A global North-South division line for portraying urban development
Yatao Zhang,
Xia Li,
Shaojian Wang,
Yao Yao,
Qingquan Li,
Wei Tu,
Hongfang Zhao,
Hui Zhao,
Kuishuang Feng,
Laixiang Sun,
Klaus Hubacek
Affiliations
Yatao Zhang
Future Resilient Systems, Singapore-ETH Centre, ETH Zurich, Singapore 138602, Singapore
Xia Li
School of Geographic Sciences, Key Lab of Geographic Information Science (Ministry of Education), East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China; Corresponding author
Shaojian Wang
School of Geography and Planning, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Urbanization and Geo-simulation, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China; Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Corresponding author
Yao Yao
School of Geography and Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430078, China
Qingquan Li
Shenzhen Key Lab of Spatial Smart Sensing and Services, Key Lab for Geo-Environmental Monitoring of Coastal Zone of the Ministry of Natural Resource, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China; State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
Wei Tu
Shenzhen Key Lab of Spatial Smart Sensing and Services, Key Lab for Geo-Environmental Monitoring of Coastal Zone of the Ministry of Natural Resource, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
Hongfang Zhao
School of Geographic Sciences, Key Lab of Geographic Information Science (Ministry of Education), East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China
Hui Zhao
Guangdong Urban and Rural Planning and Design Institute Co. Ltd., Guangzhou 510290, China
Kuishuang Feng
Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Laixiang Sun
Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Klaus Hubacek
Integrated Research of Energy, Environment and Society (IREES), Energy and Sustainability Research Institute (ESRIG), University of Groningen, Groningen, 9747 AG, the Netherlands; Corresponding author
Summary: Rapid urbanization has tremendously changed the global landscape with profound impacts on our society. Nighttime light (NTL) data can provide valuable information about human activities and socioeconomic conditions thus has become an effective proxy to measure urban development. By using NTL-derived urban measures from 1992 to 2018, we analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of global urban development from country to region to city scales, which presented a distinct North-South divergence characterized by the rising and declining patterns. A global North-South division line was identified to partition the globe into the Line-North and the Line-South geographically, which accorded with the socioeconomic difference from the aspects of urban population and economy. This line may keep a certain degree of stability deriving from the trends of population and economic information but also bears uncertainties in the long term.
