Evaluation of China’s Urban Healthy Development: Current Situation, Problems and Countermeasures

Based on the overall plan for promoting economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological progress, this paper establishes an evaluation index system of urban healthy development and also conducts a comprehensive evaluation about the healthy development of 287 designated cities at prefecture level and above. The results have shown four major features of the development of China’s cities. Firstly, at current stage, the level of China’s urban healthy development is generally low and the proportion of sub-healthy cities in the total cities is high; secondly, eastern cities in general enjoy higher level of healthy development, while western cities are just the opposite, with obvious gaps in healthy development among different provinces; thirdly, large cities boast higher level of healthy development in general terms, but their environmental quality remains a very worrying issue; at last, the healthy development of moderately developed cities is relatively balanced compared with the economically developed cities. In conclusion, the overall condition of China’s urban healthy development is not optimistic and it is an arduous task to promote transition from sub-healthy to healthy development for all cities in China.