Spatiotemporal Evolution and the Driving Forces of the Coupling Coordination Degree between Urbanization and Urban Residents’ Livelihood Level in Mongolia

Rapid expansion in Mongolia has resulted in an inequality in livelihood, growing air pollution, and unevenly distributed social goods, which implies that the urbanization of Mongolia is experiencing a chronic imbalance. Using 21 Aimags and 1 capital in Mongolia as the research object, this paper provides a detailed assessment of the coupling coordination degree (CCD) to analyze the coupling and coordination relationship between urbanization and urban residents’ livelihood level. The results suggest that there is a serious imbalance in the coordination of urban development and urban residents’ livelihood among the Aimags of Mongolia. The high CCD values were mainly concentrated in the central regions of Mongolia, while the low values were clustered in the western and eastern areas. The spatial Durbin model was employed to analyze the driving forces of the CCD, and the results imply that the secondary industry share and the number of registered enterprises play significant roles in promoting coordination between urbanization and urban residents’ livelihood level. Here, we present an overview of how our analysis can provide useful insights for policymakers and decision makers.