This paper investigates how urban sprawl and the quality of economic growth interact and further studies the spatial-temporal decoupling characteristics of both. To achieve this, a framework was developed to better explain both the different dimensional effects urban sprawl exerts on the quality of economic growth and their reverse feedback relation. A sample of 285 Chinese cities (2003 to 2016) were analyzed, employing both a decoupling model and spatial correlation analysis. The findings indicated that urban sprawl and the quality of economic growth are related via scale, structure, technological efficiency, and technological progress effects. In practice, with increasing quality of economic growth, the urban sprawl index decreases at the national level. At prefecture-city level, the types of decoupling between urban sprawl and the quality of economic growth showed clear periodical and unbalanced characteristics. Furthermore, decoupling showed a significant agglomeration effect in Chinese cities, which is mainly mediated by the types High-High and Low-Low. This study provides a significant contribution to the relevant acknowledge system by providing a comprehensive theoretical framework toward an understanding of how urban expansion interacts with the quality of economic growth. Furthermore, their decoupling types and spatial differences that are critical for the urban sustainable development have been identified, thus providing several important insights for both academics and urban policy makers.

Understanding land use functions (LUFs) value is critical for implementing sustainable land resources management and optimizing territorial space in China. However, existing research insufficiently portrays the contributions of land use to economic activity and people’s well-being. To address this crucial absence, this paper attempts to clarify the connotation of LUFs’ value and the logic of LUFs’ optimization under the national territorial space planning system by applying the “demand–function–value” integrated framework. Based on this framework and taking Zhangjiakou City as a case study, we classified LUFs into economic, social, and ecological functions. Then, we assessed the monetary value of LUFs at the grid level using spatialization and environmental economics methods. Besides, we analyzed the evolutionary characteristics of LUFs and their diversity and dominance. The results showed that the total value of economic, social, and ecological LUFs increased continuously between 1990 and 2015. Spatially, the ecological function showed an opposite pattern to that of social and economic functions. Additionally, the dominant role shifted from ecological function to social function, and the dominant functional combination changed from ELP-ENS-ST to SP-ENS-ELT over this period. Lastly, this paper proposes that policymakers identify and optimize ecological–production–living space through LUFs’ value assessment and coordination. The results provide a new methodological insight into the assessment and coordination of LUFs and adaptive land use management.

The employment inequality between males and females in the context of land expropriation is not conducive for land-expropriated farmers to earn a sustainable livelihood. In this study, based on the data of two waves of household surveys, the “Chinese Family Panel Study” in 2016 and 2018, the PSM-DID method is used to test the effects of land expropriation on the employment behavior of the rural labor force, and the heterogeneous results of men’s and women’s employment behaviors are analyzed. The following conclusions are drawn. Land expropriation significantly reduces the employment probability of the labor force, encouraging the rural labor force to withdraw from the labor market voluntarily; land expropriation significantly shortens the employment distance of the labor force overall, promoting the urbanization of the rural labor force in the vicinity; land expropriation has a greater impact on the unemployment of the female labor force than that of the male labor force, and it increases the employment distance of males and reduces that of females, promoting the return of females’ labor to the family. The policy significance of this study is to attach importance to the long-term sustainable livelihoods of rural households and the employment equality of males and females in urbanization. Findings suggest family–friendly compensation for land expropriation should be formulated, rural construction land should be allowed to enter the market instead of being expropriated, and cooperation between county and developed regions should be encouraged for the creation of more jobs.