The impact of China's new-type urbanization on individual sustainable development: A comparison between coastal and inland areas

Abstract

The purpose of China's urbanization from a traditional to new-type approach is to promote all-round development for the Chinese people. For this reason, it is worth studying the specific impact of China's new-type urbanization on sustainable development. Based on a comparison of China's coastal and inland areas, we utilize 10-year panel data of 11 coastal and 19 inland provinces to construct an index system to measure China's individual sustainable development. Furthermore, using quantile regression and mixed models, we empirically test the impact of China's new-type urbanization on individual sustainable development. The results of these tests show that: (1) A characteristic of China's individual sustainable development involves the reduction of heterogeneity from coastal areas to inland northeast, inland west, and inland central areas. (2) Social safety and security as functional indicators and personal insurance and housing conditions as ability indicators, both have a significant impact on China’s sustainable development. (3) China’s new-type urbanization plays a significant positive role in promoting individual sustainable development, especially regarding vulnerable groups. (4) The individual sustainable development in China’s coastal areas is unbalanced, and four provinces remain lower than the whole country and have a larger gap in sustainable development compared to other coastal provinces. Thus, it is necessary for China to provide more equal social opportunities, focus on supporting backward inland provinces, and improve the urbanization quality of the four coastal provinces to promote individual sustainable development.