Exploring the impacts of energy and environmental constraints on China’s urbanization process

Abstract

China's urbanization has brought great economic prosperity, but the process has gradually slowed down due to energy and environmental constraints, which implies the growth drag effects. Exploring the relationship among energy consumption, environmental pollution and urbanization is of great practical significance for policymakers. This study extends the classical Solow growth model by introducing energy and environmental constraints. An empirical analysis was conducted using spatial econometric methods and geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR). The results show that the urbanization of direct and indirect growth drag effects under the dual constraints of energy and environment are 0.288% and 0.122%, respectively. The restriction of energy consumption in a province inhibits the urbanization development of local and surrounding provinces at the same time. The spatial distribution characteristics of urbanization growth drag effect in 30 provinces of China evolve dynamically with time. After 2005, the growth drag effect of China’s overall urbanization growth has not been effectively alleviated. This study not only establishes a theoretical model of the growth drag effect of urbanization process, but also investigates the spatial interaction and temporal-spatial evolution characteristics of the growth drag effect of urbanization in China. These findings will be useful for policymakers to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions when pursuing national urbanization.