Progress toward some of sustainable development goals in China's population-shrinking cities

A decrease in population is an emerging challenge in China ' s urbanization trajectory. This study utilizes data from the Sixth and Seventh Population Censuses to identify Chinese cities experiencing population decline, focusing on prefecture -level cities. It employs 30 indicators relevant to nine Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) concerning urban areas and populations to evaluate the progress of these shrinking cities in 2010 and 2020. A novel metric, "SDG population elasticity", is introduced to quantify the association between population reduction and SDG indexes. The study employs K -means ++ clustering for 130 shrinking cities. The findings reveal that out of the 130 cities, 63 exhibit a downward trend in SDG index scores, predominantly in China ' s northeast and western regions. The Northeast region has negative SDG population elasticity, indicating a lag in sustainable development compared to that in other areas. Additionally, the research categorizes China ' s shrinking cities into four groups: cities with strong population elasticity feedback -significantly declining SDGs, cities with weak population elasticity feedback -slightly regressing SDGs, cities with high population loss -negative SDGs in decline, and cities with smart population decline -steady SDGs growth. These findings offer a foundation for crafting bespoke policies in shrinking cities to ensure a balanced approach to sustainable development and monitor advancement toward achieving the SDGs.