1.1. Background
After the Chinese economic reform in 1978, China ushered in a wave of industrialization centered on economic construction, which led to the rapid development of industry and commerce and greatly accelerated the process of urbanization. At the same time, China’s urbanization shifted from encouraging the development of small and medium-sized cities and small towns to full-scale urban expansion. Existing studies have conducted a large amount of detailed research on the content and characteristics of traditional urbanization, and it has been found that the period from the Chinese economic reform to 2012 is called the traditional urbanization stage. The prominent feature of traditional urbanization is the rapid increase in urbanization rate, which reached 52.57% during the traditional urbanization stage, and nearly tripled by 34.67%. China’s urbanization achieved rapid development and made significant contributions to the historical process of promoting urbanization in the world. Along with the rapid growth of the urbanization rate, it has also produced a series of negative impacts on the economy and society. For example, the one-sided focus on urban expansion, blindly engaging in “city building” and building new districts, has led to low-quality urbanization, an urbanization level lower than the level of economic and industrial development, the urbanization of land faster than the urbanization of the population, and structural problems such as increased pressure on the transportation network and high local traffic congestion.
If the traditional urbanization development model continues to be adopted, it will further aggravate and trigger economic and social hidden dangers such as environmental degradation, weak consumer demand, and sloppy and inefficient types of investment in China. Therefore, there is an urgent need to draw on advanced international experience, accelerate the high-quality development of urbanization, take a new type of people-oriented urbanization path, and fully optimize and upgrade traditional urbanization. China’s new urbanization pays more attention to the level of urban public services, ecological and environmental quality, and people-oriented new urbanization [
1]. To this end, since 2015, China has set up three batches of new-type urbanization comprehensive reform pilots to explore the transformation path of urbanization from focusing on quantitative scale increase to quality connotation improvement. The Chinese government has successively introduced relevant policies to support and accelerate the construction of new urbanization over the past six years. As of 2020, a total of 188 cities (districts, counties, and towns) have been promoted to implement new urbanization in three batches of pilot cities, and the policy of comprehensive pilot cities for new urbanization is beginning to bear fruit, highlighted by the fact that new urbanization has abandoned the past pursuit of simple urban population ratio increase and scale expansion, and has achieved innovation in various aspects such as concepts, institutions, and culture.
New urbanization is the key to unlocking China’s domestic demand potential and development momentum. Economist Joseph Eugene Stiglitz once predicted that China’s urbanization would be one of the important issues profoundly affecting human development in the 21st century [
2]. In 2019, China’s urbanization rate exceeded 60% for the first time [
3], surpassing the global average and becoming an important engine for promoting high-quality economic development in the new era. The global urbanization rate in 2019 was about 55.5%, and among the six continents with resident populations, North America had the highest level of urbanization at about 82%; in second place was South America at about 81%; Europe was third at about 74%; Oceania was fourth at 68%; Asia was fifth at just under 50%; and Africa was the lowest at 43%. China now has an urbanization of 60.6%, which exceeds the global average and is higher than the Asian and African averages, but is currently lower than North and South America, Europe, and Oceania.
China’s traditional urbanization development path takes a decentralized, low-density, and sloppy form [
4,
5], which is highlighted by the implementation of a material-oriented development concept, equating urbanization construction with town construction, focusing unilaterally on urban-scale expansion, blindly engaging in “city-building” and building new districts [
6], and neglecting the simultaneous development of industrial agglomeration and population agglomeration, leading to problems such as the lack of close integration of production and urbanization, the relatively late integration of migrant workers, and the insufficient supply capacity of public services. If China continues to adopt the traditional urbanization development model, it will further aggravate and trigger economic and social pitfalls such as environmental degradation, weak consumer demand, and sloppy and inefficient investment types in China. Therefore, there is an urgent need to take a new road of people-oriented urbanization and to fully optimize and upgrade traditional urbanization.
Compared with traditional urbanization, the new type of urbanization has a richer connotation, mainly in the following ways: First, the new type of urbanization guarantees and respects the various rights of urban residents [
7], accelerates the citizenship of the rural floating population, and provides guarantees for the real integration of the transferred population into the towns by encouraging entrepreneurship. Second, the new urbanization requires the implementation of innovation-driven development strategies [
8]. On the one hand, this could be achieved by creating an innovative environment, strengthening the construction of innovation infrastructure, building an “information highway” network, and taking the innovation demonstration landscape as a starting point, promoting industrial technology on the fast track to informationization and intelligence. On the other hand, with the help of big data, the Internet, and other information technology, a smart city could be built as the focus of promoting new urbanization [
9]. It can be seen that the new urbanization is based on absorbing the experience of traditional urbanization development, using information technology construction, emphasizing urban innovation and sustainable development, and relying on high-tech industrial development to fully optimize and enhance traditional urbanization.
Urban innovation capability is a manifestation of innovative cities [
10], which refers to cities with strong independent innovation capabilities, outstanding roles in supporting and leading science and technology, high levels of sustainable economic and social development, and significant regional radiation and driving effects. As a regional innovation highland, innovative cities play a crucial role and are important pillars for the construction of innovative countries [
11]. At present, innovative cities in China are mainly oriented to prefecture-level cities and are often judged by an evaluation index system consisting of 5 primary indicators and 30 secondary indicators, such as innovation governance, original innovation, technology innovation, achievement transformation, and innovation driving force. In this paper, the total number of patent applications is selected as the measurement index, which can reflect the innovation power of the city.
1.2. Research Purpose
In the literature, on the one hand, the evolution of urbanization cannot be separated from industrialization; for example, the first industrial revolution and the second industrial revolution drove the urbanization process in Britain and the United States, respectively [
12]. On the other hand, urbanization also drives economic development and becomes an important spatial vehicle for regional economic activities, such as the London metropolitan area, the Tokyo metropolitan area, the Bosworth urban agglomeration, and the Beijing metropolitan area in China. It has been proved that urbanization is a dynamic evolutionary process embedded in the national economic system, and the pattern and level of urbanization are determined by the characteristics of economic development stages and institutional policy systems [
13]. The urbanization in Britain was based on the development of the industrial revolution and the lessons learned from the enclosure movement before the industrial revolution, and regulations were enacted to steadily promote urbanization. On the contrary, some Latin American countries have experienced “over-urbanization”, in which urbanization has greatly exceeded the level of industrialization and agricultural modernization. In Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and other countries, the urbanization rate has reached 80% or even 90%, but this is a phenomenon of “false urbanization”.
Along with the follow-up to the pilot policy practice of new urbanization, the construction of new urbanization has become an important measure to stimulate the innovative vitality of cities. The construction of new urbanization will have a multifaceted promotional effect on improving urban innovation. First, the pilot cities of new urbanization attach importance to building new infrastructure construction, including the creation of big data centers, artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, and many other new digital industry fields, to provide infrastructure for society, enterprises, and financial institutions to improve their innovation power. Second, the pilot cities of new urbanization emphasize the concept of people-oriented development based on the promotion of population urbanization, accelerate the citizenship of rural migrant populations [
14], and focus on the development of education and knowledge popularization, which is conducive to improving the level of human capital. The human capital reserve is the think tank of urban development and the powerhouse of innovation [
15,
16]. Thirdly, in the construction of new urbanization pilot cities, more attention will be paid to industrial upgrading and smart city construction, which will have a catalytic effect on improving the level of urban innovation by accelerating the technological transformation of traditional industries in the city, developing high-tech industries and smart finance, and other developments.
In fact, the construction of China’s new urbanization has greatly stimulated the spread of technology levels and knowledge and techniques in regional cities after years of larger-scale pilot and extension construction starting in 2014. Since 2015, China has set up three batches of new urbanization comprehensive reform pilots to explore the transformation path of urbanization from favoring quantitative scale increase to focusing on quality connotation improvement. As of 2020, a total of 188 cities (districts, counties, and towns) have been promoted in three batches of the pilot city list to implement new urbanization, and the pilot policy of new urbanization is beginning to bear fruit, as highlighted by the fact that new urbanization has rejected the previous pursuit of simple urban population ratio increase and scale expansion. China’s new urbanization has achieved innovation and creativity in many aspects, including concepts, institutions, and culture. As the scope of new urbanization pilot cities continues to expand, it is particularly important to scientifically assess the impact of new urbanization construction on urban innovation development.
This paper focuses on assessing the impact of new urbanization pilot policies on urban innovation and its mechanism of action, aiming to address the following questions: First, can new urbanization pilot policies effectively promote the improvement of urban innovation? Second, what is the mechanism of action of the pilot policies of new urbanization in influencing urban innovation? Third, is there regional heterogeneity in the impact of pilot new urbanization construction on urban innovation? The answers to these questions will help to better summarize the experience of new urbanization pilot policy construction and better promote the high-quality development of Chinese cities.
Therefore, this paper proposes a direction for urbanization development in less developed countries or regions, which is to follow the natural laws of urban evolution, improve public infrastructure and public services in cities, and avoid “over-urbanization” and “lagging urbanization”. The promotion of new urbanization should be matched with the current economic development, taking the level of economic development as the basis for urbanization, focusing on assessing whether public services are coordinated with the needs of urban populations, and avoiding the speed of upgrading infrastructure and public services lagging behind the speed of urbanization.
1.3. Research Significance
In the Chinese literature, there is an initial academic consensus that new urbanization affects innovation, but the extent of the impact of new urbanization innovation and its mechanism of action are not clear. The mechanism through which new urbanization affects the increase of innovation remains a hot topic of debate. The question of whether a series of policy measures adopted during the promotion of China’s new urbanization city pilot policy have effectively increased urban innovation is subject to further study. In summary, the following shortcomings remain in existing studies: First, most of the existing domestic studies use regional data at national and provincial levels to measure new urbanization and influence factors, which can hardly reflect the whole picture of China’s new urbanization and neglect the impact of new urbanization on micro-cities, resulting in the lack of detailed analysis of the influencing subjects and influence mechanisms. Second, much of the literature overlooks the policy–practice effects produced by the pilot cities of new urbanization, which serve as realistic practice channels to enhance urban innovation and provide quasi-natural experiments to further validate the realistic impacts of new urbanization, thus providing corresponding policy recommendations to continue deepening the construction of new urbanization, optimizing resource allocation, and improving economic efficiency.
How new urbanization affects innovation has become a preliminary consensus in academic circles, but the degree of impact and mechanism of new urbanization innovation are not clear. The mechanism through which new urbanization affects the increase of innovation remains a hot topic of debate. The question of whether a series of policy measures adopted during the promotion of China’s new urbanization city pilot policy have effectively increased urban innovation is subject to further study. The following shortcomings remain in the existing studies:
First, most of the existing domestic studies use national and provincial-level regional data to measure new urbanization and impact factors, which can hardly reflect the full picture of new urbanization in China and ignore the impact of new urbanization on micro-cities, resulting in a lack of detailed analysis of impacting subjects and impact mechanisms.
Second, much of the literature ignores the policy practice effects brought on by pilot cities of new urbanization, which serve as a realistic practice channel to enhance urban innovation and provide quasi-natural experiments to further verify the realistic impacts of new urbanization, thus providing corresponding policy suggestions to continue deepening the construction of new urbanization, optimizing resource allocation, and improving economic efficiency.
The value of this paper lies in the following three points: (1) This study can enrich our understanding of new urbanization, accurately grasp the synergistic requirements of China’s new urbanization and urban innovation, and provide important policy references for the enhancement of China’s urban innovation capacity. (2) On the basis of theoretical and empirical studies, it provides policy recommendations for further promoting the construction of new urbanization and focusing on its economic effects. In the context of the new era, how to enhance the innovation capacity of cities and promote high-quality economic development has become an important practical issue. By promoting the construction of new urbanization, stimulating the inherent potential of new urbanization, and improving infrastructure construction, etc., the Chinese government will be important in improving the innovation capacity of cities. (3) This paper can formulate the key development directions of new urbanization policies for the improvement of the urban innovation capacity in different regions, and further provide realistic and feasible guidance for the improvement of overall innovation capacity.