| With the rapid progress of urbanization in Zhejiang, characterizing spatio-temporal dynamics of its urbanization can provide reasonable reference for future development of its urbanization process and for other regions in China. Following issues were mainly studied in this paper:(1) the trend of urbanization in Zhejiang during1978-2008;(2) spatial pattern of urbanization in different stages;(3) the relationship between population, economy and societal development in different regionsWith regards to above issues, this paper established a comprehensive index system to evaluate urbanization with indicators. Cluster analysis was used to measure the different stages of urbanization and divided Zhejiang Province into various regions based on the development of urbanization. One-way ANOVA was employed to make comparisons between different stages of urbanization in Zhejiang. Finally, discriminant analysis was used to identify indicator factors. Main results are as follows:1. Seventeen indicators were selected out of thirty-one urbanization indicators. There were three population indicators including proportion of non-agricultural population, etc., five economic indicators including GDP, etc. and nine social indicators containing transportation and education and so on;2. Zhejiang urbanization experienced five stages during1978-2008, including1978-1986,1987-1993,1994-1998,1999-2001and2002-2008. And the results of mean comparison showed that seventeen indicators increased significantly in the latter stages, by comparing with earlier stage;3. Zhejiang urbanization could be subdivided into various city clusters in different stages. There were four clusters during1978-2008, five clusters during1978-1986, five clusters during1987-1993, five clusters during1994-1998, four clusters during1999-2001and four clusters during2002-2008. 4. Discriminant analysis identified these indicators that could lead to different clusters. Results showed that there were fifteen indicators including GDP, proportion of non-agricultural population, etc. during1978-1986that can distinguish five clusters, thirteen indicators including proportion of non-agricultural population, housing area of urban and rural residents, etc. during1987-1993, eignt indicators including proportion of the secondary industry, engel coefficient,etc. during1994-1998, six indicators including proportion of non-agricultural population, volume of passengers, etc. during1999-2001and eleven indicators including Engel coefficient, volume of goods, etc. during2002-2008.Previous studies made comprehensive evaluation of regional urbanization with one indicator or multi-index, while in-depth study of urbanization cluster and indicator discriminant were rare. It is expected that results from spatial clusters, temporal dynamics analysis and indicators discriminant of urbanization in Zhejiang Province can provide scientific reference for the future development of urbanization of Zhejiang Province and for the urbanization in other regions in China. |
