Design and Application of an Evaluation Index System for Urban Development Quality of China's Sub-provincial Cities in the New Era

摘要

China has entered a new era of development. In the new era, the quality of urban development is endowed with new connotations. Through in-depth analysis on these connotations, this paper sets up a 1+2+3+4+5+6 logical framework and then establishes an evaluation index system for urban development quality in the new era. After that, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and weighted sum model (WSM) were introduced to evaluate the development quality of the 15 sub-provincial cities in China, based on the statistics released by the state and the cities in 2017. The results show obvious regional differences in the quality of urban development. In general, the cities in the eastern region are more developed than those in the central and western regions, and the cities in the southern region are more developed than those in the northern region. The cities in developed areas boast relatively high development quality, because city clusters are relatively mature in these areas. Besides, large cities are not necessarily better developed, i.e. there is no absolutely positive correlation between city size and development quality. In addition, there are marked differences between the sub-provincial cities in culture and urban management. To realize high-quality development, a city must strike a balance between multiple aspects, such as economy, society, ecology, public service and urban management, according to their own features. The research results shed important new light on urban development in the new era.