Impact Mechanism of New Urbanization on Environmental Pollution: Empirical Analysis Based on Spatial Panel Model

Traditional urbanization has stimulated economic growth. Meanwhile, it has damaged the natural environment. China has initiated new urbanization to resolve this dilemma. This paper aims to clarify the relationship between new urbanization and environmental pollution and prove new urbanization's superiority in containing environmental pollution. Thus, this paper adopts the static and dynamic spatial Durbin and mediating effect models to estimate the environmental pollution control mechanism of the new urbanization, using the panel data collected from 285 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2018. Findings show that: (1) Environmental pollution has time inertia and spatial spillover effect. The degree of pollution in an area is related to the environmental quality in the earlier stage and the surrounding areas. (2) The role of new urbanization in containing environmental pollution can take effect in the long run. In the short term, population urbanization can restrain the environmental pollution of both local and surrounding cities. (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the higher the level of environmental pollution, the greater the impact of new urbanization on environmental pollution. (4) Mediating effect test shows that technological effect and industrial structure upgrading are two important channels for new urbanization to reduce environmental pollution. (5) Threshold effect test shows that the inhibition effect of new urbanization on environmental pollution is gradually enhanced after crossing the threshold.