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Green development is the main theme of modern development in China and even the world. Green development depends on green technology innovation (GTI). Therefore, for developing countries like China in the stage of economic transition, it is urgent to accelerate GTI to gain sustained advantages in the new round of international competition. As an important representative of contemporary rapid transportation, high-speed railway (HSR) can not only alleviate the rapidly growing transportation demand of the public, but also have potential benefits to the energy consumption structure and environmental quality. Whether and how HSR affects GTI has become the focus of this paper. Hence, by employing the panel data of 286 cities in China from 2007 to 2018 with the time-varying DID model, this paper verifies that HSR development can contribute to GTI. The main findings of this paper are as follows: (1) The operation of HSR can not only make the incremental development of GTI, but also improve the quality of GTI simultaneously. Moreover, the quality improvement effect of HSR is greater than the quantity increment effect. (2) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the positive effect of HSR on GTI is more significant for cities that have implemented LCCP. (3) This paper verifies the mediating effect of high-quality human capital. The opening of HSR further stimulates GTI by improving the level of high-quality human capital in cities and increasing the opportunities for knowledge exchange and diffusion. Based on the above findings, this paper proposes some policy recommendations to help developing countries achieve GTI with positive externalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of global urban development, there are urgent ecological security and environmental pollution problems, green development is the fundamental way for urban sustainable development, economic transformation and mitigation of ecological and environmental problems. Based on the panel data of 283 cities at prefecture level and above in China from 2003 to 2017, this paper analyzes spatial–temporal evolution characteristics of urban green development efficiency (UGDE) and the peer effects of UGDE between cities of different grades. It is found that during the study period, in terms of temporal evolution, the average UGDE in China increased from 0.47 in 2003 to 0.61 in 2017, with a cumulative growth rate of 29.79%, showing a rising trend in general. In terms of spatial evolution, the number of low-efficiency cities and medium-efficiency cities continued to decrease. The eastern region has always been the main distribution area of higher-efficiency cities and high-efficiency cities; in the central region, UGDE in most cities improved significantly; in the western region, UGDE has always lagged behind that in the eastern and central regions. In addition, the center of gravity of UGDE presented a trend of northwest migration in general, with a total displacement of 100.07 km, and UGDE showed a spatial dispersion trend. The empirical results indicate that the improvement of UGDE in large cities has a driving effect on that in neighboring medium cities and small cities through the positive peer effect, and the growth of UGDE in medium cities has a promoting effect on that in neighboring small cities through the positive peer effect; the increase of UGDE in medium cities has a positive peer effect on that in neighboring large cities, and the growth of UGDE in small cities has a positive peer effect on that in neighboring medium cities; UGDE promotes each other between large cities through the positive peer effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the effect of highways on economic growth has been widely discussed, its role in green technological innovation has not yet attracted attention facing today's strong emphasis on the green economy. To fill this gap, this paper aims to provide empirical evidence by investigating the effects of highways on regional green technological innovation in China. The paper elaborates theoretically on three mechanisms through which the development of highways may influence regional green technological innovation, namely the agglomeration effect, spatial spillover effect, and network effect. To advance the empirical analysis, this paper constructs a spatial Durbin model accounting for spatial interdependencies among regions. Unlike previous literature, this paper uses "the strength of economic linkage" to indicate the development of highways in each city and discusses geographic distance and time-distance effect (spatio-temporal effect) resulting from highways. Using panel data of 105 prefecture-level cities in China's Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2001 to 2013, we find that: (1) highway has a significant role in promoting regional green technological innovation; (2) significant spatial spillover effects resulting from highways exist and the magnitude of the influence varies with geographical and temporal distance effect. Our findings provide references for developing transportation infrastructure and green innovation in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green economic development is an effective tactic for China to cope with the predicament of resources and the environment. As "smoke-free industries", producer services are becoming the main contributors to urban green economic development (UGED). The paper adopts the super-efficiency EBM model to estimate the UGED index of 268 Chinese cities from 2005 to 2019. Based on the theoretical analysis, econometric models are constructed to systematically test how the specialized and diversified agglomeration of producer services impacts UGED. The findings reveal that both agglomeration modes considerably enhance UGED in the local area and its surroundings. Diversified agglomeration exerts a stronger radiation and promotion effect than specialized agglomeration. In addition, the impact of the two agglomeration modes on UGED demonstrates pronounced heterogeneity in urban scales, economic development stages, and industries. Furthermore, mechanism studies suggest that agglomeration substantially boosts UGED by improving human capital, technological innovation, and upgrading industrial structure. As such, our findings serve as an empirical basis for understanding the mechanism of the impact of PSA on UGED and also offer significant insight for local governments to adopt differentiated industrial policies to enhance the positive agglomeration effect on UGED. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are urgent ecological and environmental problems in the process of the utilization of urban construction land, promoting green utilization of construction land is conducive to urban sustainable development and high-quality economic development. Based on the panel data of 108 prefecture-level and above cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China from 2003 to 2017, this paper uses the super-efficiency SBM model to measure the green efficiency of urban construction land (GEUCL), analyzes its spatial–temporal evolution characteristics, and constructs the spatial autoregressive model to study its spatial spillover effects from the perspective of urban hierarchy. It is found that, in terms of temporal variation, the average efficiency value shows a fluctuating upward trend during the study period, rising from 0.27 in 2003 to 0.39 in 2017, the cumulative growth rate is 44.44%, with an average annual growth rate of 3.14%. In terms of spatial distribution characteristics, during the study period, the number of medium-efficiency and high-efficiency cities increases significantly, while the number of low-efficiency cities decreases sharply; high-efficiency cities always present scattered distribution, while medium-efficiency cities change from scattered distribution to agglomeration distribution. In addition, GEUCL has significantly positive spatial spillover effects between neighboring cities of different grades and between neighboring cities of the same grade, among them, the increase of GEUCL in higher-grade cities has significantly positive spatial spillover effects on that in adjacent lower-grade cities; the increase of GEUCL in lower-grade cities has significantly positive spatial spillover effects on that in neighboring higher-grade cities; GEUCL has significantly positive spatial spillover effects between neighboring cities of the same grade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The free flow of factors resulting from regional integration affects not only economic and social activities between cities, but also climate and environmental changes. Under the goal of sustainable development, regional integration as a policy pathway to lower carbon intensity has rarely been clarified. In light of this, using panel data of 279 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019, this paper treats city cluster planning as a quasi-natural experiment of regional integration and aims to discuss the impact and mechanism of regional integration on carbon intensity through difference-in-differences (DID) method, mediating effect model and moderating effect model. The following results are reached: (1) The implementation of regional integration policy effectively reduces carbon intensity, and the conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests. (2) Total factor productivity (TFP) is the mediator of regional integration to reduce carbon intensity, and population density, technological innovation and industrial upgrading are the moderators. (3) The effect of regional integration in reducing carbon intensity varies from city location and city features. The proposed theoretical framework of regional integration affecting carbon intensity, containing mediator and moderators, not only enriches the theoretical research in the field of environment and region, but also provides a new policy path for exploring sustainable development. Therefore, it is necessary to build urban agglomerations integrating the concepts of green, low carbon, intensive and efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic development level of the Yangtze River Economic Belt is relatively high, and the modern agricultural production has brought serious pressure to the agricultural ecological environment. At present, there is no research on the sustainable status of agroecosystem in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, based on the emergy theory, this paper analyzes and evaluates the input–output structure and sustainable status of the Yangtze River Economic Belt by calculating the input–output factors and relevant emergy indexes from 2010 to 2018. The results show that the total input and output emergy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt shows an upward trend from 2010 to 2018. The input of non-renewable industrial auxiliary emergy is too high which has been more than 80%, and the structure of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery industry is unreasonable, which makes the net emergy yield rate of the system very low, its value was only 0.23 in 2018, far less than 1, and the agroecosystem is in an unsustainable state. Except for Shanghai, most provinces and cities of the Yangtze River Economic Belt are in an unsustainable state, and the status of the agricultural ecological environment is not optimistic. From 2010 to 2018, the overall ecological environment of the agricultural ecosystem in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is not optimistic. Among them, the most affected agricultural ecosystem's sustainable development index is the cash-crop area, total population, and agricultural fixed asset investment. Relevant departments and agricultural practitioners need to change the resource input structure of the agricultural ecosystem, reduce the dependence on industrial auxiliary energy, improve resource utilization efficiency, adjust the industrial structure of agricultural output and increase the production of high-emergy products, to realize sustainable development of the agricultural ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City sustainability means a balance among economy, society, and environment in the rapid urbanization process. Effective assessment of city sustainability could guide a city to develop in the desired direction. Northeastern China was one of the forefronts of China's reform and opening up, but now it has become a "sore point" in national development. Liaoning province plays a crucial role in the process of realizing the revitalization of Northeastern China. This paper investigated the sustainability performances of cities in Liaoning by following the process of multi-criteria decision making. A novel weighting method was proposed based on Synergetics that considers the interrelationship among sustainability criteria. The results showed that the sustainability level of Liaoning was not ideal, with only two cities having sustainability performances over 0.55. The cities located in the Middle region had a higher sustainability level than those in the West and East regions. Moreover, the performances on the three dimensions were uncoordinated. The salary of employed staff and disposal income were the two important factors on sustainable development. The forecasting analysis showed that the sustainability level of the cities will develop at a rapid pace in the future. Finally, we put forward targeted suggestions for sustainable development in Liaoning province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of cities and urban agglomerations, the operation of cities is becoming increasingly complicated, and the risks of urban safety are expanding, which make cities prone to become the place where disasters and accidents occur. Resilient cities can better adapt to changing environment, cope with uncertain risks, and achieve safe and sustainable development. In this paper, the urban resilience model and evaluation techniques were studied, quantitative analysis model of urban resilience was constructed. An urban resilience multi-dimensional evaluation index system and evaluation methods and criteria suitable for Chinese cities were established. The method of urban resilience analysis and optimization simulation was proposed, which included mechanism analysis, scenario construction, and strategy optimization. Based on GIS system, the resilient city evaluation and comprehensive integrated management platform were developed, and demonstration applications were carried out. The results provide favorable scientific and technological support for decision-making of urban safety management and construction of resilient cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart city construction represents an advanced stage of China's urbanisation process and plays an important role in promoting green economic growth and sustainable development. Propensity score matching is combined with the difference-in-difference method to analyse the data of 221 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2020 to assess the impact of smart city construction on urban green development. We found that smart city construction can significantly contribute to urban green development; this contribution has long-term benefits. Further analysis shows that smart city construction promotes urban green development via industrial structure and green technology innovation and that smart city construction has a significant positive spatial spillover effect, i.e., it promotes urban green development locally while significantly contributing to urban green development in neighbouring regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a broad spectrum of economic, social and environmental goals to be achieved by 2030. The Yangtze River Economic Zone (YREZ) is an important national regional development strategy in China. National and regional development strategies like the YREZ play a crucial role in achieving the SDGs. Therefore, this paper presents an assessment method for measuring progress of SDGs at the local level and takes the case of the YREZ in China. The local SDGs indicator framework is developed based on availability of good data and alignment with the global indicator framework (SGIF), including 60 indicators covering 17 goals. The local SDGs index and three target indexes are aggregated based on entropy-weighting method. The SDGs progress of each province (municipality) in the YREZ is assessed based on the proposed method. The results show that: (1) all eleven provinces (municipalities) in the YREZ face significant challenges in achieving the SDGs, (2) the local SDGs index is not only correlated with economy development but also with other factors, such as environmental protection and social development; (3) even the wealthiest provinces (municipalities) also face major challenges in meeting several goals of the SDGs, and some poor provinces (municipalities) have achieved good performance in some goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of a city's green infrastructure is increasingly being driven by low-carbon innovation (LCI). However, knowledge of how LCI affects green economic efficiency (GEE) in China is largely unknown. This study investigates the spatial effects of LCI on GEE in 285 Chinese prefecture-level cities. The empirical findings show that LCI exerts significant beneficial effects on its GEE but negative effects on its neighbors. The positive direct effects on GEE are offset by negative indirect effects due to the lack of spatial linkage effect and the existence of the siphon and crowding-out effects among cities. Using a mediating effect model, we have identified three channels of LCI that affect GEE: industrial structure, energy consumption structure, and human capital. A further heterogeneity analysis indicates that the impacts of LCI on GEE differ by region and city development level. Furthermore, LCI in the building, greenhouse gas treatment, transportation, and sewage and pollutant treatment categories could greatly enhance local GEE. The findings herein provide an empirical experience for accurately accessing the spatial effect of LCI on GEE, and offer a critical decision-making reference for implementing a cross-city green linkage development mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data for Chinese prefecture-level and above cities from 2003 to 2017, we employed the difference-in-differences (DID) method to explore whether innovative city constructions reduced carbon emissions. The results show that innovative city constructions significantly curb carbon emissions in Chinese cities, which is supported by a series of robustness tests. Specifically, we found that innovative city constructions could reduce carbon emissions by 5.21%, which is equivalent to a total of about 5.46 million tons. In addition, we provided evidence that innovative city constructions curb carbon emissions by promoting technological innovation, industrial upgrading and industrial green development, ecological improvement, and government intervention. Furthermore, heterogeneous results indicate that the carbon reduction effect of innovative city constructions is mainly found in eastern cities and cities with better industrial development and human capital base. Our findings further enrich the study on the environmental benefits of national innovation incentives and public policies and provide important insights in carbon neutrality and achieving sustainable development, especially for developing and emerging market countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western cities have been confronted with the challenges of 'urban shrinkage' as changes in economic and production models have caused population migrations. China, in its recent history, has experienced rapid and dynamic growth in its cities. However, as its economy is evolving, it too is being confronted with 'urban shrinkage' challenges. Populations have been shifting inside small and medium sized cities in response to problems created during this rapid growth period. Most heritage areas have suffered from depopulation, neglect and disinvestment. The historic Puhuiquan neighborhood in Yulin City is a classic example of the current Chinese version of 'urban shrinkage'. Yulin City, founded as a military city five centuries ago, has shifted its focus away from its historic purpose into a resource-based city. Yulin's planning developed new areas, drawing population out of the historic Puhuiquan neighborhood. This area is the home to a unique urban cultural landscape where land and architecture have merged to create the development of various types of 'cave' houses. Suffering from the effects of 'urban shrinkage', this research explores the causes and potential solutions for the area employing both 'smart shrinkage' and 'urban renewal' strategies, informed by local resident participation, to develop a sustainable renewal strategy for this heritage area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainable development of urban agglomerations plays a pivotal role in national and global efforts to reduce emissions. By focusing on the efficient exchange and optimization of energy consumption across various sectors, the sustainable development of energy systems within urban agglomerations can be achieved. However, the overall impact of the cross-sector energy optimization and complementarity has not been quantitatively analyzed. Here, we focused on the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) urban agglomeration in China and proposed an optimization framework for energy, environment, and economy. The framework considered four sectors: transportation sector, power sector, industry sector, and building sector, in order to determine the most sustainable development pathway for the urban agglomeration. The optimization model considers total costs and greenhouse gas emissions reduction as the objectives and utilizes technologies as constraints to optimize the pathway. We found that this optimization strategy resulted in a 53.1 billion tons increase in CO2 emissions reduction in the region. The results of emission reduction varied across sectors, ranging from 4.5 to 22.2 billion tons CO2 equivalent, and across cities, ranging from 7.1 to 4688.1 Mt. The results suggest that the core cities in the urban agglomeration can take on a leadership role. By promoting cross-sector collaboration and implementing energy recycling, the energy efficiency of surrounding cities can be greatly improved, leading to the sustainable development of the urban agglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the insufficient and unbalanced green development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration (BTH), we explored the green development efficiency of the region and its influencing factors, so as to provide basis and reference for improving its green development efficiency. To be specific, the super-efficiency network slack-based model considering undesired output (SE-SBM-undesirable) and the Global-Malmquist-Luenberger index are used to analyze the green development efficiency of BTH from 2005 to 2020. In addition, we also used the Spatial Dubin Model (SDM) to analyze the influencing factors of the green development efficiency. The following results were obtained: (1) The green development efficiency of the region has increased from 0.339 to 0.733. The regional difference has narrowed by 66.43% in 15 years, but the degree of difference is still very large. (2) The static green development efficiency presents a state of "strong in the north and weak in the South," and the dynamic green development efficiency shows a characteristic of "core-middle-periphery" decreasing in turn. (3) The green development efficiency of a city is likely to be affected by more than 20% of other cities in the region. the level of urbanization, per capita GDP, government public service expenditures, and environmental governance have a positive effect on the green development of BTH, while the proportion of the secondary industry and FDI have a negative effect on the green development of BTH. Based on the above results, the key point to realize the green transformation of BTH's economic development is to control the development intensity, improve the efficiency of resource utilization, and strictly restrict the industries with high pollution, high energy consumption and low output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has numerous declining coal cities, and their sustainable development is lagging due to resource exhaustion, economic recession, and environmental destruction. In order to overcome these problems associated with scientifically selecting the development mode, this study designed the evaluation system including four subsystems (resource, environment, society and economy). Then the system dynamics (SD) model of sustainable development was built by analyzing the interaction between factors of four subsystems. Huaibei city was chosen as a case study to evaluate and simulate the variation trend of its sustainable development level via the SD model. Four alternative scenarios: current scenario, society and economy scenario, environment scenario and coordinated scenario were presented. The simulation results demonstrated that: (1). Sustainable development level improved in all scenarios. (2). The society and economy scenario played a more significant role in promoting sustainable development. Based on the results and analysis, we recommend that Huaibei City should implement water resources conservation, and concentrate on promoting economic transformation to achieve socio-economic stability and rapid development. This study integrates the quantitative evaluation of sustainable development with SD model based on the comprehensive perspective. The research results provide theoretical reference for the systematic and comprehensive evaluation of the sustainable development level, as well as the scientific selection of a development mode for declining coal cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainability of land conversion to urban use is an important factor that promotes sustainable urbanization. However, China's local governments have relied too much on the land finance model for urbanization, which has led to disordered growth of urban land, ultimately posing a threat to ecosystem security and socioeconomic development. Effectively evaluating the factors that influence the growth of urban land is critical to improving the sustainability of urban land use. In this study, we explored the factors that affect the growth in the area of urban land using spatial analysis models based on panel data for Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2007 to 2019. We found that fiscal decentralization, infrastructure, industrialization, and industrial upgrading were the main factors responsible for the growth of urban land, but that their degrees of influence differed between regions. Our findings identify the necessity for local governments to design urban land-use policies and perform strategic planning for urban land use to improve sustainability based on the main factors that influenced the growth of urban land in each region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resource and environmental carrying capacity (RECC) is an important foundation and support for a city or region, and determines the direction of regional sustainable development. Identifying the RECC in basin economic belts aids the understanding of overloaded regions and development shortcomings. Based on the human–environment coupling system theory, in combination with the pressure–state–response relationship, we have built a theoretical framework of RECC applicable to the basin economic belt. Taking the area of the Yangtze River Economic Belt as a case area, an RECC index system was constructed and a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method used to evaluate the RECC and its subsystems for prefecture-level cities. We found that cities with better RECC are mainly located in urban agglomeration areas and neighboring cities. Among them are cities with more coordinated subsystems that are not only located in large cities but also in some provinces, showing obvious critical effects. We also found that the geographic location of the river basin and the stage of economic development cause differences in the level of urban subsystems. Furthermore, the backwardness of environmental governance and resource-saving technologies, and insufficient human feedback from government intervention are key constraints on the RECC. We propose that the optimization of the layout of the chemical industry and the innovative development of a competitive model are important means for solving the development dilemma of the basin. This research can help inform sustainable development policies of river basin economic zones worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]