Spatiotemporal evolution of coupling coordination in population-land relationship and its influencing factors: A case study of 26 main cities in Yangtze River Delta, China

Crucial to regional integration and sustainability of urban agglomeration, coordination between urban land expansion and population growth caused by rapid urbanization has drawn increasing attention. Though the population-land relationship has been widely explored, few studies have investigated the internal mechanism from an allometric growth perspective. This study aims to reveal spatiotemporal evolution and influencing factors of population-land coordination in 26 central cities of Yangtze River Delta (YRD) from 1989 to 2018, via incorporating the coupling coordination model, super-slack-based measure model (Super-SBM), and spatial Durbin model with fixed effects. The results indicated that: 1) the pace of land expansion significantly exceeds population growth, and great distinction of allometric growth within regional cities is observed; 2) population-land interaction is still located in the low coordination stage, and its productivity efficiency sees a slight fall with fluctuation; 3) urban land exploitation, population agglomeration and productivity efficiency have significant positive effects on population-land coordination. Finally, several recommendations are proposed, involving targeted urban land supply for different cities, trans-administrative regional land and industrial planning. This study provides some insights into the sustainable population-land relationship. •Coupling coordination degree of population-land locates in the lower interval.•Population-land productivity efficiency sees a slight fall with fluctuation.•Fiscal deficit level exerts a negative effect on population-land coordination.•Increase in production efficiency has improved population-land coordination.