Exploring the quantitative assessment of urban economic vitality in the Yangtze River Delta of China based on PCA

Abstract

With the accelerating urbanization in developing countries, sustainable urban development has become a strategic goal for governments. To promote sustainable development of individual cities, it is necessary to break away from the limitations of administrative divisions and use the synergistic effect of urban clusters to solve the many difficulties facing sustainable development. The assessment of economic vitality is a critical way to evaluate the development potential of cities. This paper proposes a quantitative assessment method for urban economic vitality. Using 26 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region as the research object and local statistical yearbooks as the data source, we construct 18 urban economic vitality assessment indicators. First, we use the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method to obtain the five major factors of city vitality assessment: manufacturing and people’s life factor, service industry and government management factor, industrial economic growth rate factor, urban development potential factor and primary and secondary industry efficiency factor. Then, we use spatial hotspot analysis to classify the urban economic vitality of the Yangtze River Delta region into three categories: low, medium and high. The research results have important implications for the coordinated and sustainable development of the regional economy and the formulation of economic development strategies for low-vitality regions.