Spatiotemporal Evolution and Driving Forces of Sustainable Development of Urban Human Settlements in China for SDGs

Xueping Cong,Xueming Li,Yilu Gong

doi:10.3390/land10090993

Abstract

As the world’s largest developing country, China has actively implemented the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Sustainable development of urban human settlements is the result of localization and the deepening of sustainable development theory in China. This study combines SDGs to construct an evaluation index system for the sustainable development of urban human settlements in China, using optimization methods, such as natural breaks (Jenks), exploratory spatial data analysis, and GeoDetector, to conduct systematic research on the spatiotemporal evolution of the current sustainable development level and analyze the core driving forces of urban human settlements in 285 prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2019. Our study revealed that: (1) The overall sustainable development level of urban human settlements and their subsystems in China has improved steadily, but the levels of subsystems are quite different; (2) the sustainable development level of the urban human settlements in China can be expressed as a spatial pattern of “high in the east and low in the west, high in the south and low in the north” and has relatively significant spatial correlation characteristics; notably, the development level of each subsystem has different spatial characteristics; (3) the sustainable development level of urban human settlements is mainly based on medium sustainability, and the main development model is to progress from a medium-low development level to a medium-high development level; (4) the sustainable development level of urban human settlements is mainly driven by the per capita gross domestic product (GDP), housing price-to-income ratio, investment in education and scientific research, Internet penetration, and PM2.5.

Highlights

Since the reform and opening up, China’s economy has developed rapidly; the urbanization rate has increased, and the scale of urban space has expanded [1]
This study considers the theory of sustainable development as the cornerstone for the construction of urban human settlements, and develops evaluation indicators and models for the sustainable development of urban human settlements under the guidance of the 2030 sustainable development goals (SDGs)
Our study revealed that unbalanced investment in education and scientific research is the main humanity environmental factor that accelerates the spatial differentiation of the sustainable development of urban human settlements, which is in agreement with the findings of Liu (2019) and

Summary

Introduction

Since the reform and opening up, China’s economy has developed rapidly; the urbanization rate has increased, and the scale of urban space has expanded [1]. In 1987, the concept of sustainable development was clearly stated for the first time in Our Common Future [5]. In the process of global sustainable development, starting from the global responsibility of building a community with a shared future for mankind, the country has actively responded and made important strategic deployments in the corresponding directions. The scientific concept behind them aims to find a high degree of compatibility between material and non-material environments, an ideal relationship between humans and the environment, and conformity to the objective laws regarding the development of human settlements [8]. The effective combination of urban human settlements and sustainable development can ensure the efficient operation of various systems of human settlements, while securing high-quality human settlement resources for future generations

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion