China’s New-Style Urbanization and Its Impact on the Green Efficiency of Urban Land Use

Improving the green efficiency of urban land use (GEULU) is essential for optimizing resource utilization while minimizing waste and pollution, making it a critical factor influencing the sustainability of urban development. However, the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the impact of China’s New-Style Urbanization (NU) policy on the GEULU, particularly at the urban agglomeration scale, remains understudied. This study employed a super SBM-DDF-GML model and spatial data analysis to examine the characteristics and spatiotemporal dynamics of the GEULU and its interactions with varying implementations of NU at the regional, urban agglomeration, and city levels. The results show that China’s GEULU followed a “U-shaped” tendency from 2006 to 2020. Cities in western China exhibit higher levels of green efficiency but slower growth, compared with lower absolute levels and faster development rates amongst the eastern cities. The GEULU displays a significant positive spatial autocorrelation, with “high-high clusters” shifting from west to east and “low-low clusters” moving in the opposite direction. The impact of NU on the GEULU is divergent: positive in eastern and central regions but negative in the western areas. Economic urbanization, urban population growth, and the clustering of research and education facilitate green efficiency, while urban sprawl significantly hinders its improvement. Social urbanization and digitalization exert adverse effects on green efficiency across many cities. Ecological and environmental protections promote the GEULU in southwestern cities but obstruct it in northeastern cities. The negative effect of NU on the green efficiency has diminished over time, while its positive effects have grown stronger. These findings provide insightful information for urban planners and politicians in crafting region-contextualized adaptive strategies to enhance sustainable urbanization and efficient land use in China.