The Study On Urban Development Quality And Spatial Differentiation

There was a large-scale movement of urbanization in global after the First Industrial Revolution,both the number and the scale of the urban cities grew rapidly. While developed countries already entered into the urbanization stage, the developing countries are still at the start or rapid development stage. Thanks to the reform and open-up policy, China's urbanization rate increased from 17.9% in 1978 to 57.35% in 2016, which is experiencing a rapid development stage, however, there is a big gap between different cities in different regions and geo-location. The urban development in the eastern and coastal areas is much better than that in western inland regions. This paper studied the development quality and spatial differentiation of urban cities in the context of the governmental policy of promoting new urbanization construction. The research design is guided by regional economic theory, spatial theory and megalopolis theory. The author also reviewed the research findings and results from different researchers and authors about how to assess urban development quality and the spatial differentiation of urban cities.By reviewing relevant research literatures, selecting relevant indexes, collecting statistic data based on the selected indexes and quantitative modeling, such as Entropy Weighting Model, the author assessed the development quality of 285 Chinese urban cities from 2005 to 2014. Based on the results of quantitative analysis, the author developed the spatial map of urban development, and discussed the urban space differentiation characteristics by using the Spatial Autocorrelation Model. Finally, the author chose Sunzhou and Nanchong City as cases to analyze the causes of urban development from urban spatial structure and external spatial relationship.By analyzing the urban development quality and its spatial differentiation, the author drew following conclusions: (i) The overall quality of urban development is improving, the quality of economic development is the most decisive factor contributing to the overall quality of urban development, and the cities with different development quality levels are facing different restricting factors. Firstly, the development process of urban cities is consistent, most of the cities are in a stage of steady development; Secondly, linear regressive analysis results revealed that there is no significant regression relation between urban development quality and total urban population scale, but there is a significant regression relation between urban development quality and the registered urbanized population scale. However, the quality of urban development lags behind the level of the population urbanization; Lastly, the negative and restrictive factors determining high, medium, and low quality are ecological environment, population development and municipal public service. (ii)The spatial differentiation of urban development quality is with the general tendency of higher assessed indexes by cities in eastern region and lower in western region, and it has formed different scales of urban agglomeration. Firstly, there is significant positive correction between all urban cities in global autocorrelation; Secondly based on the LISA clustering figure of local autocorrelation, Bohai Rim, the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta region has the "H-H" spatial correlation characteristics,which are high quality urban agglomerations; Thirdly,a wide area has "L-L" spatial correlation characteristics, where formed low-quality agglomerations; Lastly urban agglomerations characterized by "H-L" clustering have been formed, including Changzhutan, Chengyu, Guanzhong and other urban agglomerations.(iii) The development of urban space is transformed from the outward to the internal space optimization, and the interregional relations between urban and urban, agglomeration and agglomeration are more important. Firstly, the industrial structure of Suzhou becomes more and more reasonable, the space development is "T type" along the east. The external space connection of the city is very strong, having a close two-way interactive relationship with Shanghai; Secondly, the space development of Nanchong city was gradually changed from outward extension into internal space optimization, the industrial spatial differentiation is more reasonable, and the multi-center pattern has been preliminarily formed. But the external space connection of Nanchong is very weak, and no significant inter-city benefits from the development neighboring cities of Chengdu and Chongqing.Based on the abovementioned findings and conclusion, the author made following policy recommendations for fostering the urban development in different spatial locations : Firstly, cities with different development levels should adopt differentiated strategies, cities with lower overall development quality should focus on improving the public services to promote economic and social development, cities with medium level development status should improve the population quality,particularly the quality of human resources, and cities with higher development level should pay attention to improve ecological environment; Secondly, as an intraregional spatial development strategy,urban city cluster development should be used asthe further powerful ingine for individual city development within the region, the individual cities should cultivate and promote the development of different types of city clusters; Third, strenthen the interregional cooperation between city and city,urban cluster and urban clusterthrough establishing and improving the interregional coordination mechanisms and further improving the interregional transportation connection and optimizing the factors allocation between two regions.