A Study on Spatio-Temporal Pattern and Optimization of High-Quality Development in the Pearl River-West River Economic Belt

Taking the Pearl River-West River Economic Belt as an example, based on the five development principles, this study explores its high-quality development level and evolving trends from 2015 to 2020 using evaluation systems, the entropy-weighted method, and the Gini coefficient method. The results show that: (1) the high-quality development level of the urban economy in the Pearl River-West River Economic Belt has increased steadily year by year, with a relatively slow growth rate. Except for the openness dimension, all other sizes have maintained steady growth. (2) The Gini coefficient decreased from 0.0759 in 2015 to 0.0440 in 2020, a decrease of 42.03%, indicating a downward trend in disparity. However, the development gap between cities is still relatively noticeable. (3) The regional disparities have shown a fluctuating downward trend over time, with declines between central and backward cities, sub-central and backward cities, and central and sub-central cities.