The Coupling Coordinated Development of Urban Environment Towards Sustainable Urbanization: An Empirical Study of Shandong Peninsula, China

Abstract

Rapidly expanding urban areas urgently need to transform into sustainability-oriented developments. In this study, we manage to establish a spatio-temporal coupling coordinated development (CCD) model for urban environments by exploring the relationship between the quality of the built environment and environmental pressure. We empirically analyze the status of Shandong Peninsula, one of such urbanized regions, using national statistical data from 2008 to 2017. The results show that improving the CCD level of an urban environment is conducive to maintaining sustainable urbanization. Although the level of coupling and coordination in all cities of Shandong Peninsula has shown a trend of continuous improvement, nearly half of the cities are still in a transitional or imbalanced development state. This overall spatial pattern shows that the degree of coupling and coordination of coastal cities is significantly better than that of inland cities, which means there is uneven development across the region. Moreover, pressure on the environment is increasing due to excessive resource consumption and pollution with continued urban construction as the central cause. With this, countermeasures targeting the performance of different cities were discussed, including phased high-quality infrastructure, enhancing urban attractiveness, improving resource utilization efficiency, optimizing treatment and recycling technologies, etc. It is recommended that decision-makers establish an inter-city complementary system through regional planning to build an active cooperative relationship and achieve sustainable urbanization throughout the entire region.

Keywords

• Coupling coordination development
• Sustainable urbanization
• Quality of the built environment
• Environmental pressure
• Shandong Peninsula