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Green economic development is an effective tactic for China to cope with the predicament of resources and the environment. As "smoke-free industries", producer services are becoming the main contributors to urban green economic development (UGED). The paper adopts the super-efficiency EBM model to estimate the UGED index of 268 Chinese cities from 2005 to 2019. Based on the theoretical analysis, econometric models are constructed to systematically test how the specialized and diversified agglomeration of producer services impacts UGED. The findings reveal that both agglomeration modes considerably enhance UGED in the local area and its surroundings. Diversified agglomeration exerts a stronger radiation and promotion effect than specialized agglomeration. In addition, the impact of the two agglomeration modes on UGED demonstrates pronounced heterogeneity in urban scales, economic development stages, and industries. Furthermore, mechanism studies suggest that agglomeration substantially boosts UGED by improving human capital, technological innovation, and upgrading industrial structure. As such, our findings serve as an empirical basis for understanding the mechanism of the impact of PSA on UGED and also offer significant insight for local governments to adopt differentiated industrial policies to enhance the positive agglomeration effect on UGED. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to maintain the balanced stability and resilient development of rural systems is an important issue that needs urgent attention in the field of sustainable rural development at present. In this paper, the entropy method, spatial autocorrelation model, and Geodetector were used to explore the rural resilience level, spatial distribution characteristics, and driving factors of 31 cities in the urban agglomerations in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (UAMRYR), and to put forward corresponding policy suggestions. The results are as follows: (1) From 2005 to 2020, rural resilience in the UAMRYR showed an upward trend with an average annual growth rate of 8.26%. The ranking of the three major urban agglomerations is Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomerations > Wuhan urban agglomerations > Poyang Lake urban agglomerations. (2) During the study period, the spatial distribution of rural resilience gradually developed from a negative correlation to a strong positive correlation and generally showed the characteristics of high in the west and low in the east. (3) The urbanization rate, the size and structure of the economy, the difference in consumption and income between urban and rural areas, the local fiscal revenue, and the number of village committees are the key factors affecting the level of rural resilience. On this basis, we proposed policy recommendations to improve the economic, social, and ecological resilience of rural areas in the UAMRYR. The findings of this paper are expected to provide insights into the policy formulation of China's rural revitalization strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of China's rapid urbanization, rural places are brought into urban areas, forming semi-urbanization. These semi-urbanized sites suggest a dual urban–rural structure in their form and management. With the slowing down of urbanization, the Chinese government adopted heritage tourism to boost the local economy. Local historic buildings and cultural resources were regenerated and restored in this process. This paper aims at examining the role of heritage tourism in blurring the boundary of rurality and urbanity, boosting local economy, and revitalizing the areas with cultural-led development. In this paper, we analyzed the Huangpu Ancient Village's regeneration process. We argue that the Huangpu Ancient Village integrates local historical and cultural resources to boost the local economy, simultaneously adopting urban renewal and rural revival strategies. This paper contributes to the body of literature addressing villages in urban areas, breaking the duality of urbanity and rurality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The renovation problem of old residential areas is not only a city management task, but also a major engineering of benefiting the people, which is related to the people living and working in peace and contentment and the improvement of the overall image of the city. In order to improve the appearance of old residential areas in Chinese cities and the living conditions of their residents, city planners must take a scientific and structured approach to renovation. After analyzing current status of the old residential in several major Chinese cities, consulting the literature, and undertaking field investigations, this paper summarizes the main influencing factors on renovation decision-making. We propose five hypotheses, which we test using questionnaire survey data, sample analysis of these influencing factors, and a structural equation model (SEM). The results show that the degree of influence of each factor on renovation decisions ranks as technology being the most influential, followed by the economy, policy, the environment, and society. In addition, we find that there is nonzero correlation between these various factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization and eco-efficiency are two interactive systems, contributing to sustainable urban development jointly. However, the synchronized development between them has not received sufficient attention. In light of this gap, this paper conducts an analysis on seeking the synchronized development between sustainable urbanization and eco-efficiency in the context of China. The aim of this study is to uncover the spatial and temporal performance of the synchronized relationship between urbanization process (UP) and eco-efficiency (EE) in a sample of 255 Chinese cities. To this end, entropy method, super efficiency SBM and coupling coordination degree model are employed to conduct the research analysis, covering the period of 2005 to 2019. The findings of this study reveal that (1) there is about 97% of the surveyed cities that exhibit a moderate level of coupling coordination between urbanization process and eco-efficiency (CC-UE). (2) Spatial disparities in the performance of CC-UE are evident, with cities in South and Southeast China demonstrating better CC-UE performance than their counterparts. However, this disparity has been gradually diminishing in recent years. (3) Local perspective presented an evident spatial autocorrelation within the 255 cities analyzed. These research findings provide valuable insights not only for the policy-makers and practitioners to adopt measures for achieving a synchronized development between urbanization process and eco-efficiency in the Chinese context, but also for further studies on sustainable development in the international context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Realizing the coordination between the economic and environmental systems through a green growth model is an important goal for China to enter the high-quality development stage. Meanwhile, financial technology (fintech) is rapidly developing in China. To explore the relationship between the two, this research uses panel data from 276 cities in China from 2011 to 2022 and empirically tests through constructing econometric models and machine learning algorithms. The empirical result shows that fintech has an impact on green growth. Specifically, there is a U-shaped relationship between fintech and green growth, meaning that before a certain stage, fintech may have a certain inhibitory effect on green growth. After fintech exceeds a certain development level, it will promote the improvement of green growth. Further mediation tests show that innovation plays a mediating role in the impact of fintech on green growth. Additionally, this research also conducts consistency tests based on different criteria including the location, scale, and financial development level of cities. Based on the research findings, policy suggestions are proposed in this paper to promote the development of fintech and stimulate the growth of the green economy. Overall, our research sheds more light on the fintech-green growth linkage and provides new insights into comprehending the role of fintech in advancing towards a low-carbon economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Challenges to social, economic, and environmental sustainability are global in scale, yet sustainable development policies must be implemented locally. There has been a tendency for sustainable urbanism projects to engage in the conspicuous sustainability of spatially bounded and highly visible sustainability achievements, rather than spatially expansive, long-term achievements. China's complex system of multilevel governance encourages policy experimentation, but it is also frequently productive of entrepreneurial urbanism and intercity competition. This paper analyses spatial planning documents concerning Hengqin (Zhuhai Municipality, Guangdong Province), an island adjacent to Macao SAR, to show how the ambitions for a new-build district's contributions to sustainable development have become more spatially expansive and ambitious over time. This has occurred alongside changes in project leadership (from city, to provincial, to central government leadership) as well as a deepening awareness of the Greater Bay Area as a region for crossborder policymaking. The paper argues that crossborder perspectives are vital for genuine sustainable development but face certain obstacles in relation to the sites at which policy decisions are made. • Policymakers often prefer conspicuous sustainability to long-term achievements. • Innovative urban entrepreneurialism is common in China's multilevel governance. • Hengqin's spatial planning initially prioritised immediate, localised results. • Centralised leadership and regional awareness can raise sustainability ambitions. • Crossborder perspectives better reflect sustainable development needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the domain of global socio-economic dynamics, the pivotal role of food production (FP) cannot be overstated. It constitutes the bedrock of fundamental human necessities while being inexorably linked with critical aspects such as economic expansion, societal equilibrium, and geopolitical interplays. The multifaceted nature of FP appears through its direct impact on macroeconomic indicators and its latent influence on international relations and policy-making. This critical nexus underscores the imperative for a comprehensive understanding and strategic management of food production processes to sustain and enhance global socio-economic stability and growth. Investigating the nexus between green finance (GF) and FP is pivotal for ensuring national security and promoting sustainable economic development. This research thus paper examines GF's impact on FP in China as outlined in the 2017 green finance policies. It employs the difference-in-differences (DID) method and analyzes a balanced panel dataset comprising 282 cities in China from 2009 to 2020. The results show that GF has an inhibitory effect on FP, and this remains valid after a range of reliability checks, including parallel trend assessments and placebo tests. Further findings of transmission mechanism analysis indicate that non-agricultural factors and financial exclusion are critical for GF's inhibitory effect on FP. Heterogeneity analyses show that GF's inhibitory effect on FP is more pronounced in the main food-producing areas, the main food-marketing areas, and cities with better infrastructure. The empirical results of this paper comprehensively illustrate GF's impact on FP and how it contributes to the achievement of food security objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural green development is an essential direction for global sustainable agriculture. The academic literature, however, needs to place greater emphasis on studying the factors influencing agricultural green development performance and how such performance can be improved. A theoretical framework for agricultural green development performance was constructed in this paper using the Super-SBM model, which considers undesirable outputs, to measure the agricultural green development performance of 330 cities at or above the prefecture level in China (excluding Tibet Autonomous Region, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan of China) from 2007 to 2018. Furthermore, the influencing mechanism of agricultural green development performance was then analyzed using a spatial econometric model. The results show that: 1) from 2007 to 2018, China's agricultural green development performance experienced three stages of evolution: 'rise, decline and rise'. 2) The regions with high performance agricultural green development are mainly distributed in eastern China, northeastern China, and southern Qinghai Province. 3) The agricultural economic level, industrialization process, and labor quality play significant roles in promoting local agricultural green development performance, while such performance is obviously inhibited by the openness level and the government's environmental regulations. Local agricultural green development performance is significant inhibited by the agricultural economic level and accelerated industrialization process in neighboring cities, while significantly promoted by the agricultural industrial structure in neighboring cities. Some suggestions for improving agricultural green development performance are proposed based on these research results, which can provide scientific references for promoting sustainable agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High carbon emissions and population aging are two obstacles to China's development as an emerging economy. It is urgent to scientifically examine the impacts of population aging on carbon emissions to discover new pathways for urban carbon emission reduction. However, existing studies face challenges in terms of focusing on and methodology for accurately capturing the role of industrial production and energy consumption in the environmental effects of population aging. This paper constructs a chain mediation analytical framework and systematically examines the intrinsic linkages between population aging and carbon emissions in Chinese cities from 2000 to 2020 using a two-way fixed effects model. This paper has three main findings. (1) The positive correlation between urban population aging and carbon emissions development is generally low, with coupling coordination degree values of 0.4233, 0.4458, 0.4220, 0.4715, and 0.4665 for each yearly cross-section. (2) For every 1% increase in the population aging rate, carbon emissions decrease by 0.3478% on average. The carbon reduction effect of population aging is significantly greater in low-emissions cities and high-income cities than in other cities. (3) The industrial upgrading (IU) path, energy conservation (EC) path and chain mediation (CM) path account for 72.43%, 7.23% and 20.34%, respectively, of the indirect effects. If the causal link between IU and EC is not considered, the EC effect will be overestimated by 281.16%. The results of the study suggest that properly coping with population aging and reducing carbon emissions are not completely opposed to each other, a conclusion that passes both endogeneity exclusion and robustness check. This paper advocates replacing the one-size-fits-all approach in carbon emissions management and investing more in policy preferences to support carbon emission reduction in both high-emissions and low-income cities. [Display omitted] •The synergistic trends of carbon emissions and population aging are not apparent. •Population aging significantly reduces carbon emissions at the city scale. •Linkage effect of industrial upgrading and energy conservation on carbon emission reduction. •Energy conservation effect of population aging amplified by industrial upgrading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the background of the international dialogue and action agendas regarding climate change and the protection of biodiversity, China has embarked during the past years on a new urbanisation approach, gradually advancing from an era of high-speed sprawl to one of more high-quality, green and low-carbon city development. Several national policies and strategies have been put in place, which are consequently rolled out at the sub-national level in provinces and cities. Energy efficiency in urban areas, nature-based solutions and new green ecological site developments are particularly important planning priorities fuelling the national government's ambition to transform cities to be more liveable and sustainable. Further priorities are digitalisation and smart city approaches, as well as responding to COVID-19 implications in the sense of 'green recovery'. This paper summarises the low-carbon development policy framework in China and provides three case studies of selected projects from the capital city, Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rational assessment of the regional sustainable development level is an important prerequisite for formulating development strategies and achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Currently, little literature provides nuanced understanding for national sustainable development from the perspective of county sustainability. Such studies can provide more accurate regional heterogeneity characteristics and policy decision support. Thus, this paper applies the entropy weight method and Chinese county data from 2000 to 2017 to reassess the sustainability of Chinese counties. The results show that China's county sustainability (Sustainable Development Index, SDI) is slowly improving. County sustainability performance is poorer in ethnic minority agglomerations, poor counties, old revolutionary counties, and central and western regions, better in county-level cities and eastern regions. The decomposition results show that economic sustainability and environmental sustainability are the main supporters of SDI growth, and livelihood sustainability is in urgent need of improvement. The regional inequality of SDI in Chinese counties gradually decreases, and inter-group differences are the main contributors to regional inequality in SDI. This paper provides support for China to develop county-level sustainable development measures and practice the SDGs. The findings could be useful for policymakers. [Display omitted] • Based on the entropy weight method and the Chinese county data, the sustainable development levels of 1533 counties in China from 2000 to 2017 are estimated. • Analyses of spatial-temporal dynamic heterogeneity, Linear decomposition, and Dagum decomposition are conducted to study the features of sustainable development in Chinese counties. •The influence of natural features and national concern preferences on county sustainable development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's numerous resource-based cities have confronted severe environmental and economic problems, which were substantial impediments to the regional sustainable development. In 2013, China started to implement its 'National Sustainable Development Plan of Resource-Based Cities', in order to transform the previous development patterns. This study employs the difference-in-differences (DID) method to evaluate the policy's impact on the city-level carbon dioxide (CO2) emission intensity. CO2 intensity is defined as the scale of CO2 emitted per unit of GDP. The research sample covers 326 Chinese cities during 2008—2017. Research results indicate that the policy significantly increased the CO2 intensity in resource-based cities. Moreover, it is found that the policy dampened resource-based cities' innovation levels and these cities did not strengthen their environmental regulations, which can be provided as the explanations of why the policy effect on carbon intensity was positive. Furthermore, this study reports the discrepancies in policy effects when cities have different development stages, spatial locations and marketization levels. Overall, this research discovers an undesirable policy effect. More actions should be taken to reduce the carbon intensity during the structural transformation in resource-based cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's rapid urbanization growth during the past decades which has highly promoted its affluence has induced various challenges for the countryside. The problem of rural decline of quite many villages which are suffering depopulation in turn challenges the urbanization sustainability in China. By way of in-depth historical and literature review, the paper finds distorted urban-rural relationship and the tendency of village decline owing to China's long time urban biased policy. By further investigating China's new-type urbanization strategy, the paper draws concerns about future rural development which is less mentioned in the plan. It calls for ruralization and actions to revitalize the countryside so as to be adapted to China's new-type urbanization plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper explores the effect of green finance on SDGs. • GFPZ significantly promotes SDGs. • Green finance indirectly affects SDGs through technological innovation. • The impact of green finance on SDGs exhibits heterogeneity. In pursuit of actively advancing energy transformation, ensuring the attainment of carbon peak and carbon neutrality objectives, and fostering sustainable development, China has dedicated substantial efforts. This article treats the Green Finance Reform and Innovation Pilot Zones (GFPZ) as a quasi-natural experiment, thereby constructing an analytical framework for evaluating the impact of green finance on achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We empirically investigate this impact by analyzing data from 316 cities in China spanning the period from 2011 to 2020, employing a difference-in-differences (DID) model. The study suggests a gradual improvement in the level of sustainable development in China. Moreover, green finance contributes to SDGs, and the conclusion is robust. Further investigation reveals that green finance improves sustainable development by fostering technological innovation. Heterogeneity results indicate that the influence is notably more pronounced in western regions and locales characterized by stringent environmental regulations. This article offers fresh perspectives on achieving SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address global climate change, achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality has become a global consensus. However, the means to simultaneously achieve carbon reduction and promote green economic development, particularly in developing countries, require further investigation. This study evaluates the impact of e-commerce on CO 2 emissions. Through an examination of the effects of the National E-Commerce Demonstration City (NEDC) policy from 2006 to 2017, this paper reveals that e-commerce growth facilitated by the NEDC policy resulted in a 7.89% reduction in total CO 2 emissions and a per capita reduction of 1.1146 tons in the pilot cities. Mechanism analysis demonstrates that the upgrading of industrial structure, development of digital finance, and the growth of innovation and entrepreneurship serve as primary pathways for this impact. The robustness of the findings is supported by parallel trend tests, placebo tests, and additional sensitivity analyses. Furthermore, the research reveals that the NEDC policy exhibits a more significant reduction in CO 2 emissions in cities with higher levels of economic development and non-resource-based cities. Welfare analyses show that the NEDC policy has significant socio-economic effects. These findings provide new evidence on the environmental effects of the digital economy and offer insights into achieving carbon neutrality. • The National E-commerce Demonstration Cities (NEDC) policy reduced CO 2 emissions. • Optimizing industrial structure, enhancing digital finance, and promoting innovation and entrepreneurship are mechanisms. • The effect is more pronounced in cities with high economic levels and high resource dependence. • The NEDC policy substantially enhanced social welfare by reducing CO 2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of a city's green infrastructure is increasingly being driven by low-carbon innovation (LCI). However, knowledge of how LCI affects green economic efficiency (GEE) in China is largely unknown. This study investigates the spatial effects of LCI on GEE in 285 Chinese prefecture-level cities. The empirical findings show that LCI exerts significant beneficial effects on its GEE but negative effects on its neighbors. The positive direct effects on GEE are offset by negative indirect effects due to the lack of spatial linkage effect and the existence of the siphon and crowding-out effects among cities. Using a mediating effect model, we have identified three channels of LCI that affect GEE: industrial structure, energy consumption structure, and human capital. A further heterogeneity analysis indicates that the impacts of LCI on GEE differ by region and city development level. Furthermore, LCI in the building, greenhouse gas treatment, transportation, and sewage and pollutant treatment categories could greatly enhance local GEE. The findings herein provide an empirical experience for accurately accessing the spatial effect of LCI on GEE, and offer a critical decision-making reference for implementing a cross-city green linkage development mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data for Chinese prefecture-level and above cities from 2003 to 2017, we employed the difference-in-differences (DID) method to explore whether innovative city constructions reduced carbon emissions. The results show that innovative city constructions significantly curb carbon emissions in Chinese cities, which is supported by a series of robustness tests. Specifically, we found that innovative city constructions could reduce carbon emissions by 5.21%, which is equivalent to a total of about 5.46 million tons. In addition, we provided evidence that innovative city constructions curb carbon emissions by promoting technological innovation, industrial upgrading and industrial green development, ecological improvement, and government intervention. Furthermore, heterogeneous results indicate that the carbon reduction effect of innovative city constructions is mainly found in eastern cities and cities with better industrial development and human capital base. Our findings further enrich the study on the environmental benefits of national innovation incentives and public policies and provide important insights in carbon neutrality and achieving sustainable development, especially for developing and emerging market countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bicycles are a desirable form of transportation for many reasons, including the fact that taking a bicycle is environmentally-friendly, economically cost-effective, a way to keep fit and healthy and, on occasions, an enjoyable social activity. This paper explores the characteristics and commonalities between particular bike-sharing systems in urban areas, with a view to deriving influences on the sustainability of such systems. The empirical study is China and the paper analyses bike-sharing systems in five Chinese cities. China is suffering from the severe negative consequences of high private vehicle usage in large and densely populated cities. Nevertheless a long history of bicycle usage in the country provides great potential for such a green form of travel to be part of public and private transportation. The findings show that bike-sharing systems have varying degrees of success. The configurations which seem the most sustainable consider and integrate elements relating to transport planning, system design and choice of business model. Key conclusions are that those responsible for developing policy and practices in relation to bike-sharing systems need to understand the diverse aspects of value for the stakeholders wishing to engage with such a system. Public bicycle sharing, as a Product Service System, needs to be carefully developed to appreciate the quality and timely interplay between the physical design of the system and the provision of services being offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Since 2014, the Chinese government has initiatednew-type urbanization under the guidance of 'the National New-type Urbanization Plan (2014–2020)', which embarks on a significant transformation of the model of urbanization in post-reform China. To understand the origin and outputs of this policy, this article demonstrates the context of China's new-type urbanization. The paper proposes a conceptual framework of new-type urbanization, which mainly includes four aspects: humanism, people-oriented urbanization; inclusivism, benefits sharing for urban and rural; sustainability, development without sacrifice of resources and environment; and harmonism, coordination. This is followed by an examination of the case of Anhui province, as a pilot province of China's new-type urbanization. Anhui has performed a lot of related work to promote citizenization of peasant workers and has made great progress on the reform of the household registration system. The study found that despite a special emphasis on people-oriented urbanization, the pressures and costs of citizenization of peasant workers are growing fast, accompanied by rising housing prices in cities. This insight suggests there are benefits and costs of promoting China's new-type urbanization. Despite the advantages of institutional innovation, the unexpected side effects such as rapid rising housing prices actually undermine the success of plan implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synergy of the digital economy and green total factor productivity (TFP) is the foundation for achieving beneficial outcomes for both the economy and environment. This synergy is also the catalyst for high-quality development and sustainable economic growth in China. The study applied a modified Ellison-Glaeser (EG) index, super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) with a Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) index, coupling coordination degree, and other models to explore the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the coupling between the digital economy and green TFP from 2011 to 2020 and also analyzed the influencing factors of the coupling. The results show that the coupling between the digital economy and green TFP showed an overall upward trend from imbalance to synergy during the study period. The distribution of the synergistic coupling expanded from point-like to band-like, and there was a significant spreading pattern from the east to the center or west China. The number of cities in a transition state decreased significantly. Spatial jumps, a coupling linkage effect, and evolution in time were prominent. Additionally, the absolute difference among cities expanded. Although coupling in the west experienced the fastest growth rate, the coupling in the east and resource-based cities showed significant benefits. Coupling did not reach an ideal coordinated state, and a neutral interaction pattern remains to be formed. Industrial collaboration, industrial upgrading, government support, economic foundation, and spatial quality all positively impacted the coupling; technological innovation had a lagged effect; and environmental regulation has not reached its full potential. Further, the positive effects of government support and spatial quality performed better in the east and in non-resource-based cities. Due to the optimization of industrial structure, the coupling of the west and resource-based cities achieved better dividends; however, spatial quality needs further improvement. Therefore, the efficient coordination of China's digital economy and green TFP requires a scientific, reasonable, localized, and distinctive approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective land use contributes to sustainable urban development. However, there are various reports suggesting that urban land resources used mismatch to different extents in many Chinese cities. This study measures the degree of the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources from a supply–demand perspective, and a mismatching coefficient, namely land resource mismatch (LRM), is adopted as the measurement. The data used for the empirical analysis are from a sample of 35 cities in China. The empirical study shows the effectiveness of employing the mismatching coefficient LRM model in evaluating the degree of the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources. The research findings suggest the following: (1) Overall, the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources is significant in China in the form of either supply shortage or over-supply. (2) The degree of the mismatch phenomenon is different between different types of land, with the land for administration and public services showing more serious mismatching and the land for commercial and business facilities showing less mismatching. (3) There are significant differences both in the type and the degree of land use mismatch among different cities, which are contributed largely by the intensity of local government's controlling and planning role on land resources and the maturity of applying market mechanisms. The results from this study can inform the government of the importance and necessity of adopting effective policy measures for mitigating the mismatch phenomenon in utilizing urban land resources. The research method applied in this study can be applied in a larger context internationally for understanding the effectiveness of utilizing urban land resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This econometric study contributes to the ongoing debate about the costs and benefits of urban form by employing interdisciplinary means-urban planning, econometrics and public administration--to explore the relationship between urban form and urban public services expenditure. In China, particularly, rapid urbanization is accompanied by an increase of urban public services expenditure and a difference in efficiency, which undermines the promotion of urban public service development. The Chinese government has paid great attention to urban sustainable development and promoting urban public services performance; however, until recently there has been a lack of empirical studies exploring the relationship between urban public services expenditure and urban form. Thus, the present research aims to analyze this issue by using relevant indicators based on an econometric model. The results provide a promising basis for improving urban public services expenditure efficiency. Based on the urban area interpreted by remote sensing data and geographic information system, two urban form metrics, the compactness ratio and the elongation ratio, are selected and quantified to describe urban compactness and urban sprawl accurately. Panel data analyses are performed using a cross-sectional dataset of the 30 cities for the years 2007, 2010 and 2013 to assess the likelihood of association between indicators of urban form and urban public services expenditure, while controlling for other determinants, such as educational level, income per capita, degree of industrialization, and unemployment rate. The results indicate that urban elongation is positively correlated to per capita urban public services expenditure and urban compactness is insignificantly correlated to it. Thus, it is recommended that policymakers consider the relationship between urban form and public services expenditure as part of urban planning and on-going strategies to promote public service efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]