Dynamic chang...gglomerations_FANG Xiaoqian.pdf

J.Geogr.Sci.2023,33(4):760-778 DOI:https:/doi.org/10.1007/s11442-023-2105-y 2023 Science Press Springer-Verlag Dynamic changes in urban land spatial inequality under the core-periphery structure in urban agglomerations FANG Xiaoqian1,SU Dan1,WU Qing1,WANG Jiayi1,ZHANG Yangjian2,LI Guoyu1,3,*CAO Yu1 1.Department of Land Management,School of Public Affairs,Zhejiang University,Hangzhou 310058,China;2.Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research,CAS,Beijing 100101,China;3.Department of Forestry and Natural Resources,Purdue University,West Lafayette,IN 47907,USA Abstract:Relatively coordinated development among cities can typically promote the integra-tion of the whole urban agglomeration,while urbanization of land has been found important to economic development in developing countries.Numerous studies have measured the urban land expansion in urban agglomerations.However,urban land spatial inequality under a specific spatial structure remains poorly understood.Here,we combined the-convergence model and the core-periphery structure to explore the dynamic changes in urban land spatial inequality in urban agglomerations.The Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration(YRDUA)in China was selected as the study area.Indicators of urban land have been applied in con-junction with a modified conditional-convergence model,while the existence of the core-periphery structure was tested by analyzing coefficients of the control variable.The re-sults show that although the spatial inequality of urban land area had decreased during 20002020,the whole YRDUA had still shown an obvious core-periphery structure.Com-pared with urban land area,the spatial inequality of urban land economic density and popu-lation density had decreased more rapidly,and the core-periphery structure was less obvious.Our findings can help to improve our current understanding of urban agglomeration and serve as a scientific reference for the coordinated development of urban agglomerations.Keywords:urban agglomeration;urban expansion;core-periphery structure;convergence analysis;spatial ine-quality 1 Introduction Over the last several decades,rapid urbanization and urban regionalization have become a global phenomenon(Wang et al.,2012).In the process,cities are becoming more concen-trated spatially and more interconnected in infrastructure,environment,economy,and cul-Received:2022-03-28 Accepted:2022-12-01 Foundation:National Social Science Fund of China,No.20AGL025 Author:Fang Xiaoqian,PhD Candidate,specialized in land resources management and landscape ecology.E-mail:*Corresponding author:Cao Yu,Professor,E-mail: FANG Xiaoqian et al.:Urban land spatial inequality under the core-periphery structure in urban agglomerations 761 ture(Ross and Woo,2011),resulting in the phenomenon known as urban agglomeration(Fang and Yu,2017;Fang,2019;Fu and Zhang,2020).For urban agglomerations,studies have found that relatively coordinated development among cities can promote the integra-tion of the whole region(Liu et al.,2020;Zheng and Du,2020).Considering that urbaniza-tion of land has contributed to economic development significantly,especially in developing countries experiencing rapid urbanization of land,it is vital to measure the dynamic changes in urban land spatial inequality between cities within the urban agglomerations.Inequality is a fundamental issue of human society,and spatial inequality is one of its important aspects.In terms of the measurement of spatial inequality,the commonly used indicators include the coefficient of variation,the Gini coefficient,and Theils T Statistic(Wei et al.,2017).Com-pared to these static-level indicators,-convergence analysis,which is originally an im-portant economic model referring to the tendency of initially poorer countries to grow faster than richer countries,can reflect the dynamic change in spatial inequality.Nowadays,it has been frequently adopted in different research fields to analyze whether the spatial inequality among regions is expanding or contracting on a dynamic level(Mohammadi and Ram,2012;Li et al.,2017).Spatial structure of the urban agglomeration refers to the mutual location relationship and distribution form of social and economic factors within a certain geographical scope(Cao et al.,2018;Zhang et al.,2020).According to the previous literature,no matter from the per-spective of economics(Rossi-Hansberg and Wright,2007),planning and expansion(Elliott,1997;Sun and Zhao,2018),or urban environment and social issues(Yu et al.,2020),the spatial structure of the urban agglomeration has attracted lots of attention due to its associa-tion with the integrated development(Cao et al.,2018;Zhu et al.,2021).However,although there are numerous studies on urban expansion measurement,limited studies have measured the urban land spatial inequality within an urban agglomeration under a specific spatial structure.In studies about the urban agglomeration spatial structure,in addition to the measurement of t