Spatio-temporal characteristics of coupling coordination between the quality of population urbanization and land urbanization: The case of 12 central cities in Gansu Province, China

Abstract

According to the theory of system science, the paper took 12 central cities in Gansu Province as an example, and respectively built the quality assessment index system of population urbanization and land urbanization on the basis of scientific definition of the quality of population urbanization and land urbanization. Then the coupled coordination model was introduced to calculate the comprehensive development index and coupling coordination degree between quality of population urbanization and land urbanization by the dimension of time and space during 2005-2013. The results showed that population urbanization and land urbanization could only represent the speed of urbanization, it could not measure the quality of urbanization. Single index could only represent the urbanization development level in the narrow sense. Observed in time sequence, the quality and coupling coordination level of land and population urbanization in Gansu Province showed an overall rising trend. In general, the poorly intensive utilization of land resources was still the key factor restricting the quality of urbanization in Gansu Province. From the point of spatial pattern, in 2013, the quality of land urbanization lagged behind the quality of population urbanization to varying degrees in 11 central cities except Lanzhou, which belonged to the population urbanization lagging type. The urbanization quality of 12 central cities in Gansu Province was at an overall low coordinating stage.