Exploration on the spatial spillover effect of infrastructure network on urbanization: A case study in Wuhan urban agglomeration

In the context of rapid urbanization, the rational spatial distribution of infrastructures, such as road network and public facilities is of great importance for the spatial optimization of infrastructure construction and sustainable regional development. In this study, we explored the spatial spillover influence of infrastructure network on urbanization in road network-based and POI-based hypotheses through spatial modeling in Wuhan urban agglomeration in 2005 and 2015. The global integration values of the road axial lines and Points of Interest (POI) density were used to generate spatial weight matrices by the gravity model to formulate the two hypotheses. The results revealed that local economic factors and the spatial influence of infrastructure both contribute to the changes in urbanization with varying powers in different hypotheses and years. In general, spatial spillover effects from neighbors in the form of road network and point-based facilities have weakened in recent years. However, the comparative magnitude has changed from road network dominated to similar functioning between road network and POI based facilities. It is concluded that the rational utilization of the embedded spatial spillover effect helps to formulate strategies for sustainable urbanization in improving resource use efficiency, achieving balanced development and promoting an integrated urban–rural development.