“…The evolution of urban spatial structure is usually studied by remote sensing techniques or spatial land use change models (Krehl, Siedentop, Taubenb€ ock, & Wurm, 2016;Van de Voorde et al, 2016), the (population or economic indicators) modeling method and graph theory analysis. The generalized equilibrium model (Berliant & Wang, 2008), logical model (Ikeda, Akamatsu, & Kono, 2012) and gravity model (Wang, Deng, Su, & Song, 2014) have been widely applied in this field. Since the evolution of spatial structure of urban system is closely related to population and economic factors (Chadchan & Shankar, 2012;Dong et al, 2014), population and economic indicators are often used to describe the urban system growth and decline (Filion, 2010;Li, Huang, & Wang, 1998).…”