Using data from Canton (Guangdong), China, from 2008 to 2018, this study shows that the urbanization level is negatively correlated with industrial energy intensity and has a significant spatial spillover effect. The urbanization level significantly reduces industrial energy intensity with or without considering the spatial spillover effect; If the spatial spillover effects are considered in the assumptions of the model, using the geographic neighbour matrix, the inverse distance matrix and the GDP gravitational model matrix as the spatial weight matrix respectively, the results were all close: the urbanization level in one region has a significant negative correlation with the industrial energy intensity of this region and the surrounding areas. The results show that, for developing countries in the industrialization phase, higher urbanization rates tend to lead to more efficient use of resources. By ignoring the impact of spatial spillover effects, previous studies on urbanization may have underestimated the actual impact of urbanization on economic efficiency.
