中文摘要：

近年来,随着中国城市化进程不断加快,各地普遍出现了以低价出让农业用地,盲目投资房地产及城市基础设施,大规模兴建新城区为主要特征的城市蔓延现象。造成这种城市建成区低密度无序扩张的原因,除了不规范的城市用地转化机制外,很大程度上是源于对城市化与经济发展关系的不当认识。以全国261个地级市为例,基于1990~2010年城市社会经济发展数据,采用多元回归模型客观分析了中国城市土地蔓延与经济增长的关系。研究结果表明,在控制住城市固定资产投资、外商投资（FDI）、房地产泡沫效应等因素后,城市现有建成区面积及其扩展幅度与其人均国民生产总值并没有显著相关关系。也就是说,单纯追求城市建成区规模扩张并不能直接促进城市经济发展。

英文摘要：

As the urbanization in China accelerates in recent years, there appears a phenomena called urban sprawl which has the following main features： selling agricultural land at a low price,blindly investing in real estate and urban infrastructure and large-scale construction of the new cities.The cause of this city＇s low-density sprawl lies in, to a large degree, the misconceptions of the relationship between urbanization and economic development in addition to the non-standard urban land conversion mechanism. Based on the data of1990-2010 Urban Social and Economic Development, and taking 261 prefecture-level cities in China for example, this article objectively analyzes the relationship between urban sprawl and economic growth by adopting the multiple regression model. The research results show that ： 1） There is no significant correlation between urban expansion and GNP after controlling the urban investment in fixed assets, foreign investment（FDI）, the real estate bubble effect and other factors. In other words,the mere pursuit of urban built-up area scale expansion can not directly promote the development of urban economy.2） The investment in real estate accounts and the total urban population showed a significant negative correlation. 3） Demographic urbanization level, the total urban investment in fixed assets and GDP growth had significant causal effect on economic growth. Our results suggest that the simple pursuit of scale expansion of urban built-up area cannot directly promote the city＇s economic development in China. Therefore, it is particularly important to maintain harmonious development of the urban spatial expansion and economic development in China. Urbanization is a natural product and an important witness of economic development in China. Urbanization should not be dominated by man-made urban sprawl. In order to achieve the healthy and sustainable development of cities and regional economy in China, the results of this study also help correct the one-sided pursuit of urbanization