Human well-being related analysis on urban carrying capacity: An empirical study in Chinese mega-cities

Though considered a significant barometer of urban sustainable development, urban carrying capacity (UCC) has yet to be clearly defined and the concepts it comprises have not received adequate scholarly attention in relation to their empirical applicability. This article, by introducing the concept of human well-being and redefining it in the context of UCC, presents a novel framework for UCC assessment. The proposed framework discards the pursuit of “limits of growth,” but instead focuses on whether the human well-being has been (or will be) compromised through monitoring the status of the associated UCC indicators. This framework is further applied to China’s four first-tier cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, to assess their UCC in empirical terms. The results show that all of them are generally able to meet the survival-related well-being, while the prospect of meeting challenges of varying magnitude in order to realize higher-level goals. We developed this UCC assessment framework to provide a rational way for the implementation of UCC monitoring and forewarning, and in turn, to guide sustainable development of urban areas according their urban carrying status.