Influence Mechanism of New-type Urbanization on Urban Land Use Efficiency in the Yangtze River Delta, China

Rapid urbanization in China has led to inefficient use of urban land and spatial structure disorder, attracting attention from academia and society. Taking the Yangtze River Delta, China as an example, this study constructed an index evaluation system that quantitatively analyses the impact of new-type urbanization (NTU) on urban land use efficiency (ULUE) from 2000 to 2020 using a panel data vector autoregressive model. The results show that NTU in the Yangtze River Delta promotes ULUE improvement. However, the promotion of NTU to ULUE is limited, and the level of urban economic development also plays a role in promoting the change of ULUE. Moreover, the study further analyzed the results of urbanization decomposition and found that population urbanization (PU), economic urbanization (EU), spatial urbanization (SU), and social urbanization (SCU) can explain changes in ULUE in the Yangtze River Delta to a certain extent. In terms of variance decomposition, PU contributed the most to ULUE, followed by EU, SU, and SCU. Some necessary measures should be taken to coordinate the development of different types of urbanization, improve the sustainable utilization level of land resources, and provide a reference for high-quality development in the Yangtze River Delta.