With the rising tide of globalization, urban branding campaigns have become the focal points of decision makers and planners aiming to establish city reputations and to achieve long-term urban prosperity. This paper, therefore, aims to develop a sustainability-oriented city branding framework that incorporates (1) comprehensive perceptions from various stakeholders through questionnaires and (2) empirical applications that evaluate the city-level potentials for a global mega-region in support of its sustainable growth. Seven major aspects, i.e., economic development, environment, potential, pulse, people, infrastructure, and governance, have been identified and assessed in the context of 26 prefecture cities in the Yangtze River Delta region. Moreover, a cluster analysis differentiated these cities into four groups with distinct characteristics and development paths. Through the framework and evaluation outputs, local planners, researchers, and decision-makers would be better placed to design and implement sustainable policy packages and incentives, with a quantitative insight into current strengths and weaknesses.

A growing number of developing countries have experienced worsening air pollution, which has been shown to cause significant health problems. However, few studies have explored the impact of air pollution on the mental health of university students, particularly in the Chinese context. In order to address this gap, through a large-scale cross-sectional survey, this study aims to examine the effects of air pollution on final-year Chinese university undergraduates’ (due to graduate in 2020) mental health by employing multivariable logistic regression. Our findings show that, first, although normal air quality is not strongly associated with lower levels of negative mental health, there is a strong link between poor air quality and higher levels of negative mental health. More specifically, life satisfaction hedonic unhappiness and depression measured by the Centre for Epidemiological Studies’ Depression scale (CES-D) are statistically associated with air pollution. In addition, we also found that gender is a significant factor, as males had more than 1.6 times greater odds of increased mental health problems compared to their female counterparts. Place of birth also plays a significant role in participants’ mental health. Moreover, undergraduates with urban household registration experienced significant levels of hedonic unhappiness and depression on the CES-D scale. Finally, we found that there is an association between respondents’ economic situation and their mental health too. Overall, this study contributes to the research on air pollution management and mental health intervention, particularly in relation to student groups. The undergraduate curriculum should provide more guidance and suggestions on promoting mental health and establishing positive attitudes to life and academic study of the final year students, under the context of air pollution in China.