Development Level Of Cities Research Articles

Spatial correlation effect of haze pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China.

With the rapid development of industry, haze pollution has become an urgent environmental problem. This study innovatively utilizes network-based methods to investigate the spatial correlation effects of haze pollution transmission between urban clusters in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. A spatial correlation network of haze pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt was constructed using 328 urban meteorological data collection points as research samples, and its structural characteristics were examined. Main findings are as follows: (1) The spatial correlation network of PM2.5 in the Yangtze River Economic Belt urban agglomeration exhibits typical network structural characteristics: obvious spatial correlation within the network. (2) Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanchang, Yichang, Changsha and Yueyang are located at the center of the spatial network. They have more receiving and sending relationships. (3) 36 cities can be divided into four types: bilateral overflow, net beneficiary, net overflow and broker. Each type has different functional characteristics and linkage effects in the network. (4) Haze pollution positively correlates with the city's synergistic development capacity and urbanization rate, the higher the city's development level and the higher the Urbanization rate, the stronger its haze pollution capacity. This study provides new insights into the study of the spatial correlation and impact of haze pollution.

AGENDA: Predicting Trip Purposes with A New Graph Embedding Network and Active Domain Adaptation

Trip purpose is a meaningful aspect of travel behaviour for the understanding of urban mobility. However, it is non-trivial to automatically obtain trip purposes. On one hand, trip purposes are naturally diverse and complicated, but the available predictive data sources are limited in real-world scenarios. On the other hand, since trip purpose labeling is costly and the development levels of cities are unbalanced, it is infeasible to access large-scale labeled data in less developed cities to train advanced prediction models. To narrow the gaps, this article presents A new Graph Embedding Network and active Domain Adaptation based framework (AGENDA) that only requires open data sources and is capable of predicting in both label-rich cities and label-scarce cities. Specifically, in label-rich source cities, we first use the vehicle’s GPS trajectory and open POI check-ins to augment trip contexts. Then we establish a supervised graph embedding network with two attention mechanisms to extract the passenger’s latent activity semantics and a classifier to predict trip purpose. To enable the prediction in label-scarce target cities, we further devise an active domain adaptation framework, in which adversarial domain adaptation is used to transfer the source-learned knowledge, and active learning is used to integrate human intelligence in the model training. A group of experiments are conducted with real-world datasets in Beijing and Shanghai. Evaluation results demonstrate that the proposed framework significantly outperforms existing trip purpose prediction algorithms, and could make accurate trip purpose prediction in label-scarce cities with much fewer labeling efforts.

Evaluation and Regional Differences of Urban Green Development in Henan Province

As an extension of ecological concepts, urban green development has gradually become a new bridge for various countries or regions to achieve sustainable development. Based on the panel data of 17 cities in Henan Province, China from 2007 to 2022, this article uses the entropy method to measure the green development level of cities in Henan Province, and uses the Dagum Gini coefficient method to analyze the green development differences between cities. The results show that: first, urban green development in Henan Province is generally at a lower-middle level and tends to be balanced. Second, there are obvious regional gaps in urban green development in Henan Province. Third, inter-regional disparity is the main reason for the differential distribution of urban green development levels in Henan Province. In order to promote the improvement of urban green level and narrow the spatial development gap in Henan Province, this study puts forward corresponding policy suggestions from the aspects of green investment, green technology innovation, industrial structure upgrading and green life. This also provides reference for other less developed regions in China to achieve balanced urban green development.

Can fintech pave the way for a transition towards low-carbon economy? Examination based on machine learning algorithm.

Realizing the coordination between the economic and environmental systems through a green growth model is an important goal for China to enter the high-quality development stage. Meanwhile, financial technology (fintech) is rapidly developing in China. To explore the relationship between the two, this research uses panel data from 276 cities in China from 2011 to 2022 and empirically tests through constructing econometric models and machine learning algorithms. The empirical result shows that fintech has an impact on green growth. Specifically, there is a U-shaped relationship between fintech and green growth, meaning that before a certain stage, fintech may have a certain inhibitory effect on green growth. After fintech exceeds a certain development level, it will promote the improvement of green growth. Further mediation tests show that innovation plays a mediating role in the impact of fintech on green growth. Additionally, this research also conducts consistency tests based on different criteria including the location, scale, and financial development level of cities. Based on the research findings, policy suggestions are proposed in this paper to promote the development of fintech and stimulate the growth of the green economy. Overall, our research sheds more light on the fintech-green growth linkage and provides new insights into comprehending the role of fintech in advancing towards a low-carbon economy.

Research on the Evaluation of Urban Development Levels in Shaanxi Province Based on Factor Analysis Method

Through statistical analysis of economic, social, environmental, and other aspects of data in various cities in Shaanxi Province, this paper constructs a comprehensive evaluation index system, conducts evaluation research on the development level of cities in Shaanxi Province, and uses factor analysis in mathematical statistics methods to evaluate 2021. The results of the study show that: Xi'an City is a city with a relatively high level of development in Shaanxi Province, Yulin City and Yan'an City have an intermediate level of development, Xianyang City, Weinan City, and Baoji City, Hanzhong City, Shangluo City, Ankang City, and Tongchuan City have roughly the same development level and a lower level of development.

Does the Green Development of Cities Need High-Level Opening Up? A Quasi-Natural Experiment Based on China’s Pilot Free Trade Zone

The contradiction between urban open development and the environmental pollution of cities becomes increasingly serious. People begin to pay attention to the green development effect of Free Trade Zones. Based on 278 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2019, we use the time-varying DID method with the implementation of PFTZ establishment policy as a quasi-natural experiment to explore whether the green development of Chinese cities needs high-level opening up. The main findings of this paper are as follows: (i) Compared with cities without PFTZs, the environmental pollution composite index (EPI) of cities with PFTZs decreases significantly by 5.278% on average; that is, the establishment of PFTZs significantly improves the green development level of those cities. (ii) After the establishment of PFTZs, the green development level of Chinese coastal cities will be enhanced to a greater extent than that of inland cities. In addition, the higher Chinese cities are in the urban hierarchy, the more they can grasp the development opportunities from the establishment of PFTZs. (iii) The establishment of PFTZs effectively reduces the EPI and significantly improves the green development level of cities through three paths: the scale effect, the structure effect and the technology effect. This paper provides micro-empirical evidence for literature related to the environmental benefits and green development of PFTZ construction and provides a reference for most developing countries to learn from China’s experience.

Digital economy and pollution reduction-Mechanism and regional heterogeneity.

The digital economy and ecological environment are two major issues related to high-quality economic development. Scholars have not yet reached a unified conclusion about the link between the digital economy and pollution emissions, and the impact mechanism of the former on the latter needs further study. Using data from 278 Chinese cities from 2010 to 2019, this research employs coupling coordination analysis, fixed effect analysis and mediation analysis to examine the heterogeneous impact mechanisms of the expansion of the digital economy on urban pollution reduction from many angles. It discovers that, first, the growth of the digital economy has decreased the discharge of urban pollutants overall. Second, the impact mechanisms of the digital economy are heterogeneous. From a regional perspective, industrial structure supererogation plays an intermediary role in the relationship between digital economy development and pollution reduction in the eastern and central regions, but the mediating effect is not significant in the western and northeastern regions. In terms of the city development level, industrial structure supererogation has significantly mediated the relationship between the growth of the digital economy and the reduction of pollution in first- and second-tier cities, but this mediating effect is not significant in third-tier and other cities. Third, the above conclusions are still valid after the robustness test is carried out using instrumental variable estimation, replacement of the estimation method, and replacement of explanatory variables. This study is a useful contribution to research on the effects of the digital economy and the factors influencing pollution reduction. The results advance the study of the digital economy and also have practical implications for improving China's ecological environment and fostering high-quality economic growth. Finally, we provide policy suggestions for the coordinated promotion of the digital economy's development, industrial structure supererogation and environmental pollution reduction.

Research on the symbiosis of port and city based on symbiosis theory: empirical evidence from China's coastal port groups

Based on the symbiosis theory, this paper uses symbiosis degree and symbiosis coefficient models to identify the symbiosis mode between the port and the city in China's coastal port groups. 1) From 2010 to 2019, the port development level has generally shown a downward trend, but the overall city development level was rising. The level of port development has also decreased in cities where the city development level has declined or slowed down; 2) Ports and cities exhibit two modes of symbiosis: positive mutualism and reverse competition mutualism. However, the number of cities with positive mutualism is gradually decreasing. 3) Cities that have switched from a symbiosis model to a reverse competition mutualism model are followed by cities that maintain the mutualism symbiosis model with ports. 4) Ports and cities perform in an asymmetric symbiosis mode and the symbiosis mode has gradually shifted from more significant city influences to the port-city influences.

Spatial and Temporal Evolution Characteristics of High-Quality Tourism Development in China

Since the reform and opening up, China's tourism industry has made great achievements, gradually becoming a strategic pillar industry of the national economy. This article takes 285 prefecture-level cities in China as the research object, constructs five dimensions of innovation, coordination, green, openness, and sharing as the evaluation index system for high-quality development of China's tourism economy, uses entropy method to measure the high-quality development level of cities, and uses descriptive analysis and ArcGIS spatial technology to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of high-quality development level of tourism. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The high quality index value of China's tourism economy is relatively low, with regional differences. (2) The distribution of cities at a relatively high level is sporadic and relatively scattered.

The research of smart city construction on the well-being of urban residents-analysis based on CFPS data

With the rapid progress of China's economy, improving people's happiness has become one of the main goals of China's future social development. As a populous country, China has been lagging behind in the World Happiness Index Report released by the United Nations every year. Therefore, improving people's happiness has become one of the important social issues in China. Since the 16th National Congress, China has been urbanizing rapidly and the urbanization rate is planed to reach 70% by 2050. With the rapid development of urbanization, "urban diseases" caused by uneven development and demographic problems have become obstacles to urbanization development. To solve the problem, the construction of smart cities has become a new plan to ensure the rapid development of urbanization while solving the problem of "urban diseases". Investigating the relationship and mechanism of people' happiness between smart city construction and people's happiness can help clarify the fundamental needs of smart city construction, improve people's happiness, and have certain significance for the future development direction of smart city construction. The research of this paper centers on whether smart city construction can affect the happiness of the residents and investigates through what mechanism it can affect the happiness of the residents. This paper compares the relevant literature on smart city construction and happiness, takes data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), the 2012 China Smart City Development Level Assessment Report, the 2014 China Smart City Development Level Assessment Report, and the 2016 China Smart City Development Level Assessment Report, and uses the econometric method of panel data analysis to empirically test the influence degree of smart city construction on residents' happiness. The experimental results show that (1) smart city construction has a significant impact on people's happiness, and the results are positively correlated. (2) The influence degree of smart city construction on people's happiness varies across different city levels, with no significant impact in first-tier cities and more significant impact in second-tier and third-tier cities. (3) Population heterogeneity can lead to some differences in residents' happiness feeling smart city construction.

A preliminary study on the evaluation index system of low carbon city development level

Based on the clarification of the DPSIR model and the development history and specific connotation of low carbon cities, this paper proposes the design basis, design principles and design steps of the low carbon city development level evaluation index system based on the DPSIR model by analysing the application of the DPSIR model in the evaluation of the development level of low carbon cities, and forms the low carbon city development level evaluation index system.

Study on the Influence of Undertaking Industrial Transfer on the Sustainability Development of Wanjiang City Belt

The Wanjiang City Belt is an important part of Anhui’s economic development. It is the core area of the two national strategies regarding the rise of the central region and the integration of the Yangtze River Delta. This paper analyzes the urban development level of the Wanjiang City Belt using a nonparametric test. Holt’s linear trend method of a time series prediction model is used to predict and analyze the GDP growth rate of the second and third industries in the Wanjiang area. The results show that: (1) the economic development level of cities in the Wanjiang City Belt is unbalanced, and there is a significant gap in some cities in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai; (2) the speed of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang City Belt is slowing down, and the competition of undertaking industrial transfer in the Wanjiang region is increasingly fierce; (3) in the process of the Wanjiang City Belt undertaking an industrial transfer, there are some problems such as the imbalance of undertaking ability, industrial isomorphism and regional competition, which hinder the coordinated development and sustainable economic development of the Wanjiang area. To achieve high-quality and sustainable development of the Wanjiang City Belt, it is necessary to further improve the policy guarantee, industrial cluster, talent introduction and independent innovation.

Ecological Effect Assessment of Low-Carbon City Construction in China.

This paper takes the second batch of low-carbon pilot cities in China as the research object and selects the Urban Health Ecological Index to measure the green development level of cities, aiming to explore and evaluate the theoretical mechanism and policy effect of low-carbon pilot projects to promote the coordinated development of urban economy, society and the environment. The research conclusions show that: ① The low-carbon city pilot project is conducive to support the pilot cities to build a low-carbon industrial system, advocate a low-carbon lifestyle, establish a low-carbon evaluation system, and then play a positive role in promoting the green development level of the city; ② By applying the Propensity Score Matching-Difference in Differences (PSM-DID) model, the empirical analysis finds that after the implementation of the pilot policy, the green development level of low-carbon pilot cities has been significantly improved, and this conclusion is still stable in the parallel trend test, counterfactual test and sample expansion test; ③ In terms of regional heterogeneity, the low-carbon pilot projects have a more significant policy effect on promoting the green development of provincial capitals and eastern cities. Strict administrative supervision in provincial capitals and good economic foundations in eastern cities have had a positive moderating effect on the policy effect of low-carbon pilot projects. Finally, this paper discusses how to realize the ecological effects of low-carbon city pilot projects and put forward some relevant policy suggestions.

A data-driven approach to objective evaluation of urban low carbon development performance

An effective evaluation of a city's low carbon development plays an essential role in promoting low carbon development strategies for achieving the city's sustainable development. This paper proposes a data-driven approach to objectively evaluating the low carbon development level of cities. The approach formulates the low carbon development evaluation problem as a multi-criteria decision analysis problem and incorporates the merits of bibliometric analysis, text mining and optimal weighting to evaluating the urban low carbon development performance. The bibliometric analysis is applied to systematically identify evaluation criteria and associated indicators and establish an evaluation system for measuring low carbon development levels of urban cities. Equipped with an objective weighting method based on text mining, the approach determines the local weights of the evaluation criteria and indicators for each city by extracting subjective preferential information from the policy documents available on the local government's websites. Two optimal weighting models are developed to determine the optimal global weights of the indicators and criteria by maximizing the low carbon development performance of all cities. The obtained criteria weighting thus can reflect both the preferences of local city governments and the best common interest of all cities involved in the evaluation. The approach is then illustrated with a case study on three cities involved in urban agglomeration planning in China. The results compare the low carbon development performance of the cities, identify the disparities between the cities and reveal each city's obstacle factors that hinder its development. Policy recommendations are then suggested for developing effective low carbon development policies.

The Statistical Measurement System of High-Quality Development Level of Cities - Based on Yangtze River Delta Region of China

Combining China's development concepts of innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing, the paper constructs a high-quality development measurement system of Yangtze River Delta of China, which contains five dimensions: the optimization of economic structure, the efficient allocation of resource, the stable growth of economic, the regional development coordination and the presentation of economic achievements. Using 2019 municipal data, the entropy weighted TOPSIS method was used to statistically measure the level of high-quality development level of 27 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region. And four categories of cities, namely excellent, good, normal and lagging, were classified. The results show that Shanghai has the highest level of high-quality development, and most cities have lower scores in the subsystem of the stable growth of economic. Finally, this paper makes targeted reasonable suggestions for cities, especially the lagging cities.

The Impact of Inclusive Finance on High-Quality Economic Development of the Yangtze River Delta in China

As a new service system of finance, inclusive finance emphasizes on better meeting the needs of people’s livelihood at a reasonable and affordable cost. Inclusive finance can effectively solve the problems existing in the process of high-quality economic development by promoting regional coordinated development and narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas. Firstly, this paper constructs the inclusive financial development level measurement index system and high-quality economic development measurement index system, uses these two index systems to measure the development of inclusive finance and high-quality economy of the Yangtze River Delta in China from 2010 to 2019, and then empirically analyzes the impact of Inclusive Finance on high-quality economic development in the Yangtze River Delta by using the panel threshold model. The results show that the inclusive financial development level and high-quality economic development level of cities under the jurisdiction of the Yangtze River Delta have increased steadily year by year, but the development level differentiation among different cities is obvious. Inclusive finance has a threshold effect on high-quality economic development. When the inclusive finance index is lower than 0.358, inclusive finance is not conducive to high-quality economic development. When the inclusive financial development index is between 0.358 and 0.522, inclusive finance promotes high-quality economic development, but the effect is weak. When the inclusive financial development index is greater than 0.522, inclusive finance can significantly promote high-quality economic development.

Spatio-temporal variation and coupling coordination relationship between urbanisation and habitat quality in the Grand Canal, China

Urbanisation leads to dramatic changes in regional land use, which significantly affects habitat quality. Research on the coupling coordination relationship between urbanisation and habitat quality is conducive to promoting regional ecological environment improvement and urban sustainable development. In this article, we adopted the InVEST model and linear weighted sum method separately to evaluate the spatio-temporal variation characteristics of habitat quality and urbanisation level of the Grand Canal. Then, we used the coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) to investigate the interactive coercing relationship between urbanisation and habitat quality. The purpose was to provide reference for future implementation of ecological conservation work along the Grand Canal and formulation of sustainable urban development strategies. The results showed that habitat quality has continued to decline from 1990 to 2018. After becoming a world cultural heritage site, the habitat quality of the partial reaches has improved. The comprehensive urbanisation level and the four subsystem urbanisation levels, including demographic urbanisation, spatial urbanisation, economic urbanisation, and social urbanisation, of 35 cities along the Grand Canal have all steadily increased from 1990 to 2018. The social urbanisation level was obviously lower than the urbanisation levels of the other three dimensions in most cities along the Grand Canal, indicating that the quality of urbanisation seriously lags behind the speed. The coupling coordination degree (CCD) between the urbanisation level of each city and the habitat quality of the reaches in the corresponding city exhibited a fluctuating but increasing relationship. Most cities have developed in a more coordinated direction and very few cities have deteriorated. Meanwhile, the coupling coordination characteristics between urbanisation level and habitat quality have constantly changed, from the urbanisation lagged type to the urbanisation-habitat synchronised type and the habitat quality lagged type. This article has important value for implementing the ecological conservation and restoration projects of the Grand Canal, optimizing land management policies, and improving the sustainable development level of cities along the Grand Canal.

Analysis on the difference of regional high-quality development in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city cluster

This paper about the high-quality development level of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is of vital importance to promote high-quality development of China. An evaluation index system that can comprehensively describe the high-quality development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is designed in this paper. There are 27 indexes selected to evaluate the high-quality development of the cities in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province from three dimensions: target level, standard level and index level. By applying the SOM (Self-Organizing Map) algorithm to cluster analysis of high-quality development levels. The results of the study showed that there are variations in high-quality development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city cluster. Beijing has the highest quality development level, followed by Tianjin and Hebei, and a significant gap exists between Beijing and Hebei in terms of the level of quality development. In addition, the high-quality development level of cities in Hebei Province are not balanced. Therefore, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city cluster should break down administrative barriers, making overall plans and promoting coordinated development among regions.

Spatial Pattern of Underground Space Development in Major Cities in China: Evaluation and Analysis

Underground space development has gradually become an organic part of China’s urban development and construction. Comprehensively developing underground space scientifically and rationally to give full play to its comprehensive benefits is the main problem faced by China’s underground space development at this stage. This research starts with the measurement of the level of urban underground space (UUS) development. This paper constructs a UUS development level measurement indicator system, which is composed of Construction of UUS (D1), urban economic development indicators (D2), and urban population development indicators (D3), which has 12 secondary indicators, and then we use entropy-TOPSIS method to quantitatively evaluate the development level of underground public space in 39 prefecture-level cities and above in my country and analyze its spatial differentiation. The results show that the urban agglomeration has the characteristics of “high-high” cluster distribution with the development level of underground space. However, the overall level of underground space development in China’s major cities is not high and there are apparent differences in the level of UUS development. In terms of spatial distribution, the sustainable development level of cities in the eastern coastal regions of China is relatively high, with towns in the central and northeastern areas ranking second and western towns and northeastern cities ranking the lowest. At the same time, we found that there is a mismatch between the underground space development index and the economic population development index in the evaluation index. Finally, some suggestions are put forward to realize the balanced development of UUS development in our country.

Modeling the smartness or smart development levels of developing countries’ cities

The race towards smart city status, influenced by the perceived benefits of innovation and sustainability in smart city concepts, has engendered the need to measure the smartness/smart development levels of developing countries' cities to improve upon urban infrastructures. However, various strategies for determining cities' smartness/smart development levels are mostly inconclusive by not considering all the dimensions in urban space in their assessments. This study adopted a fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) technique to model the smartness/smart development levels of a developing country city using a six-dimensional framework which provides a comprehensive perspective on the characterization of urban frameworks of cities. A positivism research philosophy using deductive approach and purposive sampling technique was adopted. Quantitative data were collected from experts using a close-ended questionnaire in which 76 responses were retrieved. The study modeled eight indicators for each of the six dimensions using FSE to determine the smartness/smart development level index of each dimension towards the determination of the overall smartness/smart development level index of the developing country city. After analysis, the developing country city and each of the six dimensions used to characterize the city were determined as fairly developed. The implications of such level of ranking meant that the city is below the acceptable smart city status, and hence, improvement should be made in policy applications along the 48 identified indicators such as empowering human resources, sustainable resource consumption, etc., to propel the six dimensions towards smart city. This study could also serve as a theoretical model for determining the smartness/smart development levels of developing countries’ cities. The study also reveals aspects in the urban framework where policy makers and urban developers could target to improve the smartness/smart development levels of cities towards the smart city status.