Research on the Identification and Spatiotemporal Evolution of China’s Urban Life Cycle: From the Perspective of Organic Entities

Based on the characteristics of cities as organic entities, this paper constructs a five-dimensional evaluation framework encompassing economy, industry, society, population, and space. A three-stage process of “fuzzy comprehensive evaluation—bi-level K-means clustering—state stability correction” is adopted to identify the development stages and spatiotemporal evolution of 286 Chinese cities from 2008 to 2023. The study finds that China’s urban development has shifted from “universal growth” to “divergent evolution,” exhibiting multiple characteristics such as the decline in the initial-stage cities and differentiation in the growth stage. Significant regional spatial differentiation is observed, with notable development gaps among the eastern, central, western, and northeastern regions, as well as between the northern and southern regions. Furthermore, most urban agglomerations exhibit a “mature center–lagging periphery” structure.