Does digitalization make urban development greener? A case from 276 cities in China

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

Ecology and Evolution

Weixia Yang¹  Shouchao He²  Weixiang Xu³  Lindong Ma⁴  Yuanxiao Hong⁵  Yanping Zhao⁶ 

[1] School of Business, Xi’an International University, Xi’an, China;School of Economics and Management, Wenzhou University of Technology, Wenzhou, China;School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China;School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China;Xingzhi College, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China;Xingzhi College, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China;Zhejiang College, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Jinhua, China;

关键词: urban digitalization;    urban greening development;    spatial spillover effect;    Entropy-TOPSIS model;    spatial Durbin model;    China;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fevo.2023.1074827

 received in 2022-10-20, accepted in 2023-02-10,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Nowadays countries in the world are striving to transform their economic and social development modes to achieve the general goal of green development. With the rapid development of communication technology, digitalization has affected production and life, touching all aspects of society. Can digitalization make the world “greener”? To this end, this study conducts an empirical research based on the panel data of 276 cities in China from 2011 to 2020. Firstly, this paper separately measured the comprehensive level of urban digitalization and urban greening through the Entropy-TOPSIS method, then analyzed their spatial distribution characteristics and evolution process respectively, finally used the spatial Durbin model to explore the impact of digitalization on urban greening development. The following conclusions were drawn accordingly: (1). The development pattern of urban digitalization has changed from “multi-point” sporadic distribution to “group-type” aggregation with obvious spatial heterogeneity. The gap between cities is not narrowing. The Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration has become an important high-level digital agglomeration area; (2). The urban greening develops with obvious spatial heterogeneity. The difference between eastern regions and western regions is prominent, and the urban spatial agglomeration characteristic is distinct. However, the spillover effect is weakened with distance, while the convergence characteristic becomes obvious; (3). Digitalization is significantly beneficial to the development of urban greening with obvious spatial heterogeneity. Digitalization in cities within urban agglomeration and in eastern regions has a stronger effect on promoting the urban greening, which is not obvious in cities located in western regions and non-urban agglomeration. Finally, according to the research results, suggestions for urban digitalization and greening development are put forward.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Ma, Xu, He, Hong, Yang and Zhao.