposed in practice, this paper proposes a LGD teaching model that integrates heterogeneous grouping, role rotation, and structured discussion templates. The findings indicate that LGD, by constructing a “geographical decision-making field,” significantly enhances students’ dialectical analysis skills (scoring 96.55 points), leadership and coordination abilities (scoring 97.35 points), and geographical core literacy (scoring 92.5 points). Its decentralized characteristic promote the coordinated development of multi-scale spatial thinking and systematic cognition. However, the cultivation of students’ listening and communication skills (self-assessment 89 points) still requires further strengthening. LGD offers an innovative approach to contextualizing the cultivation of geographical core literacy, and its mechanism for achievingthe three-dimensional goals of “literacy-capability-emotion” providing both a theoretical framework and practical guidance for transforming geography classrooms in the modern era.
