IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v15y2026i5p875-d1946232.html

Research on the Identification and Spatiotemporal Evolution of China’s Urban Life Cycle: From the Perspective of Organic Entities

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaoling Yuan

    (School of Economics and Finance, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, China
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Shuiting Liu

    (School of Economics and Finance, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, China
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Zhaopeng Li

    (School of Marxism, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, China)

  • Hao Jiang

    (School of Economics and Finance, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, China)

Abstract

Based on the characteristics of cities as organic entities, this paper constructs a five-dimensional evaluation framework encompassing economy, industry, society, population, and space. A three-stage process of “fuzzy comprehensive evaluation—bi-level K-means clustering—state stability correction” is adopted to identify the development stages and spatiotemporal evolution of 286 Chinese cities from 2008 to 2023. The study finds that China’s urban development has shifted from “universal growth” to “divergent evolution,” exhibiting multiple characteristics such as the decline in the initial-stage cities and differentiation in the growth stage. Significant regional spatial differentiation is observed, with notable development gaps among the eastern, central, western, and northeastern regions, as well as between the northern and southern regions. Furthermore, most urban agglomerations exhibit a “mature center–lagging periphery” structure.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaoling Yuan & Shuiting Liu & Zhaopeng Li & Hao Jiang, 2026. "Research on the Identification and Spatiotemporal Evolution of China’s Urban Life Cycle: From the Perspective of Organic Entities," Land, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-29, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:15:y:2026:i:5:p:875-:d:1946232
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/15/5/875/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/15/5/875/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:15:y:2026:i:5:p:875-:d:1946232. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.