The Development And Changes Of Residential Space In Beijing (1912-2008)

Since 1153 AD, the Beijing city plays an important role as a capital in the history of Chinese city construction. However, up to the end of 1949, the city has taken up an area of about 62 square kilometers during the 800 years. Since 1949, the Beijing city has began to make amazing achievements. Up to the end of 2008, the built-up area was 3377.15 square kilometers and the resident population grew by 5 times during the 59 years. Therefore, the residential space that was used to meet the requirement of rapid growth of the population is the main part of increasing urban space.Until recently, most researchers have shown an interest in this field from population suburbanization, constructive land expansion and residential location selection. In this thesis, the residential space of Beijing is the study object, and the ArcGIS, AutoCAD and Photoshop are used to analyze the residential land distributions in 1912, 1921, 1941, 1950, 1981, 1991, 2003 and 2008. Next, the change and development process of residential space from 1912 to 2008 are analyzed and described objectively in time sequence, and then a complete change form could be shown in order to provide reference for further research on Beijing residential space.The main contents of this thesis include the residential land area, the proportion and the distribution model of residential land in different districts and different times. The residential land distributions of different districts in a single time and the distributions of single district in different times are contrasted, then related with the population change and housing construction.The thesis can be separated into three groups. The first group, including the chapter 1 and chpter2, is talk about the background, the significance and the methods of study and relevant literature. The second group, including the chapter 3 and chapter 4, is mainly about the change process of Beijing residential space which was separated into five parts: 1912 -1949, 1949-1981, 1981-1991, 1991-2003, 2003-2008. In the second group, the distribution characteristics of residential space in different times are described by using qualitative and quantitative analysis then contrasted in amount and size. Based on the differences between the backgrounds, the unnoticeable change characteristics and the lack of relevant information, the study point is not the part from 1912 to 1949 but the part from 1949 to 2008. The third group, including the chapter 5 and chapter 6, trace the change and development to its source on the basis of above groups and give a summary.