School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China.
Key Laboratory of Law and Government, Ministry of Natural Resources of China, Wuhan, 430074, China.
Environ Monit Assess. 2023 Aug 31;195(9):1121. doi: 10.1007/s10661-023-11720-w.
Urban agglomerations have emerged as the primary drivers of high-quality economic growth in China. While recent studies have examined the urban expansion patterns of individual cities, a comparative study of the urban expansion patterns of urban agglomerations at two different scales is required for a more comprehensive understanding. Thus, in this study, we conduct a two-scale comparative analysis of urban expansion patterns and their driving factors of the two largest urban agglomerations in western and central China, i.e., Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration (CCUA) and the Middle Reaches of Yangtze River urban agglomerations (MRYRUA) at both the urban agglomeration and city levels. We investigate the urban expansion patterns of CCUA and MRYRUA between 2000 and 2020 using various models, including the urban expansion rate, fractal dimension, modified compactness, and gravity-center method. Then we use multiple linear regression analysis and geographically weighted regression (GWR) to explore the magnitude and geographical differentiation of influences for economic, demographic, industrial structure, environmental conditions, and neighborhood factors on urban expansion patterns. Our findings indicate that CCUA experienced significantly faster urban growth compared to MRYRUA. There is an excessive concentration of resources to megacities within the CCUA, whereas there is a lack of sufficient collaboration among the three provinces within the MRYRUA. Additionally, we identify significant differences in the impacts of driving forces of CCUA and MRYRUA, as well as spatial heterogeneity and regional aggregation in the variation of their strength. Our two-scale comparative study of urban expansion patterns will not only provide essential reference points for CCUA and MRYRUA but also serve as valuable insights for other urban agglomerations in China, enabling them to promote sustainable urban management and foster integrated regional development.
城市群已成为中国高质量经济增长的主要驱动力。虽然最近的研究考察了单个城市的城市扩张模式，但为了更全面地了解城市群的扩张模式，需要对两个不同规模的城市群的城市扩张模式进行比较研究。因此，本研究对中国西部和中部的两个最大城市群——成（都）渝（重庆）城市群和长江中游城市群，进行了城市扩展模式及其驱动因素的两尺度比较分析。在城市和城市群两个尺度上，我们使用城市扩展率、分形维数、修正紧凑度和重力中心法等多种模型，研究了 2000 年至 2020 年期间成渝城市群和长江中游城市群的城市扩展模式。然后，我们使用多元线性回归分析和地理加权回归（GWR）方法，探讨了经济、人口、产业结构、环境条件和邻里因素对城市扩展模式的影响的大小和地理差异。研究结果表明，与长江中游城市群相比，成（都）渝（重庆）城市群的城市增长速度明显更快。在成（都）渝（重庆）城市群中，资源过度集中于特大城市，而在长江中游城市群中，三省之间缺乏充分的合作。此外，我们还发现成（都）渝（重庆）城市群和长江中游城市群的驱动力的影响存在显著差异，其强度的变化存在空间异质性和区域集聚。本研究对城市群的城市扩展模式进行了两尺度比较，不仅为成（都）渝（重庆）城市群和长江中游城市群提供了重要的参考依据，也为中国其他城市群提供了有价值的见解，有助于促进可持续的城市管理和促进区域一体化发展。
