Resource-exhausted cities, a special type of cities relying heavily on resource economy, take on some distinct characteristics in the development of industrial structure and urban space. The resource-oriented industrial structure has determined the loose and mixed layout of urban space, the structural imbalance of major functional land use, the crisscrossing pattern of towns and villages and the unreasonable spatial development sequence. The existing urban spatial pattern can no longer meet the demand of urban development. Considering that the evolution of the spatial structure of resource-exhausted cities is a slow process lagging behind industrial transformation, this paper analyzes the industrial transformation manifested in urban spatial structure and reveals the mechanism through which the industrial transformation affect the sustainable development of urban space, so as to provide guidance to improve the coordination and harmony of urban spatial structure and industrial structure, further promote the smooth transformation of resource-exhausted cities and achieve the sustainable development.
1.1. The predicaments and complicated development environment of resource-exhausted cities during the
period of rapid urbanization
Currently, China is experiencing the rapid development of urbanization. Against a background of
sustainable economy growth and urbanization, a type of cities are developing difficultly or even facing survival crisis, that is the resource-exhausted cities, which emerge on exploiting natural recources and
now face industrial transformation. There are totally 118 resource-based cities relying on coal, forest, oil
and others in China, among which 44 cities are listed successively as resource-exhausted cities. In recent
years, due to the impacts of gradual exhaustion of resources, the increase of mining costs, the supplydemand
changes of resource products as well as the increasingly sharp and rooted contradictions, the
resource-exhausted cities are confronting with various complicated predicaments, which have severely
hindered their sustainable development. The predicaments are mainly manifested in the following aspects:
the crisis of resource and environment upon which the cities develop; the deterioration of living and
ecological environment; the highly simplified and unbalanced industrial structure; the sharp contradiction
between the management system and the interest mechanism. Resource-exhausted cities have become the
“problem cities” in China's sustainable development.
1.2. Contradictions between urban development and urban spatial patterns of resource-exhausted cities
under low-leveled industrial structures
Since ancient times, the social and economic development has always been the internal cause of the
advancement of urban spatial pattern. The resource-oriented industrial structure has determined the loose
and mixed layout of urban space, the structural imbalance of major functional land use, the crisscrossing
pattern of towns and villages and the unreasonable spatial development sequence. The existing urban
spatial pattern can no longer meet the demand of urban development in the following aspects. First, while
the demand of urban construction land keeps increasing, the land is still divided into pieces by mining
covered areas, subsidence areas, railways and high-tension cables. The highly dispersed urban spatial
pattern leads to the low efficiency of urban land use, thus hindering the city from developing into a
regional center with powerful attracting and radiating force. Second, the city functions are in disorder.
The facts that the residential land, the public service facilities land and the industrial land are mixed
together and that industrial land is scattered randomly make it hard for the cities to establish cooperative
relations and to achieve scale merit, thus becoming disadvantageous for the transformation of city
industrial patterns from the extensive mode to the intensive mode. Third, influenced by traditional land
use patterns, enterprises and organizations of each leveled use land so randomly that the city is mixed
with the mining areas of mixed functions in current city layout, which not only increases the costs of the
construction and the operation of city supporting facilities, but also causes the waste of the land, thus
becoming unfavorable for city’s unified management. Fourth, the contradiction between resource
exploitation and city construction becomes increasingly sharp. Many cities are mixed with mines, and
some cities and towns are even located in the mining areas. Such city layout has led to the predicament of
“construction-mining- moving”, thus influencing citizens’ living and life quality.
During the development of resource-exhausted cities from the formative period to the transition period,
the industrial transformation is a key factor of affecting the sustainable development of the urban space.
In different stages of the industrial development, the closeness of links between the industrial internal
structure and industries is different. With the changing of industries from a low level to a high level, the
industrial spatial concentration is more powerful. The industries develop to the concentration from a
scattered type and the urban spatial development will gradually move to a balanced development model
of a relative concentration.
