Impacts of Urban Development on Regional Green Development Efficiency—A Case of the Yangtze River Delta in China

Exploring the temporal-spatial characteristics and determinants of high-quality development of city clusters in China

The complexity, severity, and uncertainty of the international situation have prompted the development of city clusters to focus more on resilience and the building of infrastructures and safeguards. Chinese-style modernization proposes a new realization path for the high-quality development (HQD) of city clusters, based on which an evaluation system for HQD indicators of city clusters is constructed. We also measured the HQD levels of 19 city clusters from 2011 to 2021 and analyzed their spatial differentiation characteristics, agglomeration evolution characteristics, and influencing factors by using kernel density, standard deviation ellipse, Moran's index, geographic detector, and geographically weighted regression. The study revealed that (1) the overall level of HQD of China's city clusters shows a trend of continuous growth, and there is obvious polarization in the high quality of city clusters in different regions. (2) The spatial distribution of HQD in city clusters decreased in the "East, Center and West" direction, but the spatial patterns of "Southeast highlighting" and "Northwest rising" became more obvious. (3) The HQD of city clusters shows obvious spatial agglomeration characteristics and overall presents a spatial pattern of "hot in the east and cold in the west", with the scope of the cold spot area gradually shrinking, and the hot spot area tends to spread outward, with mature city clusters at the core. (4) The influencing factors of HQD in Chinese city clusters are diverse, with financial levels, digital economics, human capital and green innovations having decreasing influence on HQD in city clusters but showing an obvious two-factor enhancement trend, with financial levels being able to effectively stimulate the driving potential of other factors. Financial levels can effectively stimulate the driving potential of other factors. (5) The coefficients of the driving factors affecting the HQD of city clusters vary significantly spatially, with human capital, financial levels and green innovations showing a north‒south hierarchical banded distribution of "high in the south and low in the north", and digital economy shows an east-west hierarchical belt distribution of "high west and low east". Based on the above conclusions, the realization path of accelerating the HQD of China's city clusters is proposed by optimizing the functional division of labor of the city clusters, giving full play to the comparative advantages of the hinterland city clusters, and relying on the high level of the city clusters for opening up.

Fostering inclusive green growth in China: Identifying the impact of the regional integration strategy of Yangtze River Economic Belt

Inclusive green growth has garnered significant attention from governments and international organizations worldwide. Utilizing data from 282 cities in China spanning from 2010 to 2020, this study employs the dual machine learning model and the chain mediated effect model to delve into the effects and internal mechanisms of the regional integration of Yangtze River Economic Belt on inclusive green growth. Our findings indicate that the regional integration of Yangtze River Economic Belt has a substantial influence on inclusive green growth, particularly in cities with a higher degree of marketization, non-industrial cities, and cities lacking natural resource advantages. Mechanistic analysis reveals that the regional integration of Yangtze River Economic Belt exerts its influence on inclusive green growth through three parallel development paths including enhancing urban innovation levels, fostering mass entrepreneurship, and promoting the advancement of digital financial inclusion. Furthermore, the chain mediated effect is supported. Additionally, the spatial spillover effect of target policy is observed. These findings offer empirical evidence regarding the impact of the regional integration of Yangtze River Economic Belt on inclusive green growth, and provide valuable insights for optimizing and enhancing inclusive green growth strategies in China and other emerging economies.

Using fs/QCA to explore the influencing factors of urban green infrastructure development and its combinational drivers: the case of the Yangtze River Delta region of China

High levels of urban green infrastructure (UGI) development can help mitigate the climate, biodiversity, and habitat crises faced by cities and support the achievement of sustainable urban development. Based on the relevant data of 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region obtained from 2011 to 2020, this study measured the development level of natural and geographic conditions, economic development, urban construction, social and cultural development, and eco-environment quality and urban green infrastructure (UGI); evaluated the development trend of UGI in the region during the 12th Five-Year Plan and 13th Five-Year Plan by using entropy TOPSIS; and used fs/QCA to explain the high-level development path of each city toward the achievement of a green infrastructure. The results showed that (1) the development level of UGI in the Yangtze River Delta region decreases from southeast to northwest, and gradually decreases from Shanghai, Hangzhou, and other central cities. (2) There were several different configurations of high levels and non-high levels of UGI development drivers across regions, confirming the existence of multiple causality and asymmetry indices in the drivers of UGI. (3) During the "12th Five-Year Plan" and the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the conditions needed to achieve a high level of UGI gradually became stricter, expanding from nature-social culture and urban construction-eco-environmental drivers to nature-urban construction, nature-social culture-eco-environmental, urban construction-economy-social culture-eco-environmental drivers. Research findings can provide greater guidance and implications for future sustainable urban development.

Assessing the air pollution abatement effect of prefabricated buildings in China

Due to the acceleration of urbanization and industrialization, air pollutants has been increasing, posing a major threat to human health and the ecological environment. During the past period of rapid growth, with the booming development of real estate, the air pollutants brought about by the construction of housing buildings have become more and more serious, especially sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and dust, which cast a great threat to human life and seriously jeopardize human health. Compared with the traditional construction of houses, prefabricated buildings construction procedures are reduced, to some extent, can reduce air pollutants. Therefore, this paper takes an empirical perspective to include prefabricated buildings and air pollutants into the same research framework and analyze the inherent logical relationship. We found that prefabricated buildings have a substantial role in mitigating urban air pollution. This conclusion remained solid after various robustness tests including constructing instrumental variables. The effect is observed to be greater in cities above the non-sub-provincial level and those positioned within central regions. The conclusions explore new areas for the green and sustainable development of the construction industry, which in the future will have to fill the requirements of green development in order to survive. Else, perspectives from the construction industry, it provides a realistic solution to economic development and ecological protection, helping to alleviate or resolve the conflict between development and survival.

The heterogeneity impact of factor market distortions on GTFP: from the view of resource-based cities

Improving the efficiency of factor allocation, breaking the resource curse, and achieving high-quality economic development are an urgent concern in resource-based cities. Using the panel data of 116 prefecture-level resource-based cities in China from 2005 to 2020, this paper constructs the data envelopment analysis-Malmquist index model to measure the level of high-quality economic development; to construct a resource misallocation growth accounting model based on the total production function to measure the distortion coefficient, the threshold panel model is employed to explore the threshold effect of factor market distortion on high-quality economic development. The results yielded three important findings: (1) The green total factor productivity of resource-based cities in China presents spatial heterogeneity and type heterogeneity. (2) Factor market distortion gradient standards are proposed innovatively, and the factor market distortion level shows the spatial heterogeneity and type heterogeneity. (3) The influence of factor market distortion on high-quality economic development in resource-based cities presents a double threshold effect. According to the above research conclusions, this paper gives several policy recommendations to promote the factor marketization allocation and high-quality economic development of resource-based cities.

Spatial and nonlinear effects of new-type urbanization and technological innovation on industrial carbon dioxide emission in the Yangtze River Delta

The purpose of this paper is to quantify the level of new-type urbanization and unravel the spatial and nonlinear effects of new-type urbanization and technological innovation on industrial carbon emissions. Although the impact of traditional urbanization levels on carbon emissions has been widely studied, there is still a huge room for optimization, and the impact of new-type urbanization on carbon emissions has not yet been clarified. Selecting 37 cities in the Yangtze River Delta as a research sample, this paper measures the new-type urbanization based on an evaluation system we build. Consequently, we assess the spatial and nonlinear effects of new-type urbanization and technological innovation on carbon emissions by the spatial Durbin model and non-parameter addictive model, respectively. The results indicate that the new-type urbanization and low-carbon city pilot policy have significant spatial spillover effects on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, while the economic growth plays a positive role in increasing carbon emission. As for nonlinear effects, there is a significant inverted "N"-shaped relationship between the level of new-type urbanization and carbon dioxide emissions, while the nexus between technological innovation and carbon emissions is an inverted "U"-shaped relationship. This paper provides a new perspective for confirming the mechanism of the new-type urbanization on carbon emissions. Meanwhile, these findings are of significance for the relevant authorities in China to develop appropriate policy in carbon dioxide emission reduction.

The Influencing Effect of Tourism Economy on Green Development Efficiency in the Yangtze River Delta

In the context of ecological priority and green development strategy, accelerating the upgrading of tourism structure and promoting the development of ecotourism is an important guarantee to achieve green and low-carbon economic growth and high-quality development. On the basis of constructing comprehensive evaluation indicators of tourism development (TD) and green development efficiency (GDE), this study analyzed the impulse response relationship between TD and GDE and the impact effect of TD on GDE in the Yangtze River Delta region from 2000-2018. Findings showed that: (1) During the study period, TD generally exhibited a W-shaped fluctuating upward trend and GDE showed a staggered evolution of upward and downward fluctuations, while both regional gaps of TD and GDE continued to decrease. (2) Most cities had made a leap from low to medium, high, and higher levels of tourism development, with tourism development levels decreasing along the Yangtze River basin to the north and south of the delta. The overall green development efficiency was relatively low, showing a spatial pattern of high value in the southern delta and low value in the northwest delta. (3) There was a one-way Granger causality of TD on GDE, and the impact of TD on GDE showed a significant positive cumulative effect. (4) TD exhibited a significant inverted U-shaped impact on GDE. The economic development level and government intervention had a significant positive impact on GDE. The proportion of secondary industry, energy consumption intensity, and foreign direct investment had a significant negative driving effect on GDE. While the impact of environmental regulation on GDE was insignificant positive. This study has great practical significance to alleviate the problems of urban resources and environment, and to realize a green economy and high-quality life.