Spatial differences and driving forces of land urbanization in China

doi:10.1007/s11442-015-1186-7

Abstract

Abstract:

Land urbanization plays an important supporting and restriction role in the rapid and sustainable development of urbanization in China, and it shows distinctive spatial heterogeneity. Applying urban area as the basic research unit and urban construction land area as the core indicator, this paper establishes the conceptual framework and calculation method for the quantity and rate of land urbanization process. The study evaluates the spatial differentiation pattern of absolute and relative process of land urbanization in 658 cities in China from 2000 to 2010. The spatial distribution of cities with rapid land urbanization process is discussed, and the contribution rate and its spatial heterogeneity of major land use types are examined with the aid of GIS. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) Land urbanization in China shows a clear spatial difference. The greater the city scale, the faster its land urbanization. The cities with rapid land urbanization show a significant pattern of central distribution in coastal regions and a scattered distribution in the inland regions. (2) Over the last 10 years, the average quantity of land urbanization in the 656 cities was 3.82 km², the quantity of land urbanization is differentiated by administrative grade. The average rate of land urbanization was 6.89%, obviously faster than the speed of population urbanization. The rate of land urbanization reveals a pattern of differentiation between coastal and other cities. (3) In the past 10 years, the two primary land use types associated with land urbanization in China are residential and industrial, with a combined contribution rate of 52.49%. The greater the scale of the city, the more significant the driving effect of industrial land. In small- and medium-scale cities of the western and central regions, the growth of residential land is the primary driver of land urbanization, while in coastal urban agglomerations and cities on important communication axes, the growth of industrial land is the main driver. (4) Overall, urban population agglomeration, industrial growth and investment are the three drivers of land urbanization in China, but cities of different scales have different drivers.

Key words: land urbanization, urban construction land, urban area, the driving force for land urbanization, China

Xueqin LIN, Yang WANG, Shaojian WANG, Dai WANG. Spatial differences and driving forces of land urbanization in China[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2015, 25(5): 545-558.

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Administrative hierarchy	Number of cities	Construction land area (km²)			Average construction land area per city (km²/city)		Average annual quantity of land urbanization per city(km²/year·city)
Administrative hierarchy	Number of cities	2000	2010	Increase rate (%)	2000	2010
Provincial capital city	36	7010.85	15668.31	123.49	194.75	435.23	24.05
Prefecture-level cities	251	9982.79	19237.88	92.72	39.77	76.64	3.73
County-level cities	369	5416.87	8743.78	61.41	14.68	23.70	0.98

Categories	City scale	Type of urban construction land
Categories	City scale	Reside- ntial	Public facilities	Industrial	Wareho- using	External traffic	Roads and squares	Municipal public facilities	Green	Special purposes
Proportion of various types of land in urban construction land in 2010 (%)	Small-scale cities	35.31	12.11	16.95	3.47	3.83	11.65	3.53	11.30	1.85
	Medium-scale cities	33.07	12.29	18.72	3.33	4.31	11.52	3.72	11.30	1.74
	Large-scale cities	30.97	12.38	22.13	3.05	4.43	11.43	3.25	10.66	1.71
	Extraordinarily large-scale cities	29.62	11.86	24.27	2.64	4.49	12.28	3.58	8.95	2.31
	Nationwide	31.20	12.15	21.86	2.99	4.39	11.77	3.49	10.21	1.95
Proportion of average annual growth area 2000- 2010) (%)	Small-scale cities	30.81	14.66	14.76	-2.46	-1.94	22.04	3.62	19.85	-1.33
	Medium-scale cities	31.46	12.76	18.20	0.95	2.10	15.35	3.55	15.12	0.51
	Large-scale cities	31.41	14.07	19.67	1.13	2.40	15.48	2.97	12.62	0.26
	Extraordinary large-scale cities	27.87	12.04	25.97	0.52	1.24	17.15	4.21	10.84	0.15
	Nationwide	29.60	13.03	22.89	0.82	1.81	16.33	3.60	11.71	0.20

Categories	Unstandardized coefficients	Standard errors	Standardized coefficients	t	Sig.
Undetermined coefficient (α₀)	1.383	1.275	-	1.085	0.278
Population agglomeration	0.704	0.021	0.730	33.657	0.000
Industrial growth	0.033	0.010	0.098	3.327	0.001
Investment	0.045	0.006	0.175	7.155	0.000
Promotion of urban function	13.497	13.125	0.014	1.028	0.304

City scale	R	F	Sig.	Population agglomeration		Industrial growth		Investment		Promotion of urban function
City scale	R	F	Sig.	B	Sig.	B	Sig.	B	Sig.	B	Sig.
Small-scale cities	0.401	8.331	0.000	0.188^***	0.000	0.011	0.353	0.005	0.613	5.587^**	0.025
Medium-scale cities	0.504	22.587	0.000	0.357^***	0.000	0.013	0.146	0.025^***	0.009	-2.780	0.590
Large-scale cities	0.931	328.568	0.000	0.696^***	0.000	0.033*	0.068	0.038^***	0.001	41.415	0.333

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