Evaluating Sustainability of Urbanization from a Multidimensional Perspective: A Case Study of 11 National Urban Agglomerations in China

During the period of rapid urban growth worldwide, China's urbanization process has soared. Based on China's National New-Type Urbanization Plan (NNUP), this paper takes 11 national-level urban agglomerations (UAs) as the research area, aiming to conduct a dynamic quantitative analysis of the sustainable development (SD) level of UAs and reveal inherent laws and effective strategies about spatial planning of UAs. Different from the existing literature, this paper analyzes the SD level of China's 11 major UAs during the urbanization process from a multidimensional perspective, including the comprehensive dynamic evolution of UAs, coupling coordinated development between the three subsystems, and internally coordinated distributions of UAs, which provides a crucial guarantee that the UAs' SD will be analyzed comprehensively. First, the evaluation index system of a new-type urbanization SD is constructed. Then, two principal component analyses and time-series global factor analyses are performed to evaluate the SD of new-type urbanization in China's 11 major UAs from the perspectives of the economy, society, and resources and environment. The characteristics of the SD levels of different UAs, the constraint factors of the SD levels, coupling coordinated development between the three subsystems, internally coordinated distribution characteristics of UAs, the relevant policy recommendations, and the reason why the Pearl River Delta UA has started to lag behind the Yangtze River Delta UA since 2010 are presented. Finally, we propose a plausible relation between the coupling coordinated degree (CCD) of UA subsystems and the internally coordinated development of UAs. Additionally, this paper provides a reference for policymakers to develop urban spatial planning policies to facilitate the SD level of relevant UAs by identifying the constraint factors of SD.