Spatial evolution, driving factors and comprehensive development on urban agglomeration–A case study of Sichuan province

Abstract

The study was in order to know the urban agglomerations’ comprehensive capacity, driving forces and the spatial pattern of gravity; Taking cases of 4 urban agglomerations in Sichuan, an evaluation system was constructed in 3 dimensions: sociology, ecology and economics. The comprehensive carrying capacity level and driving forces were evaluated by entropy weight-TOPSIS, and revised gravity model was used to analyze the interaction forces and industry division; The results showed that the majority of the cities’ comprehensive capacity increased and it still had a lot of room for improvement; industrial structure, population urbanization, urban infrastructure construction became the key drivers of the urban agglomerations development; the spatial pattern and industry division were not rational, diffusion effects of core cities were not marked; Some measures should be taken to achieve healthy urbanization of Sichuan, such as optimizing the structure of urban agglomeration, congregating development of the provincial capital city Chengdu, multi-point supporting of the secondary core cities and guiding of government.