The Interactive Coercive Relationship Between Urbanization and Eco-Environmental Quality in China

As China’s economy shifts from rapid development to high-quality development, exploring the harmony between human activities and the ecological environment has become the focus of many scholars. As the center of human activities, urbanized areas have complex and diverse impacts on the ecological environment. Previous studies have mainly focused on highly urbanized areas of importance in China, and there are fewer studies covering all prefecture-level cities across the country. Therefore, this study measured the spatial and temporal characteristics of urbanization and eco-environment quality (EEQ) in all prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2020 and explored the coupling coordination degree (CCD) relationship between urbanization and EEQ through the CCD model. The results showed that the average EEQ showed a fluctuating upward trend, with the southern and northeastern regions scoring significantly higher than the western and northern regions. In terms of spatial evolution, most prefecture-level cities had small changes in EEQ, with changes ranging from −0.05 to 0.05 per decade. The average urbanization showed a rapid increasing trend, spatially distributed with high values in the east and low values in the west. In the North China Plain and along the southeast coast, urbanization was concentrated in high-value areas, showing a trend of rapid growth. From 2000 to 2020, the average CCD between urbanization and EEQ showed a continuous increasing trend, from 0.32 to 0.37, indicating a medium imbalance. However, the proportion of low-coordination and moderate-coordination prefecture-level cities increased continuously, from 31.5% and 1.0% in 2000 to 35.3% and 1.9% in 2020, respectively. This indicates that Chinese urbanization efforts are constantly being optimized and moving toward the goal of sustainable development. The results of the study provide a scientific reference basis for coordinating the relationship between urbanization development and EEQ, and they support the formulation of policies for urbanization planning and high-quality economic development in China.