Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of National Characteristic Towns in China Using Nighttime Light Data

Abstract

Characteristic towns have emerged along with China’s economic and social development. As a new model of small-town development, they have played an essential role in promoting industrial transformation and upgrade, improving the living environment, and promoting regional innovation and development. Accurate identification of the expansion characteristics of National Characteristic Towns (NCTs) is vital for optimizing the spatial layout of characteristic towns and adjusting the policies of characteristic towns. This study used a dataset on nighttime light to identify expanding NCTs and measure their expansion from 2000 to 2020. In total, 233 expanding NCTs were identified, accounting for 58.25% of the NCTs in China. The areas with the most significant intensity of expansion are primarily located in the East, South, and North economic regions. The critical period of NCTs expansion primarily occurred in the periods 2008–2011 and 2011–2014. Our results show that NCTs are highly consistent with the spatial distribution of urban agglomerations, and the development of NCTs is inherently related to the development of urban agglomerations in the region. The implementation of NCT policies has significantly promoted the development of NCTs in the Central and Western economic regions, which face challenging development issues and differ from those in the Eastern region. The method proposed in this study can effectively identify the ‘hot spots’ of expanding NCTs and the critical periods of their expansion.

Analysis on process of temporal and spatial evolution of urban built-up area expansion in the Yellow River Basin

“…Urban expansion covers a variety of factors, and the increase of urbanization level and economic development have an important impact on urban expansion. The urban development in the YB is uneven, and the level of economic development varies greatly among cities [3]. Based on the reality, the expansion of cities with developed economy, convenient transportation and high population density is more significant [28][29][30]36], and the results of this paper found that the difference in expansion between provincial capital cities and non-capital cities, as well as between upper and middle and lower reaches of cities due to economic and social factors, is significant.…”

“…Urban spatial expansion is an important symbol of urbanization, and the study of UB area expansion is of great significance to identify the urbanization process and judge the urban development stage. Simultaneously, the development of remote sensing and geoinformation technology has led to the innovation of urban expansion detection technology, and the emergence of NTL data has, to a certain extent, made it possible for urban studies to conduct multi-scale, largescale, and long-time period urban expansion detection [1,2], and it also has the advantages of large coverage, fast timeliness, and easy accessibility, which can be widely used in multi-scale and long-time period urban problem studies [3].…”