High-Quality Development Evaluation and Spatial Evolution Analysis of Urban Agglomerations in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River

Abstract

Urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is key to the rise of central China, and an important engine for the high-quality development of the Yangtze River economic belt. Research on urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River focuses mainly on economic development, ecological environment, and innovation. Few studies focus on evaluation combining development levels. This study uses the entropy weight TOPSIS method to build an urban high-quality development level indicator system with “innovation, coordination, greenness, openness, and sharing” as the indicators, comprehensively measuring the high-quality development level of 31 cities in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River from 2010 to 2019 and analyzing the evolution of spatial distribution and autocorrelation. The results show that the high-quality development level of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River varies greatly, and fluctuations are significant. The spatial distribution also shows an evolution from belt-shaped agglomeration to point-shaped diffusion distribution, and the spatial autocorrelation shows a negative correlation. Finally, this paper proposes suggestions to promote high-quality development from three aspects: system coordination, industry coordination, and sustainability.