Development characteristics, influencing mechanism and coping strategies of resource-based cities in developing countries: a case study of urban agglomeration in Northeast China

The transformation of resource-based cities and coordinated regional development are of great value to global urbanization and sustainable economic development in developing countries. Based on Landsat satellite monitoring data and urban economic data, statistical analysis and geospatial model were used to analyze the characteristics of urban development in urban agglomeration in Northeast China from 2000 to 2020, and the influencing mechanism was quantitatively revealed. The results show that the expansion of urban agglomerations rate reached its peak from 2005 to 2010, and then the expansion rate continued to decline. The resources of central cities were concentrated, while the development of sub-central cities was weak. The overall urbanization rate slows down, the scale difference between high-order cities and low-order cities expands, and the regional urban system shifts from balanced development to polarized development. The overall development of urban agglomerations shows a centripetal agglomeration characteristic centered on the Harbin Changchun-Daqing and Central and southern Liaoning Economic belt. Its west expands faster than the East, and its south expands faster than the north. The driving factors of urban agglomeration development are mainly administrative power, followed by market power, external power and weak internal power. From the point of time and space, the external power is on the rise, while the internal power is affected by the industrial adjustment and lacks the staying power. In view of the coordinated development of resource-based cities, this paper proposes to establish the linkage and coordination mechanism of integrated development of urban agglomeration, speed up the construction of unified market system, carry out transformation positioning according to market demand and implement differentiation policy.