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to be attributable to Changsha having the highest per capita income. This is
consistent with findings by the Urban Sustainability Index that per capita in-
come is the strongest predictor of sustainability outcomes in Chinese cities
(McKinsey, 2012, 2014), and warrants further research on the impact of in-
come on urban sustainability.
This study’s findings may hold lessons for regional inequality regarding
sustainability versus economic development. Specifically, how cities in less
economically advanced regions of a given nation proceed toward more sus-
tainable models while also being exposed to in-migration of high-polluting
industries from cities in more advanced regions. In the case of China’s less
advanced central region, the city with the most in-migrating high-polluting
industries and lowest per capita income (Hefei) transitioned to a more sus-
tainable model by satisfying urban growth demand and by using public in-
vestment in pollution treatment, the highest in the region. The starkest
reductions achieved in emissions and coal consumption was by the city with
the highest per capita income and lowest levels of in-migrating high-polluting
industries (Changsha), suggesting such conditions are the most amenable for
sustainable transitions. These findings beg the question of if these parameters
may similarly explain sustainable transitions in other nations experiencing
interregional inequality of economic development and migration of high-
polluting industries into the less developed from the more developed regions.
With regard to China, as the cycle of high-polluting industry migration and
sustainable urban transitions proceeds further inland over time, China’s
Western region will be the next (and last) frontier. Several emissions reduction
and green urban initiatives of note are paving the pathway to greater sus-
tainable urbanism in China. In 2015 China submitted its intended nationally
determined commitment, committing to peak its carbon dioxide emissions by
2030 (NDRC, 2016). The 13th Five Year Plan (2016e20) includes an
emphasis on cities peaking their airborne pollutant emissions (NDRC, 2016),
and the Chinese government selected 42 pilot cities and provinces to join the
national low carbon program at the 2016 USeChina Climate Leaders Summit.
That same year, 23 Chinese cities and provinces also became members of
China’s Alliance of Pioneer Peaking Cities to peak carbon dioxide emissions
by or before 2030 (Fong, 2016). Such initiatives at present focus predomi-
nantly on coastal and central region cities, but just as central region cities’
replication of the high-polluting, high-profit development model of coastal
cities before them (Ang, 2017) acted as the precursor to urban sustainable
transitions, China’s western region cities may soon fall into this cycle and thus
emerge with a more sustainable development path.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Dr. Ang Yuen Yuen (University of Michigan) and Dr. Benjamin Van Roiij
(University of California Irvine) for their invaluable input.