Evaluation of Urbanization Development Dynamics Based on Quadrilateral Diamond Structure Model: Evidence from Chongqing, China, in the New Era

In the new era, the Chinese government has implemented a strategic arrangement of high-quality development and a dual circulation development pattern, which injects new content and driving force into China's new urbanization. To reveal these changes, this paper constructs a quadrilateral diamond structure model of urbanization development dynamics of four-dimensional force + institutional force + innovation force, based on the comprehensive connotation of urbanization. Then the standard variance method and global principal component regression model are applied to empirically analyze the urbanization level and its development dynamics for Chongqing, a typical representative city of strategic importance in China, from 2000 to 2018. The results show that the following. (1) The urbanization level and all subsystems in Chongqing have shown a significant growth trend, of which the population and social subsystems have been maintaining relatively high growth rates, mapping the urbanization from a traditional efficiency-first economic growth model to a comprehensive benefit maximization model, focusing on people's livelihood and sustainable development. (2) The urbanization of Chongqing in the new era is an endogenous growth-oriented model driven by administrative, market, intrinsic, exterior, innovational, and institutional forces. This reflects the diversified and contemporary characteristics of the driving forces of urbanization in the new era, as well as the rationality and superiority of the institutional arrangement of the Chinese government. (3) The quadrilateral diamond structure model, which is based on the endogenous growth of the two forces of institutions and scientific and technological innovation, reveals the regional attributes and contemporary characteristics of the driving forces of urbanization in the new era. It can illustrate the Chinese experience for world urbanization research, and provides basic material for the world to understand and explore the characteristics and patterns of China's urbanization development.