Investigate the Relationship between Urbanization and Industrialization using a Coordination Model: A Case Study of China

The coordinated development of industrialization and urbanization has become a common goal and concern of developing countries. At the same time, measuring the relationship between them is becoming a research hotspot. With reference to value engineering, we constructed a dynamic coordination model to analyze the degree of coordination between urbanization and industrialization in China. During the study, three primary indicators were used to assess the level of industrialization in China, namely: economic development, industrial structure, industrial enterprise. We also use demographic urbanization rate to evaluate the level of urbanization. Subsequently, a dynamic coordination model was established using panel data of China collected from 1978 to 2017. Through the dynamic coordination degree model, the changes in the degree of coordination between urbanization and industrialization in China from 1978 to 2017 were analyzed, and the reasons for the fluctuation of coordination degree were further explored. The results show that: (1) The coordinated development of urbanization and industrialization can be divided into six phases, which is consistent with the major reforms in China's rural and urban; (2) The degree of coordination fluctuated more obviously during 1991–1995, which reflected the unstable state of China in the process of coordinated development of urbanization and industrialization; (3) Most of the time, industrialization is ahead of urbanization, while with rapid economic development, urbanization, and industrialization, are gradually synchronizing in China. The results are of great significance for promoting the coordinated development of urbanization and industrialization and realizing the sustainable development of the city.