Spatio-Temporal Evolution, Internal Diversity, and Driving Factors of Economy of Guanzhong Plain Urban Agglomeration in Northwestern China Based on Nighttime Light Data

Limeng Liu, Wenheng Wu (), Xiaoying Bai and Wanying Shang
Additional contact information
Limeng Liu: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, China
Wenheng Wu: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, China
Xiaoying Bai: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, China
Wanying Shang: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, China

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 12, 1-25

Abstract: Urban agglomeration (UA) is a highly developed spatial form of urban complex, which is one of the important carriers of regional economic cooperation, international industrial division of labor, and flow of capital and information elements. In China, urban agglomerations (UAs) have become the spatial subject of the national new-type urbanization strategy since the early 21st century and have made irreplaceable contributions to China’s urbanization and economic development. The Guanzhong Plain urban agglomeration (GPUA) is an important economic growth pole in northwest China and a key node in China’s open-door pattern. Exploring the spatial and temporal characteristics and driving factors of its economic development will be an important revelation for the promotion of high-quality economic development of the GPUA. This paper characterizes the level of economic development of GPUA with a long series of nighttime light data between 2002 and 2022. The standard deviation ellipse, spatial autocorrelation analysis, the economic difference index, and grey correlation analysis are used to analyze the characteristics of spatio-temporal evolution, internal diversity, and driving factors of economic development of the GPUA. The results show that the economic development level of the GPUA continued to increase from 2002 to 2022. The spatial distribution of the GPUA economy is “northeast-southwest” axial distribution, and the center of gravity of economic development gradually moves westward. The differences in the level of economic development within the GPUA show a typical core–periphery structure, but the degree of difference tends to weaken over time. The internal expansion force and economic promotion force were the dominant factors for the economic development of the GPUA in the early years. However, with the passage of time, scientific and technological support and government support have gradually become the main influencing factors for the economic development of the GPUA nowadays.

Keywords: spatio-temporal evolution; internal diversity; driving mechanism; economy development; Guanzhong Plain urban agglomeration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/12/2093/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/12/2093/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:12:p:2093-:d:1536714

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().