Effective land use contributes to sustainable urban development. However, there are various reports suggesting that urban land resources used mismatch to different extents in many Chinese cities. This study measures the degree of the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources from a supply–demand perspective, and a mismatching coefficient, namely land resource mismatch (LRM), is adopted as the measurement. The data used for the empirical analysis are from a sample of 35 cities in China. The empirical study shows the effectiveness of employing the mismatching coefficient LRM model in evaluating the degree of the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources. The research findings suggest the following: (1) Overall, the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources is significant in China in the form of either supply shortage or over-supply. (2) The degree of the mismatch phenomenon is different between different types of land, with the land for administration and public services showing more serious mismatching and the land for commercial and business facilities showing less mismatching. (3) There are significant differences both in the type and the degree of land use mismatch among different cities, which are contributed largely by the intensity of local government’s controlling and planning role on land resources and the maturity of applying market mechanisms. The results from this study can inform the government of the importance and necessity of adopting effective policy measures for mitigating the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources. The research method applied in this study can be applied in a larger context internationally for understanding the effectiveness of utilizing urban land resources.

The room for reducing carbon emissions and improving low-carbon practices in the building industry is significant. In this study, a bibliometric analysis shows that technology is the primary mechanism adopted for driving carbon reduction in the existing practices building industry, which is conducted by using the CiteSpace 6.2.R4 tool. It is considered that there is a limitation in promoting further low-carbon practices by technological dominance without a proper management paradigm. This paper, therefore, aims to search for a new management paradigm in order to help further reduce emissions in the building industry. This study adopts an innovative synergy theory to explain the mechanism by which the efforts of all management dimensions can be synergized to promote low-carbon practices in the building sector. Consequently, the outcome of this paper is the introduction of a total low-carbon management (TLCM) paradigm. Synergy theory supports our assertion that a joint force can be formed within the building industry system to drive TLCM practice, as all building-related elements (government departments, building organizations, building personnel, building activities, and building processes) in the system will have to follow the government’s actions towards low-carbon practices. The TLCM paradigm is integrated by five components: whole regulation, whole industry, whole enterprise, whole staff, and whole process. The new paradigm should be promoted to replace the existing technology-dominated paradigm in order to achieve low-carbon practices in the building industry. The TLCM paradigm will guide low-carbon management decisions and practices across all phases of the building project’s lifecycle, together with integrating quality and risk management.