Management of sustainable development of regional territorial communities in People’s Republic of China

Abstract

The Dissertation substantiates theoretical-methodical and scientific-practical provisions regarding the management of sustainable development of regional territorial communities in the People's Republic of China. The regional level is where the intersection and combination of ecological, economic, and social parameters of the socio-economic space take place. Therefore, ensuring the sustainable development of regions as complex spatial formations is organic and appears as the top priority of today’s agenda. The investigation of regional development concepts shows the significant role of urbanisation in this process and the critical importance of urban settlements as the core elements of regional communities at their maturity stage. Therefore, in this thesis, regional territorial communities are considered regional complexes formed from one or two central cities and supplemented by several cities of different scales and types within a particular space, with labour specialisation and cooperation, complementary functions, and relationships. The role of cities in developing regional territorial communities is particularly significant in China, where the level of urbanisation is already more than 60%. In this research, through the study of approaches for the development of urban areas, which should contribute to their sustainability (eco-city, compact city, green city, healthy city, knowledge city, smart city), it was established that the modern development of urban areas depends significantly on knowledge and information. In particular, the concepts of the knowledge city and the smart city, which have emerged recently, indicate that science, knowledge, technology, and innovation are the way to sustainable development through technological solutions. The growing importance of science, knowledge and information is also associated with the need to implement management functions – due to the significant amount of data used in decision-making currently. On this basis, a five-dimensional vision of the smart city’s functioning system was developed. It consists of understanding information as an essential component that integrates other elements of urban development (economy, society, technology and politics) and, simultaneously, is a source and means of building a proper urban governance system. Since the three-aspect model of sustainable development is classical, considering the role of data and the coordination aspect of the management and functioning of territories of different levels is possible by placing science and technology as a particular component of sustainable development. This transforms the conceptual understanding of the main aspects (factors) of sustainable territorial development: sustainable economic growth, sustainable society, sustainable environment, sustainable technology and science as a source of sustainable innovations that can improve the functioning of all other spheres. This makes it possible to understand better the mechanisms of ensuring and supporting the sustainable development of territories in the conditions of digitalisation and to implement them in practice. A detailed analysis of the content of the proposed components made it possible to determine their role and significance, problems and main emphasis. Thus, the scientific understanding of sustainable urban development as a collaborative and lasting development of the urban economy, society, natural environment, science, and technology was emphasised. So, the city's sustainable development level is determined by the level of these elements' performance. This research emphasises that one of the reasons that limit the ability of current urban management regimes in China to solve urbanisation problems is the dominance of traditional approaches to management (the vision of development through economic growth and physical expansion) and the limitations of the planned economic system. Therefore, it is essential to carry out reforms based on sustainable development and good governance. Three main elements of community development are defined: the government, which plays the leading role in the design, creation and management of communities – provides management (leadership); a market that represents the middle level and ensures the promotion of sustainable development through the implementation of government initiatives at the level of sectors and enterprises; population (micro level), whose primary role is active participation in the performance of these initiatives. Since the essential functions of the city are extensive and, at the same time, interconnected, the government should, through proper management, promote their best combination, integration, and implementation. At the same time, given the problems of traditional urban management in the People's Republic of China, it is indicated the need to strengthen the strategic context (taking into account the interdependence of the components of the design-creation-functioning cycle of urban infrastructure and its functional aspect) and preventive management in all spheres of city management (planning, construction, operational management). Since information and full-fledged knowledge about the urban system play a vital role in these processes, this research proposes an improved interpretation of the "knowledge-oriented" strategy of sustainable urban development, which is based on careful consideration of indicators characterising the natural environment, economy, society, development of science and technology as a system of interconnected factors, the result of which is the formation of driving forces for the sustainable development of cities and complex regional territorial communities. Knowledge-based strategic and preventive management of territorial development means the need to create and use in practice a holistic system of indices and an evaluation model, which is an essential component of the decision support system for urban development planning and impacts the overall process of sustainable urban development, increasing the ability of the management system to achieve the set goals. According to the results of the review of methodical approaches to the assessment of the state urbanised territories development, the presence of a wide range of points of view regarding the main determinants of sustainable development was revealed: some evaluation systems concentrate on environmental aspects and levels social and economic ones; in others, attention is focused on a broader approach to the interpretation of capital and well-being (taking into account social and human capital), as well as on institutional aspects. Available methods generally characterise economic, ecological, and social aspects, considering their integration. Taking into account the importance of scientific and technological factors in ensuring the sustainable development of urban areas, an original index system was proposed. Unlike the existing system of indexes, the proposed method allows for measuring the level of sustainable development and the comprehensive effectiveness of economic, social, environmental, scientific and technological dimensions involved in the functioning and development of cities. Considering the methodological aspects of building a system of indices for assessing the sustainable development of communities, it was proposed to follow several vital principles: objectivity, completeness, sensitivity, reliability, dynamism, and coordination. This means the need to consider the specifics of sustainable urban development and the temporal aspects of data analysis (to demonstrate the dynamic nature of the state of sustainable development). The formed index system has a three-level structure: the level of the target indicator that is an integral indicator of sustainable urban development; indicators of the first level (estimates of four factors of sustainable development); indicators of the second level (20 indices – primary data on the parameters that characterise the components of sustainable development). Each index of the second level is given an attributive characteristic (a positive or negative value of dynamics is desirable). In addition to defining the components of the sustainable development of the city and the indicators that can be used for their evaluation, it is also essential to choose an appropriate evaluation model that will consider the studied system's complexity and ensure the proper objectivity of the obtained results. The analysis of existing approaches to the construction of such comprehensive systems for evaluating the sustainable development of territories has proven several existing problems: the use of data that are difficult to measure, incompleteness of data, chaos, subjectivity, insufficient clarity and transparency in the selection of indicators and their weights (significance). In general, such approaches as "by functions" and "by variability" are used to determine the weights of the indices and the method of calculating the available indicator. The second approach ensures the objectivity of the assessment and weighting of indices and, therefore, the objectivity of the overall process of assessing sustainable development. This made it possible to improve the methodological approach to forming a scientifically based and "intelligent" system of evaluation and monitoring urban territories' development through entropy and TOPSIS methods. This approach makes it possible to assess the level of sustainable development of urban territories and the key factors influencing this process quantitatively and objectively through an assessment of the significance and fluctuations of each parameter. The entropy method estimates the weight of individual second-level indices in the proposed approach. The TOPSIS method measures the performance of sustainable development of particular researched objects. To assess the level of sustainability of regions, a scale is offered, which allows, based on the measurement results, to conclude about the territory's weak, average, good, and high-quality level of sustainable development. The formed judgement scale was laid as the basis of an improved methodical approach to determining the main priorities of strategic management of sustainable development of regions. This approach is based on specific values of parameters and assessments of the level of sustainable development of territorial entities. It contributes to the formalisation of the decision-making process (which reduces the influence of the human factor and subjectivity when decision-making). Due to the substantive and structural-process aspects of strategic management of territories development, a scheme (algorithm) of actions based on measuring regions' level of sustainable development was proposed. According to the proposed scheme of the strategic decision-making process, the use of the developed measurement and evaluation system makes it possible to establish the main factors (drivers) of the territory's sustainable development and further assess the performance of individual regions. The identified drivers should be the main focus in developing sustainable development policies and strategies and, differentiated by region, allow for the formulation of measures that are a priority for one or regional territorial community. An assessment of the factor’s influence in the general indicator of sustainable development for the entire general sample (31 provinces in the territory under the control of the Central Government of the People's Republic of China) showed that the component "science and technology" has the most significant impact (55.4%). The influence of economic growth (17.6%), social well-being (16.4%), and the environmental component (11.23%), on the other hand, is insignificant. Therefore, science and technology is the driving force of the sustainable development of territories in the PRC, and the role of this factor is increasing year by year: from 54.07% in 2016 to 54.56% in 2019. The analysis of the second-level indices showed that the most significant aspects of sustainable development are those belonging to the "Science and Technology" group (technology market turnover, the R&D involvement of the personnel of industrial enterprises, the number of patents, R&D funds of industrial enterprises, financial expenditures for science and technology). The least significant is the residential building area per capita (social group), electricity consumption per unit of GDP (economic component), level of centralised wastewater treatment and harmless level of waste processing technologies (environmental component), and water consumption per unit of GDP (economic part). The total impact of these indicators together is only about 5%. The obtained results reveal the fundamental factors of promoting the sustainable development of cities in the People's Republic of China: the development of talents, science and technology, capital and policy. At the same time, the obtained results also indicate that the sustainable development of cities is more related to the activity of business circles, while the government can significantly contribute to such action. Therefore, the quantitative results from the proposed strategic decision-making algorithm made it possible to formulate the general principles of the strategy of the PRC in the direction of sustainable development. To improve the scientific and technological component of sustainable development, it is proposed to strengthen scientific and technical publicity, create a favourable environment for scientific and technological progress and independent innovation, and promote training and the introduction of talents. Regarding the economic subsystem, the primary efforts should be aimed at changing the regime of extensive economic growth, developing the tertiary industry, and establishing the industrial system in backward areas. When making strategic decisions on social issues, it is advisable to focus on the factors that affect the social stability of the community (infrastructure, access to public facilities, equality and justice) and to implement proper planning and leadership. From the point of view of environmental aspects of regional sustainable development, the most critical issues to be resolved are the effective use of land resources and the strengthening of the role and functions of environmental management. Using the TOPSIS model, the sustainability performance of each of the studied 31 provinces was assessed, and their ranking was carried out. The territorial distribution pattern of the sustainability performance of the provinces grouped into four regions (coastal east, central, west and the urbanised agglomeration of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) is determined. In general, the level of development of provinces and territories is uneven, and the overall grade is relatively low. According to the results, the sustainable development of various regions of China is characterised by a weakening trend from the eastern coastal areas to the western inland parts. Considering this, the features of community development (economic structure, resource availability, socio-demographic situation, and development of science and technology) were characterised in detail. There were investigated reasons that restrict sustainable development and formulated strategic proposals for strengthening the potential of sustainable development for each regional territorial community. The obtained results testify to the practical significance and feasibility of using the provisions developed during this research in managing the regional territorial communities’ sustainable development in the People's Republic of China.