Measurement and Spatio-temporal Distribution of Urbanization Development Quality of Urban Agglomeration in China

Key words: 
• urbanization development quality (UDQ) /
• urbanization speed /
• comprehensive measure model /
• urban agglomeration (UA)

Abstract: Urbanization development quality (UDQ) of urban agglomeration (UA) is one of the important indexes to evaluate if the UA
urbanization speed is reasonable, if the population urbanization process is sound, if the economic urbanization process is efficient, if the
social urbanization process is harmonious and fair, which is generally composed of three parts, including economic urbanization
development quality, social urbanization development quality and spatial urbanization security quality. With the research of evolution
rules of UDQ, through the analysis on the interactive coordination relation between UDQ and urbanization level, the paper proposes three
dimensional index ball and standard value of comprehensive measures of UDQ, which is composed of three categories of indexes. By
introducing Atkinson model, this paper constructs the sub-element measure model and segmental measure model of UDQ, and further
makes an overall evaluation on the characteristic of UDQ of UAs in China. Results show that: 1) UDQ of UAs lied at optimization and
upgrading phase during 1995–2008 and the quality was low. Population urbanization level did not reflect the UDQ of UAs; 2) the improving
speed of the spatial urbanization security quality was higher than the social urbanization development quality, and the improving speed of
economic urbanization development quality was the lowest; 3) the coordination between UDQ and urbanization level was not so good; 4)
there was a weak correlation relation between UDQ and UA scale, and it was not true that the bigger the UA was, the better the UDQ
was.