The magnitude of unique effects of neighborhood factors on the
likelihood of urban expansion decreased with the urbanization
process. This resultwas similar to that found in Silicon Valley (Reilly
et al., 2009). The effects of the percentage of urban land in the
neighborhood on urban expansion were positive in the early stages
(1940e1984) but changed to negative later on (Reilly et al., 2009).
The decreasing effects of neighborhood factors on urban expansion
indicated that, more and more, newly added urban land was
located further away from the existing urban land, and the spatial
pattern of urban expansion became increasingly dispersed in Beijing
(Zhao, 2010).