How Far Has China’s Urbanization Gone?

Abstract

China’s rapid urbanization has attracted wide international attention. However, it may not be sustainable. In order to assess it objectively and put forward recommendations for future development, this paper first develops a four-dimensional Urbanization Quality Index using weights calculated by the Deviation Maximization Method for a comprehensive assessment and then reveals the spatial association of China’s urbanization by Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis. The study leads to three major findings. First, the urbanization quality in China has gradually increased over time, but there have been significant differences between regions. Second, the four aspects of urbanization quality have shown the following trends: (i) the quality of urban development has steadily increased; (ii) the sustainability of urban development has shown a downward trend in recent years; (iii) the efficiency of urbanization improved before 2006 but then declined slightly due to capital, land use, and resource efficiency constraints; (IV) the urban–rural integration deteriorated in the early years but then improved over time. Third, although the urbanization quality has a significantly positive global spatial autocorrelation, the local spatial autocorrelation varies between eastern and western regions. Based on these findings, this paper concludes with policy recommendations for improving urbanization quality and its sustainability in China.