Taiyuan Urban Space Expansion Based On "smart Growth Theory"

At present, with the rapid development of economy andurbanization of China, the cities in our country are undergoing ahistoric process of the rapid expansion of the cities’ sizes and greatchanges of spatial structure. The attendant is increasingly prominenturban space problems and contradictions. On the one hand, the urbanland expansion is a necessary condition of urban economicdevelopment and improvement of people’s living standards. On theother hand, the rapid growth of urban land and quickly changes ofspatial structure also bring negative effects to the urban development.There are a series of urban problems such as environmental pollution,rapid reduction farmland. The city spread to the periphery in the formof a “pie”, and the trends are difficult to control. Urban land usepatterns showed extensive. Especially “development zone hot” inrecent years, results in a large number of land idle and low-densityspread. This mode that depends on the development of urban scalegrowth will bring serious burden to the city’s resources andecological environment, which is not conducive to the healthydevelopment of the city. Therefore, in the current rapid urbanization,how to choose a reasonable strategy of urban space expansion, which can affects neither the needs of the social and economicdevelopment nor environmental development of the city, but also toachieve the purpose of the intensive use of land, become greatconcerned problems to the current government and academia.1990s, the United States proposed the concept of smart growth inorder to curb the phenomenon of urban sprawl. It has been proposedso far and related research is gradually deepening. Overall, the “smartgrowth” is a development model which can control urban sprawl,protect the ecological environment, serve economic development,promote coordinated development of urban and rural and improvepeople’s quality of life on the basis of improving the efficiency of landuse. This article from the perspective of the concept of smart growth,analyzes the characteristics of urban space expansion, andintroduces the concept of smart growth into China’s urban spacedevelopment research and provides a theoretical basis to thesustainable urban development, and provides a reference for futureurban planning.As the political, economic and cultural center of Shanxi Province,Taiyuan development plays a very important role in promoting theprovince’s economy and the surrounding cities’ development.Especially in recent years, with the rapid economic development,Taiyuan has a rapid expansion of urban space, which causes moreand more contradictions and problems in urban construction. Thisarticle regards Taiyuan City as the object of study, and uses “smartgrowth” theory to explore issues of Taiyuan urban sprawl, in order topromote compact layout of the expansion of Taiyuan urban space andeffectively prevent sprawl of the city. I first study the space-time evolution of Taiyuan urban expansion and its influencing factors, andconstruct the index system from smart growth perspective, andcompared with other capital cities in six provinces in central. Bystudying of the questions of the land use in urban construction ofTaiyuan, urbanization development, the degree of centralization,natural resources and environmental conditions, the development ofpublic transport and housing situation, I try to find the problem in thedevelopment of Taiyuan. On the basis of the above analysis, the paperproposes appropriate planning and construction countermeasuresmainly from following aspects: land intensive use, taking compacturban development patterns, setting urban growth boundary, givingpriority to the development of public transport, protecting green openspace, establishing and improving laws and regulations.