Since sustainable urban development is challenged by accelerating global climate change, advancing urban sprawl, and increasing demand for innovation, it is particularly necessary to explore the relationship between the three components of urban development. In this paper, we take 283 cities in China as an example to construct a comprehensively informative climatic environment comfort-urban sprawl-innovative quality system (CUI system) and analyze its level, coupling coordination degree, and future development trend by using the coupling coordination degree model, spatiotemporal geographically weighted regression model, and gray prediction model. The results reveal the following: (1) temporally, climatic environment comfort and innovative quality scores rise and then fall, urban sprawl scores continue to increase, and CUI system coupling and coordination both rise. (2) Spatially, the spatial pattern of the CUI system varies; the coupling degree shows a pattern of “high in the north and low in the south,” and the coordination type of the CUI system in most cities is consistent and at the stage of barely coordinated. (3) Driving factors, altitudes, and the share of secondary industry output have a significant impact on the coordinated development of the CUI system. (4) On the trend prediction, the level of the CUI system and the coordination degree will show a steady upward trend from 2021 to 2035. (5) Based on the aforementioned research results and the real situation, this paper proposes four urban development models: comprehensive development model, climate tourism development model, human-land exploitation development model, and diversified innovative development model.
Li et al. (Mon,) studied this question.