Evaluation of Urban Development Quality in Hefei Based on the ESRE Model

Against the backdrop of high-quality development in the new era, urban development is shifting from scale expansion to quality improvement, and the scientific evaluation of urban development quality has become crucial for promoting sustainable development. Taking Hefei, China, as a case study, this study establishes an urban development quality evaluation system based on the ESRE model (economic development quality, social development quality, residents’ living quality, and ecological environment quality), and carries out a multi-dimensional spatial comprehensive assessment of urban development quality in Hefei. The results show that: (1) A pronounced spatial gradient of “central agglomeration and peripheral disparity” characterizes Hefei’s development quality—high-value clusters are tightly concentrated in the central urban district, whereas peripheral counties consistently exhibit lower performance. (2) Economic, social, and quality-of-life dimensions display strong spatial coherence, all following a unimodal, concentric attenuation pattern radiating from the city center; by contrast, ecological environmental quality exhibits a complementary inverse pattern—“high in the periphery, low in the center”. This notable spatial mismatch is closely associated with intensive human construction and urban land expansion within central urban areas. (3) Obvious spatial differentiation exists in the matching state of each subsystem: the central urban area leverages strong agglomeration advantages in industry, population density, and public service provision, but concurrently bears disproportionate ecological pressure; peripheral regions lag in economic, social and residential living dimensions while maintaining superior ecological quality. This study provides a feasible methodological framework for diagnosing spatial imbalances in urban development and optimizing territorial resource allocation—offering actionable insights to advance coordinated, high-quality development across the Hefei metropolitan region.