Evaluating the Health of Urban Human Settlements

Abstract

The design and dynamics of a human settlement affect the health of its residents; for example, high-quality human settlements can improve the health of their residents. Accordingly, it is important to evaluate and improve the quality of human settlements, especially from a health perspective. Taking on this task, this study applied an entropy method and spatial autocorrelation analysis to evaluate the human settlement quality of 14 prefecture-level cities in Liaoning Province. The results provided the following three main insights. (1) The settlements were of ordinary quality and effective measures should be taken to improve their quality. (2) Regarding spatial characteristics, from 2009 to 2019, these settlements showed clear regional differentiation, with a low spatial distribution in the east, high spatial distribution in the west, high spatial distribution in the middle, and slightly lower spatial distribution at both ends. These characteristics reflect imbalances in the quality of the regional human settlements. (3) Regarding subsystem evolution characteristics, the quality of the settlements showed clear systematic differentiation during the evaluation period. In response to these findings, this paper proposes effective measures to improve the quality of urban human settlements and provides theoretical support for the healthy development of such settlements, including the revitalization and development of old industrial bases.