Analyzing the South-North Gap in the High-Quality Development of China's Urbanization

High-quality development (HQD) is the direction of China's urbanization development. This paper defines HQD of urbanization in terms of theoretical connotation and constructs the evaluation index system of HQD of China's urbanization from five aspects: innovation, coordination, green, open, and livable. The development index reflecting the adequacy of urbanization development in each region is calculated by using the range normalization law. The spatial weight attribute of each province and municipality is added to calculate the south-north regional development index, respectively. In addition, the Gini coefficient method is used to calculate and explain the regional imbalance coefficient of internal imbalance between southern and northern regions, and then determines the high-quality balanced development index of urbanization in southern and northern regions. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces and municipalities from 2001 to 2019, the results show that the quality of urbanization in all regions of China has gradually increased over time; in terms of region, the balanced development in southern and northern regions has overall improved significantly, but the gap between them is increasingly widening. The main reason is the lack of innovative development momentum and the pressure of green development.