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

Abstract

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.

1. Introduction

Over the past 50 years, China has made rapid progress in urbanization, with the urbanization rate rising from 17.9% in 1978 to 63.89% in 2020 (https://data.stats.gov.cn/search.htm, accessed on 5 January 2022). Moreover, with the emergence of new concepts such as people-orientated [1], equalization of public services [2], ecological civilization, green, and low-carbon, China’s urbanization development is shifting from high-speed to high-quality, and the connotation of urbanization development is constantly enriched. The HQD of urbanization refers to the promotion of urbanization with harmony between people and land, energy conservation and efficiency, environmental protection and low carbon, and wisdom and innovation [3]. A series of measures such as smart and ecological cities and beautiful countryside construction have promoted the high-quality development (HQD) of China’s urbanization, and China’s urban construction has entered the HQD stage of new urbanization [4].

The stage of HQD has higher requirements than the stage of high-speed growth. HQD is the result of improving the economic structure, replacing old drivers for growth with new ones, achieving coordinated economic and social development, and significantly improving people’s living standards once the size and scale of the economy reach a certain stage [5]. In this new stage, the key is to solve the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development and improve the quality of the drivers for development [6,7], so that the organic combination of vitality, efficiency, and quality can be realized to improve the quality of the supply system; thus, HQD of micro subjects is established by improving the efficiency of enterprises. Obviously, HQD has become the direction of China’s future economic development, and HQD of urbanization is the concrete embodiment of this direction [8]. In order to realize this strategic transformation, the Central Urbanization Work Conference and the report meeting of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) continuously propose to improve the quality of new-type urbanization and build a livable, innovative, efficient, green, and intelligent HQD path of new-type urbanization.

In the context of HQD, the following issues are what this article wants to discuss. How should the multidimensional indicator system of HQD of urbanization in China be described and analyzed? What is the nature of the actual development gap between north and south China? Is it possible to have a development index for measuring the level of HDQ of urbanization in China under the North-South dichotomy?

2. Conceptual Framework

As the most complex human and environmental system, the city is the main carrier of current economic activities, and an organic combination of culture and progress, innovation and development. The process of urbanization is a comprehensive process of interaction of various elements in the complex system. At present, the research on HQD of urbanization can be roughly divided into three aspects: the scientific connotation of HQD [9], the construction of index systems [10], and the empirical evaluation [11]. In terms of the HQD connotation, from low-carbon city to smart city [12], from sustainable development [13] to innovative growth, from urban expansion to urban contraction, urban development is increasingly moving towards inclusive and green growth.

The index system of HQD covers a wide range of content, which can be approximately divided into:

(1) economic development, such as per capita gross domestic product (GDP), industrial structure, per capita fiscal expenditure [14], fixed asset investment [15], Urban-Rural Sustainable Development [16].

(2) social security, such as investment in science and technology and education [17], health development and public health related to the lives of urban dwellers [18], population and employment [19], and urban transport and other urban functions related to infrastructure construction [20,21], as well as neighborhood environment [22] and citizen satisfaction, social services, institutional factors [23].

(3) ecological environment, such as utilization of water resources [24], carbon emission efficiency [25], harmful gas emission [26], and air quality [27], investigations into the spatial-temporal characteristics of urbanization and ecological environment coordination [28], and explorations on the new construction land [29], rural land management [30], land vegetation [31].

In the context of a new era of economic development, the relationship between regional development and balance needs to be re-examined [32]. Current research has also shifted from a single-region focus to a coordinated development within regions [33]. Economic structure optimization requires innovation [34], and innovation requires sufficient capital and human investment [35], thus increasing the efficiency of innovation. We reflect the level of innovation in four aspects: innovation input, innovation output, innovation potential, and growth efficiency. HQD requires coordinated regional development and a virtuous cycle of joint regional development through collaboration [36]. The environment is a fundamental requirement for HQD, including a large amount of money invested in green infrastructure [37] and quality air quality [27] that people can enjoy. In addition, an open and livable external environment [38] is also an internal requirement for HQD.

In this study, the North-South balanced development index is measured by adjusting for the imbalance [39] while considering the adequacy of HQD of urbanization in the North-South region. Focusing on the regional development of high-quality urbanization development in China, an attempt is made to explore the development gap between the North and South regions in various fields and the reasons behind it.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Data Sources and Pre-Processing

The data used in this paper were from the China Statistical Yearbook, China City Statistical Yearbook, and China Statistical Yearbook of Science and Technology. For some missing data, the existing year data of this index were used for estimation. Due to the existence of extreme values in some data, 2% of extreme values were cut off in terms of the robustness of the index system, and the quantile values of $X_{0.01}$ were adopted as the minimum value and quantile values of $X_{0.99}$ as the maximum value.

The division of southern and northern regions is referred to the standard of economic geography. The southern region includes Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Hainan, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan (Tibet Autonomous Region is not included in the study sample due to the serious lack of data); the northern regions include Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Note that this analysis excludes Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.

3.2. Construction of the Index System

According to the demand for HQD of new urbanization and the specific content of the previous index system, this study constructs the evaluation index system of HQD of China’s urbanization from five aspects of innovation, coordination, green, open, and livable, as shown in

Table 1. The index system of HQD of urbanization.

First Level Index	Secondary Index	Third Level Index	Weight	Calculation Methods
Innovation	innovation input	R&D investment intensity	regional GDP	R&D investment/GDP (%)
		proportion of the main business income of high-tech enterprises in GDP	regional GDP	The main business income of high-tech enterprise/GDP (%)
	innovation output	number of registered scientific and technological achievements per 10,000 people	permanent population	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (patent/10 thousand persons)
		turnover of technology market	regional GDP	Total traded on the technical market/GDP (%)
		number of patent authorizations per 10,000 people	permanent population	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (patent per 10 thousand persons)
	innovation potential	per capita education expenditure	permanent population	Educational appropriations/total population at the end of the year (yuan per persons)
		per capita education years	permanent population	Per capita education years is estimated according to the individual’s education level, age, and location in each year’s population sampling survey (year)
	growth efficiency	capital productivity	capital stock	Real GDP/capital stock. The capital stock estimation adopts the perpetual inventory method to calculate the capital stock of each region at a constant price in each year, and estimates the capital stock at the current price in each year according to the corresponding price index.
		labor productivity	quantity of employment	Real GDP/ total employment (10 thousand yuan per persons)
Coordination	regional coordination	urban-rural income gap	permanent population	Per capita disposable income of urban residents-per capita disposable income of rural residents (yuan), negative indicator
		urban-rural consumption gap	permanent population	Per capita consumption expenditure of urban residents-per capita consumption expenditure of rural residents (yuan), negative indicator
	synchronous coordination	deviation degree of industrial structure	regional GDP	Proportion of added value of each industry/proportion of labor force of the industry (%), negative indicator
		coordinated index of urbanization economic growth rate	regional GDP	Annual growth rate of urbanization/average annual growth rate of GDP per capita (%)
	operation coordination	registered urban unemployment rate	quantity of employment	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (%), negative indicator
		consumer price index	permanent population	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (%), negative indicator
Green	energy consumption	water consumption per unit of GDP	regional GDP	Volume of water consumption/ GDP (tons per yuan), negative indicator
		electricity consumption per unit of GDP	regional GDP	Volume of electricity consumption/GDP (10 thousand kilowatt hours/ yuan), negative indicator
	environmental pollution	wastewater discharge per unit of industrial output	regional GDP	Volume of industrial waste water discharged/GDP (tons per yuan), negative indicator
		exhaust emission per unit of industrial output	regional GDP	Volume of sulfur dioxide emission/GDP (tons per 10 thousand yuan), negative indicator
	environmental governance	investment in environmental pollution control per unit of GDP	regional GDP	Total investment in environmental pollution control /GDP (yuan)
		green coverage rate of urban built-up areas	built-up area	Area of green land/Average population (hectares per 10 thousand persons)
Open	openness level	foreign trade dependence	regional GDP	Total import and export/GDP (%)
		number of foreign-invested enterprises	regional GDP	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook
		investment abroad	regional GDP	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook
	openness effect	population openness	permanent population	(permanent population—total population at the end of the year)/permanent population (%)
		traffic coverage	Regional area	traffic mileage/regional area, traffic mileage includes water mileage, road mileage, air mileage (%)
		utilization of foreign investment	regional GDP	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (million dollars)
Livable	social security	urban basic old age insurance coverage	urban population	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (%)
		urban basic medical insurance coverage	urban population	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (%)
		urban Engel’s coefficient	personal consumption	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (%), negative indicator
	public service	number of doctors per 10,000 people	permanent population	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (bed/thousand persons)
		collection of books in public libraries per 10,000 people	permanent population	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (pieces per person)
		road area per capita	permanent population	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (m2)
		Internet penetration rate	permanent population	Data obtained directly from the statistical yearbook (%)

.

(1) The innovation level is measured by four secondary indexes: innovation input, innovation output, innovation potential, and growth efficiency. The specific third level indexes include the R&D investment intensity, proportion of the main business income of high-tech enterprises in GDP, number of registered scientific and technological achievements per 10,000 people, turnover of the technology market, number of patent authorizations per 10,000 people, per capita education expenditure, per capita education years, capital productivity, and labor productivity.

(2) The coordination level is discussed from the aspects of regional coordination, synchronous coordination, and operation coordination. The specific third level indexes include the urban-rural income gap, urban-rural consumption gap, deviation degree of industrial structure, coordinated index of urbanization economic growth rate, registered urban unemployment rate, and consumer price index.

(3) The green aspect is explored from three aspects: energy consumption, environmental pollution, and environmental governance. The specific third level indexes include the water consumption per unit of GDP, electricity consumption per unit of GDP, wastewater discharge per unit of industrial output, exhaust emission per unit of industrial output, investment in environmental pollution control per unit of GDP, and green coverage rate of urban built-up areas.

(4) The open aspect is based on the openness level and openness effect. The specific third level indexes include the foreign trade dependence, number of foreign-invested enterprises, investment abroad, population openness, traffic coverage, and utilization of foreign investment.

(5) The livable aspect is evaluated from social security and public service. The specific third level indexes include the urban basic old age insurance coverage, urban basic medical insurance coverage, urban Engel’s coefficient, number of doctors per 10,000 people, collection of books in public libraries per 10,000 people, road area per capita, and Internet penetration rate.

3.3. Calculating Method

3.3.1. Development Index Measurement

The HQD index of urbanization is a general measure of the adequacy of urbanization development in five fields: innovation, coordination, green, open, and livable. The HQD index of urbanization can be measured in two steps: The first step is the calculation of the third level indexes. The second step is the layer-by-layer summary of indexes at all levels. Based on the incommensurability of measurement unit and magnitude among basic data, the third level indexes are normalized first. The range normalization method is adopted here to normalize the data. The specific rules are as follows:

$$\mathrm{For} \mathrm{positive} \mathrm{indexes}, X_i=\frac{x_i-x_{i,min}}{x_{i,max}-x_{i,min}}$$

(1)

$$\mathrm{For} \mathrm{negative} \mathrm{indexes}, X_i=\frac{x_{i,max}-x_i}{x_{i,max}-x_{i,min}}$$

(2)

where $X_i$ is the normalized index of the ith index; $x_i$ indicates the value of this index; $x_{i,max}$ represents the ideal value of this index under full development; and $x_{i,min}$ is the inaccessible value of this index under inadequate development. The range normalization method has no positive requirement for index value $x_i$, but the normalized index should satisfy $0\le X_i\le 1$, and both positive and negative indexes are converted into positive indexes, with the optimal value of $X_i$ being 1 and the worst value being 0. Thus, the closer the index is to 1, the fuller development it indicates, and vice versa.

The layer-by-layer summary of indexes. According to the practice of Xu et al. [39], the HQD index of urbanization in southern and northern regions is weighted and summarized step by step from the third level index to the overall index to obtain the development index of the south and the north. The principle of equal weight is adopted, that is, five aspects, secondary indexes in the same field, and third level indexes under the same secondary index are given the same weight. In the layer-by-layer summary process, the secondary index is the arithmetic mean of the corresponding third level index, and the first level index is the arithmetic mean of the corresponding secondary index. The specific index calculation process is as follows:

$$UHQD=\frac{1}{5}{{\displaystyle \sum }}_{i=1}^{5}UHQ{D}_i$$

(3)

where $UHQD$ represents the overall HQD index of urbanization; $UHQ{D}_i,i=1,\dots ,5$ represent the innovation, coordination, green, open, and livable development indexes, respectively.

$$UHQ{D}_i=\frac{1}{n_i}{{\displaystyle \sum }}_{j=1}^{n_i}UHQ{D}_{ij}$$

(4)

where $UHQ{D}_{ij}$ represents the development index of the jth secondary index in the i field, and $n_i$ is the number of secondary indexes in the i field.

$$UHQ{D}_{ij}=\frac{1}{n_{ij}}{{\displaystyle \sum }}_{k=1}^{n_{ij}}UHQ{D}_{ijk}$$

(5)

where $UHQ{D}_{ijk}$ represents the development index of $k$ third level indexes of the jth secondary index in the i field, and $n_{ij}$ is the number of third level indexes of the jth secondary index in the i field.

3.3.2. Measurement of the Balanced Development Index

The balanced development index of the south and the north is based on the development index. The measurement of this index is mainly divided into three parts: the calculation of the regional imbalance coefficient, the adjustment of the development index, and the layer-by-layer summary of indexes.

The calculation of the regional imbalance coefficient. The development index describes inequality by calculating the ratio of the arithmetical mean to the geometric mean of the index values [40]. This calculation method is derived from the measurement of inequality proposed by Atkinson [41]. Based on this idea, this study adopts the gini coefficient method for measurement, and the specific formula is as follows:

$$uine=gini\left(x_{ijk}^1,\dots ,x_{ijk}^d,\dots ,x_{ijk}^D; w_1,\dots ,w_d,\dots ,w_D\right)$$

(6)

where $d$ represents the region; $D$ represents the total number of regions; $x_{ijk}^d$ represents the real level of regions; $w_d$ represents the weight of region $d$; and $gini$() is the calculation function of the gini coefficient. As the research object is 30 provinces and municipalities, the classification is different in principle; the weighted treatment is considered. Due to different index settings and directions, different weights need to be set. According to the method of Xu et al. [42], corresponding spatial weights are adopted based on the attributes of different variables. For specific weight settings, see “Weight” in Table 1.

The adjustment of the development index. By adjusting the development index of the third level index, the development balance index of the corresponding index can be obtained. The calculation method of the adjustment coefficient is as follows:

$$A^x=1-uin{e}^x, x=S,N$$

(7)

The layer-by-layer summary of indexes.

$$IUHQ{D}_{ijk}^x=A_{ijk}^x·UHQ{D}_{ijk}^x, x=S,N$$

(8)

where $A_{ijk}^x$ is the adjustment coefficient of $k$ third level indexes of the jth secondary index in the i field. Therefore, the balanced development index of the third level index can be obtained by multiplying their respective development index and adjustment coefficient. The layer-by-layer summary of indexes and balanced development indexes also adopt the principle of equal weight. See Equations (3)–(5) for the specific calculation process.

4. Results

4.1. Spatial Pattern of HQD Index

In order to reveal the spatial characteristics of urbanization HQD in China, we used ArcGIS to visualize the indicators of HQD (Figure 1) and the dimensions of the indicators (Figure 2). From the calculated development index of HQD, we can see that the spatial distribution of HQD of urbanization in China is high in the south and low in the north. The top five scoring regions are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu, of which only Beijing is located in the north; the remaining four regions are in the south. Among the remaining regions in the northern region, only Tianjin and Shandong have a better level of development, while the rest of the provinces have a low score overall. There is a large gap in the level of HQD within the northern region; the highest development index value is 0.701 in Beijing and the lowest is only 0.414 in Gansu, so the regional development imbalance is obvious. In comparison, the level of HQD of urbanization in the southern region is higher overall, and the internal gap is smaller compared to the north.

The article analyzes the various dimensions of the indicators, and the following conclusions can be drawn. Beijing is far ahead of other regions in terms of innovation level, and Tianjin, Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang are ranked relatively high in terms of Innovation Development Index scores. The innovation development in the northern region is mainly concentrated in Beijing and Tianjin, and the gap between other regions and these two regions is large. The overall level of the southern region is better than the northern region. The highest level of coordination is in Zhejiang Province, with Beijing, Anhui, Hubei, Tianjin, Jiangsu, and Jiangxi ranking high in terms of the score of coordinated development. In green development, Beijing, Fujian, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Guangdong performed better. Comparing the north and the south, the overall situation of green development in the north is significantly worse than that in the south. Concerning open development, the best performing regions are Shanghai and Guangdong. The southern region is significantly more open than the northern region. At the level of the livability index, Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Ningxia perform better. In this index, the northern regions outperform the southern regions overall.

4.2. Kernel Density Analysis of HQD Index

Based on the measured HQD index of China’s urbanization, the kernel density analysis was conducted on the urbanization development index of three representative years, namely 2001, 2010, and 2019, to obtain the development index distribution of various provinces and municipalities in China (Figure 3). It can be seen from the graph shape that with the passage of time, although the gravity center displacement degree of the kernel density map of the overall development index and each secondary index are different in distance, the overall displacement trend from 2001 to 2019 is to the right of the x-axis, indicating that the urbanization quality of the research samples generally presents a gradually rising trend. However, from the specific shape of the graph, the performance of each index is different.

Firstly, from the peak value of the graph, the peak value represents the aggregation degree of each sample. The higher the peak value is, the more concentrated the sample distribution is. The lower the peak value, the more dispersed the sample distribution is. Graphically, the peaks of Figure 3a,d showed an obvious downward trend from 2001 to 2019, indicating that the distributions of innovation indexes and open indexes of each sample tend to be dispersed. The curve of 2019 in Figure 3a showed a multi-peak trend, suggesting that innovation indexes present a small range of aggregation in different stages. As time goes by, the peak values of the kernel density map in Figure 3b,c,f get higher and higher, demonstrating that the distribution of the coordination index, green index, and overall development index of each sample tends to be more and more concentrated. In addition, the peak value of the kernel density map in Figure 3e decreased significantly from 2001 to 2010, and recovered significantly from 2010 to 2019, indicating that the concentration degree of the livable index of each sample shifts from agglomeration to dispersion and then re-agglomeration.

Then, there exist differences in graph shapes of different figures regarding graph tailings. Figure 3a,d showed left trailings in each year, and there were extremely high values of innovation and open indexes in the samples, suggesting that the innovation development and open development of certain regions are significantly better than those of other regions. In Figure 3b,c, there was an obvious right trailing in the curve of 2019, and there were extremely low values in the coordination index and green index of the sample, indicating that the coordinated development and green development of certain regions are obviously lagging behind other regions. Figure 3e, from the left trailing in 2001 to the right trailing in 2019, shows that the livable index of the sample has changed from extremely high values in 2001 to extremely low values in 2019, manifesting that the regional development differences of livable indexes have changed greatly. In Figure 1f, the curve distributions of each year basically met the normal distribution, and the graph trailing was not obvious, indicating that the distribution of the overall development index of the samples is generally reasonable.

4.3. Regional Comparison of North and South of HQD Index

It should be noted that most countries pay more and more attention to the issue of balanced regional development, for example, the Cohesion Policy established by the European Union (EU), Balanced Economic Development in South Korea, and Integrated Urban Development Strategy 2010–2020 in Turkey [43]. China’s regional development shows obvious characteristics of dynamic evolution, and the divergence of regional development has attracted the attention of scholars [32]. As China’s economic center of gravity moves further south, the gap between China’s southern and northern regions increasingly becomes a new concern. Hence, scholars have studied the causes of the south-north gap from different perspectives, including resource heterogeneity [44], the global value chain [45], and industrial structure change [46].

By calculating the North-South Balanced Development Index, we found that the overall improvement in development coordination between the North and South regions is obvious, but the gap is increasingly widening. The balanced development index of the south rose from 0.273 in 2001 to 0.463 in 2019, an increase of 69.6%. The balanced development index of the north increased from 0.287 in 2001 to 0.429 in 2019, an increase of 49.5% over the period (Figure 4). The balanced index of HQD of urbanization in southern and northern regions has significantly improved, but the growth rate of the balanced development index of the south is significantly faster than that of the north, and the gap between them is increasing. In 2001, the balanced development index of the south was 0.273, lower than that of the north (0.287); however, in 2003, it surpassed that of the north. In addition, by 2019, that index of the south had risen to 0.463, 0.034 higher than that of the north. Apparently, the balanced development index of HQD of urbanization shows a situation of “fast in the south and slow in the north” and “high in the south and low in the north”.

From the perspective of different secondary indexes, the level of balanced development in various fields varies greatly. In terms of the imbalance coefficient of each index in the field of innovation, the northern region was significantly higher than the southern region, indicating that the imbalance in the development of innovation capacity of samples in the northern region is more severe than that in the southern region. The imbalance coefficient values of various indexes in the coordination field show that the balanced development of the north is slightly better than that of the south, but there is little difference between the two, and the balanced development between the south and the north is basically the same. Although there is no significant difference between the south-north imbalance coefficient of the green development index, the performance of each specific index in the southern region was better than that in the northern region, suggesting that the balanced development of the south is better than that of the north. In the open and livable regions, the performance of specific indexes varies greatly.

5. Discussion

The above analysis results show that the overall HQD level of China’s urbanization is constantly improving, but there is a growing gap between the balanced development of the south and the north. In order to explore the reasons for the North-South gap in the HQD of urbanization, we will analyze the specific aspects of innovation, coordination, green, openness, and livability, respectively.

5.1. Innovation Development

Innovation is an important engine driving regional development. China’s economy has stepped into the stage of HQD, in which the transformation from resource-driven to innovation-driven is a key link. Regional innovation capacity will directly affect the scale, speed, and quality efficiency of local HQD. According to the previous data results, it can be seen that there is an obvious imbalance in the innovation field within the northern region. In terms of specific indexes in this field, for example, the highest R&D investment intensity of the northern region was in Beijing in 2019, which was 2.6 times that of Tianjin (the second largest city in the north), 13.4 times that of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, 9.1 times that of Qinghai Province, and 7.3 times that of Inner Mongolia. The turnover of the technology market in 2019 was 569.528 billion yuan in Beijing, which was 3.9 times that of 146.735 billion yuan in Shaanxi Province (the second largest). By contrast, in 2019, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was 782 million yuan, and Qinghai Province was 910 million yuan, only 0.137% and 0.16% of Beijing, respectively. It can be seen that the scientific and technological innovation in the northern region is mainly concentrated in Beijing, while the innovation level and development gap in other provinces are large, and the regional development imbalance is serious. The balanced development index of the south and the north on innovation shows that in 2001, the south was 1.09 times that of the north, but in 2019, it was 1.26 times that of the north. The southern region will achieve better development opportunities, a better innovation environment, a perfect supporting industry chain, and a better innovation achievement transformation ability, due to its overall better innovation ability. All these will better promote the HQD of urbanization in the southern region, further expanding the south-north gap and solidifying the differentiation pattern.

5.2. Coordinated Development

Coordinated development explores the level of coordination from three aspects: regional coordination, synchronized coordination, and operational coordination. Coordination is an inherent requirement for sustainable and healthy development. Coordinated development should focus on solving the problem of uneven development and focus on enhancing the integrity of development. In our study, we found that at the beginning of the study, the level of coordinated development in the South was lagging behind that of the North; for example, the index of balanced development of coordinated areas in the South was only 0.82 times higher than that of the North in 2001. However, over time, the level of coordinated development in the South has increased. By 2008, the level of coordinated development in the South was higher than in the North for the first time, 1.01 times higher than in the North. The gap between the two has gradually widened since then, with the southern region being 1.07 times larger than the northern region by 2019. These data show that the work of the southern region in solving problems such as uncoordinated urban and rural development and unreasonable industrial structure has been effective.

5.3. Green Development

Green development focuses on solving the problem of harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature. Green development requires changing the “high energy consumption, high emissions, high pollution” development method to achieve sustainable development of the population, resources, and environment. In terms of green development, the gap between the North and South regions has always existed, with the Northern region under greater pressure. The overall balanced development index of the south and the north on green development from 2001 to 2019 shows that this gap has a trend of narrowing. These changes are bound up with a series of policies and measures on air, water, and land protection that the Chinese government has taken in recent years to attach great importance to ecological civilization construction.

5.4. Open Development

Regarding open development, there is a huge gap between the south and the north. In 2001, the balanced development index of the south on open development was 1.49 times that of the north, and it increased to 1.95 times in 2019. In terms of investment abroad, the number of foreign-invested enterprises, population openness, and traffic coverage, the southern region is overall higher than the northern region. In recent years, under the influence of the aging population and low birth rate, the proportion of China’s labor force has continued to decline. However, the trend of population outflow in northern China is increasing year by year, which further accelerates the decline of the proportion of the labor force there. As the endogenous power of economic growth, human capital directly affects the total factor productivity and ultimately the economic growth efficiency. At the same time, innovation development needs the support of high-quality talents. The relatively faster accumulation of human capital in southern China will further widen the south-north gap in HQD of urbanization.

5.5. Livable Development

The indicator is assessed in terms of both social security and public infrastructure. In this field, the northern region is overall advantageous. In 2001, the balanced development index of the southern region on livable development was 0.76 that of the northern region, and it increased to 0.93 in 2019. Obviously, the gap between the two is narrowing, but the north still has comparative advantages. In terms of specific indexes, the number of doctors per 10,000 people and the road area per capita in cities are significantly better in the north than in the south. In recent years, China has increased investment and support to the west, an important part of which is reflected in the investment in livelihood projects, improving urban infrastructure, and increasing support in the medical and health field. These measures have promoted the HQD of urbanization in northwest China. However, in terms of the specific index—collection of books in public libraries per 10,000 people—the northern region is still lower than the southern region, indicating that there is still a gap in the level of public cultural services between them.

6. Conclusions and Recommendations

Improving the quality of urbanization development has attracted much attention since it was proposed at the Central Urbanization Work Conference in 2012. The 14th Five-year Plan of China once again clearly proposes to improve the quality of urbanization development and form an important region for HQD. In the HQD process, the gap between the south and the north in regional development has gradually become a new problem worthy of attention. Based on a comprehensive understanding of the HQD connotation, this paper constructs the evaluation index system of HQD of China’s urbanization from five aspects: innovation, coordination, green, open, and livable. We calculate the development index of the south and the north, the regional imbalance coefficient of internal imbalance between southern and northern regions, and the high-quality balanced development index of urbanization in southern and northern regions. 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 southern region has obvious advantages in innovation, green, and open aspects, while the northern region is more livable. In the field of coordinated development, the south has gradually surpassed the north, and the gap is widening, while for green development, the south-north gap is narrowing. Further analysis shows that the lack of innovation ability, the regional imbalance of innovation input, and the gap of human capital accumulation further aggravate the regional imbalance of HQD of urbanization between the south and the north.

In view of the gap between the balanced development of the south and the north, the following suggestions are put forward:

1. The strategy of innovation-driven development in the northern region should be strengthened. We need to improve the overall innovation ability of the region and the balanced development within the region, optimize the technological innovation system, and give full play to the advantages of natural resources such as wind, light, and mineral resources in northwest China, so as to create conditions for the development of high-tech industries such as new energy, new material processing, and digital industry. In addition, the financial support and preferential policies of local governments should be optimized to provide soil for financing, the introduction of scientific and technological talents, and growth of scientific and technological enterprises.

2. We should give full play to the advantages of infrastructure stock in northern China. We should revitalize stock, stimulate potential, create a good living environment, further improve supporting facilities, enrich cultural life services, improve residents’ life quality and urban living experience; thus, high-quality talents will be attracted. Moreover, the government’s functions in social management and public services should be further improved; the level of social security should be raised; and the coverage of social security should be expanded.

3. We will promote coordinated regional governance of the ecological environment. The ecological environment problem is a holistic issue, and it is difficult to solve the problem depending on the governance of a certain region alone. Due to the large difference in different regions’ ecological environment, the mechanism of collaborative governance of environmental problems needs to be improved. Note that there are some problems in the process of collaborative governance, such as difficult responsibility division, an insufficient collaborative restraint mechanism, and cooperation benefit distribution. However, the realization of regional cooperative governance of the ecological environment is the realistic need of balanced green development in the north and south regions. How to seek dynamic balance among different participants and how to construct effective commitment and cooperation mechanisms are worth further study.