Triple Spatial Effects of the Administrative Hierarchy on Urban Built-Up Areas in Fujian Province, China: Heterogeneity, Radiation, and Segmentation

The expansion of urban built-up areas is one of the most prominent characteristics of land use change in China. A growing body of literature has emphasized the triple spatial effects of the administrative hierarchy on urban built-up areas expansion, including heterogeneity, radiation, and segmentation. However, the existing studies have mainly focused on the administrative hierarchy at the prefectural level and above and have primarily concentrated on one single effect; few have integrated the triple effects as a whole. Based on high-resolution land use data and taking Fujian province as a study case, this study proposes an integrated theoretical framework and modeling approach and investigates the triple spatial effects of administrative hierarchy on built-up areas at the prefectural level and below. Descriptive statistics show the following: (1) Built-up areas of municipal districts are significantly larger than those of county-level units, showing the heterogeneity characteristics of urban land distribution across different levels of administrative hierarchy; (2) The county-level units adjacent to municipal districts exploit more built-up areas than other county-level units, indicating the radiation effects of municipal districts; (3) The radiation effects tend to be reduced if a municipal district and its adjacent county-level units are not located in the same prefectural city, revealing the segmentation effects among the different prefectural cities. Using the spatial econometric model with regimes, we further find the following: (1) The strengths of driving forces of built-up areas are heterogeneous between municipal districts and county-level units, and there are significant spatial interactions among administrative units; (2) The spatial interactions between municipal districts and county-level units are stronger than those between two county-level units, but the strength is restricted by the prefectural boundary, reflecting the radiation effects of municipal districts and the segmentation effects of the prefectural boundary, respectively. By investigating the triple spatial effects of the administrative hierarchy on urban built-up areas, we conclude that comprehensively considering these triple effects as a whole will result in a fuller understanding of the rapid built-up areas expansion in China, especially at the prefectural level and below.