Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity and Driving Mechanism of Co-Ordinated Urban Development: A Case Study of the Central Area of the Yangtze River Delta, China

Abstract

Urban system is a complex entirety composed of various subsystems, including land, population, economy, and society. The coordinated development of these subsystems is important for ensuring the advancement and improvement of the new urbanization process. Quantitatively evaluating the coordinated development level of a city or urban agglomeration is conducive to scientific urban planning and decision-making. In this paper, we constructed a multi-index evaluation system that includes land urbanization, population urbanization, economic urbanization, and social urbanization indicators to assess the degree of coordinated urbanization development. Experiments were then conducted in the central area of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) from 2000 to 2019 using remote sensing images and statistical yearbook data. The driving factors of the urbanization evolution were also evaluated by the Geographically and Temporally Weighted Regression (GTWR) model. The conclusions were drawn as follows: (1) The degree of coordinated urbanization development in the study area was constantly improving, from an extremely uncoordinated level in 2000 to a high-quality coordinated level in 2019; (2) During the period 2000–2019, the distribution of the cities with high coordinated development levels presented a northwest-southeast pattern, and the gravity center of the region constantly moved to the south; (3) In terms of the impact of various urbanization subsystems on the coordinated urbanization development in the YRD, economic urbanization had the greatest impact, while land urbanization had the least impact. (4) In connection with the problems existing in different dimensions of urbanization, we put forward corresponding development countermeasures and path suggestions based on the actual situation of the study area.