Nowadays, cities meet numerous sustainable development challenges in facing growing urban populations and expanding urban areas. The monitoring and simulation of land use and land-cover change have become essential tools for understanding and managing urbanization. This paper interprets and predicts the expansion of seven different land use types in the study area, using the PLUS model, which combines the Land use Expansion Analysis Strategy (LEAS) and the CA model, based on the multi-class random patch seed (CARS) model. By choosing a variety of driving factors, the PLUS model simulates urban expansion in the metropolitan area of Hangzhou. The accuracy of the simulation, manifested as the kappa coefficient of urban land, increased to more than 84%, and the kappa coefficient of other land use types was more than 90%. To a certain extent, the PLUS model used in this study solves the CA model’s deficiencies in conversion rule mining strategy and landscape dynamic change simulation strategy. The results show that various types of land use changes obtained using this method have a high degree of accuracy and can be used to simulate urban expansion, especially over short periods.

Public medical service facilities are among the most basic needs of the public and are directly related to residents’ health. The balanced development of medical service facilities is of great significance. Public medical service facilities can be divided into different levels according to their medical equipment, service catchment, and medical quality, which is very important but has been ignored for a long time in accessibility evaluations. In this research, based on the hospital and population datasets of Shenzhen, we propose a hierarchical two-step floating catchment area (H2SFCA) method to evaluate the spatial accessibility of public medical resources considering the factors at different levels of medical resources. In the proposed method, the spatial accessibility of each level of public medical service facilities are evaluated using different distance attenuation functions according to the medical service’s scope. In addition, a measurement is proposed to evaluate the equity of medical service facilities based on accessibility and population density distributions. To synthesize the general spatial accessibility and the distribution balance of public medical service facilities, we standardize the spatial accessibility of public medical service facilities at each level and then calculate the weighted sums of the accessibility of each level. The general spatial equity of public medical service facilities is also evaluated. The results show that the accessibility and distribution balance of medical resources performs dissimilarly at the three levels and can be discriminated within different regions of the city. The accessibility of citywide medical facilities in Shenzhen decreases from the city center to the suburban area in a radial pattern and the accessibility and distribution balance in the suburban areas needs improvement.

Urban expansion is commonly attributed to market-oriented forces, while public finance factors connected to government forces, especially land finance, in China’s institutional environment, can provide a more interesting explanation. Using a fixed-effect threshold model, the relationships of land finance and differing local fiscal pressures to urban expansion in China were explored mathematically and empirically. It was found that land finance positively and significantly influences urban expansion. It was also found that the impact of land finance on urban spatial size varies with fiscal pressure. Results suggested that capital flows in the process of urban expansion should be carefully regulated by local governments.

The ‘urbanising village’ is a uniquely Chinese urban form that emerged during the period of rapid urbanisation in the reform era. The absence of state governance in rural areas relegates considerable decision-making power to village collectives, and the social capital inherited from traditional rural villages may remain in place after villages are urbanised. To explore the role of social capital and its mobilisation in solving the land use challenges posed by the urbanisation of rural settlements, we analysed the growth processes of Huanggang village as a typical example of a ‘collective-led’ self-organised urbanising village in Shenzhen. Qualitative analysis using semi-structured interviews and abundant secondary data provides credible evidence that defining property rights through land titling is not the only way to achieve orderly development, safe and sanitary living conditions and efficient land use in informal settlements. Social capital, measured by networks, norms and trust passed down among long-term acquaintances in rural villages, plays an important role in the development of communities. Village collectives can unite villagers and mobilise their social, cultural and material capital to compensate for the absence of formal governance institutions and government-provided community services. The implications of these findings suggest a new strategic pathway for managing urbanising villages in China and informal settlements in other developing countries.