Abstract
A so-called global city that plays an important role in regional and global economic, political and cultural development should perform well in terms of its livability. The livability level of Beijing was compared with those of three acknowledged global cities, i.e., New York City, Greater London, and Tokyo-to to clarify whether Beijing has great potential to grow into a global city. From the aspects of social development, living standard and environmental quality, the livable level integrated index (LLII) was established in this paper to evaluate the urban livability, while the linear weighted sum was applied as the assessment model. After analyzing the situations of the four cities during 2000–2009, it was indicated that the LLIIs of Beijing, New York City, Greater London, and Tokyo-to were respectively 38.76, 52.93, 50.95, and 40.65 in 2000. By comparison, the LLIIs in 2009 were 38.96, 59.23, 69.24 and 52.15, respectively. Further analysis showed that a big gap exists between the environmental quality of Beijing and those of three global cities and the performance of social development for Beijing declined in the last decade. To accelerate the transformation of Beijing to a global city, much more attention should be paid to improve the environmental quality, especially the atmospheric quality and water quality.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Beaverstock J V (1994). Re-thinking skilled international labour migration: World cities and banking organisations. Geoforum, 25 (3): 323–338
Beaverstock J V (2002). Transnational elites in global cities: British expatriates in Singapore’s financial district. Geoforum, 33(4): 525–538
Beaverstock J V, Taylor P J (1999). A roster of world cities. Cities, 16(6): 445–458
Chu W (2010). How far away from Beijing to global cities. Data, (4): 62–64 (in Chinese)
Friedmann J (1986). The world city hypothesis. Dev Change, 17(1): 69–83
Friedmann J, Wolff G (1982). World city formation and agenda for research and action. Int J Urban Reg Res, 6(3): 309–344
Geddes P (1915). Cities in Evolution. London: Williams & Norgate
Huo X J, Pan Y Z, Zhang L W, Qu S H (2006). The city’s ecological appraisement of sustainable development-a case study in Baotou Inner Mongolia. Journal of Arid Land Resources and Environment, 20(1): 140–145 (in Chinese)
Kang P, Xu L Y (2010). Development of ecological environment in Beijing from perspective of global city, 2010. Annual Meeting of Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences. Shanghai: 524–527 (in Chinese)
Li G P, Lu M H (2002). The preliminary research on the mode and policy tendency of Beijing constructed into a world city. Scientia Geographica Sinica, 22(3): 263–269 (in Chinese)
Li X R (2007). Compare and application of principal component analysis, factor analysis and clustering analysis. Journal of Shangdong Education Institute, 22(6): 23–26 (in Chinese)
Mai X (2010). Constructing global city based on livable city. Beijing Planning Review, (4): 178–179 (in Chinese)
Nagel C (2005). Skilled migration in global cities from ‘Other’ perspectives: British Arabs, indentity politics, and local embedded-ness. Geoforum, 36(2): 197–210
Ng M K, Hills P (2003). World cities or great cities? A comparative study of five Asian metropolises. Cities, 20(3): 151–165
Research Group in Institution of Capital Socioeconomic Development (2010). A Comparative study on livable level of Beijing and global cities. The Frontline, (10): 49–51 (in Chinese)
Sassen S (1991). The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press
Short J R, Kim Y, Kuus M, Wells H (1996). The dirty little secret of world cities research: Data problems in comparative analysis. Int J Urban Reg Res, 20(4): 697–717
Vogel R K, Savitch H V, Xu J, Yeh A G O, Wu W P, Sancton A, Kantor P, Newman P, Tsukamoto T, Cheung P T Y, Shen J F, Wu F L, Zhang F Z (2010). Governing global city regions in China and the West. Prog Plann, 73(1): 1–75
Wan J (2010). Building a world city and cultivating Beijing’s soft power. Municipal Administration and Technology, 12(2): 36–37 (in Chinese)
Wang Q H, Xiang R M, Yang Z L (2003). Comparison of some conventional comprehensive evaluation methods. Statistics & Information Tribune, 18(2): 30–33 (in Chinese)
Yang X H, Liu R M, Zeng Y (2008). Environmental Statistical Analysis. Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press (in Chinese)
Zhang X D, Zheng Z G (2007). Study on the environmental indicator systems of environment-friendly city. Environmental Science and Management, 32(9): 53–56 (in Chinese)
Zhao H X, Xu S B Jin S (1986). Analytical Hierarchy Process. Beijing: Science Press (in Chinese)
Zhou J L (2007). Countermeasure study of Beijing constructed into a world city. Studies on the Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, (3): 106–110 (in Chinese)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wang, J., Su, M., Chen, B. et al. A comparative study of Beijing and three global cities: A perspective on urban livability. Front. Earth Sci. 5, 323–329 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-011-0182-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-011-0182-1