The Impact of Green Technology Innovation on Urban Land Resource Misallocation and Its Spatial Spillover Effects: Evidence from China’s Yangtze River Delta

In an era prioritizing high-quality development and ecological civilization, optimal land resource allocation is vital for overcoming resource constraints and fostering new quality productive forces, with green technology innovation (GTI) serving as a key driver. Using data from 41 Yangtze River Delta cities (2003–2022), this study measures urban land resource misallocation (ULM) via the factor relative distortion coefficient and employs fixed effect, mediating effect, and spatial Durbin models to explore GTI’s impact and spatial spillovers on ULM. Results show a fluctuating yet rising ULM trend with significant spatial disparities. Land allocation efficiency is higher in central and southeastern coastal cities, while western and northern areas exhibit high-misallocation agglomeration. GTI significantly reduces ULM, particularly in non-resource-based cities, mainly through industrial structure optimization and agglomeration. Spatial spillover analysis reveals that GTI not only improves local land allocation but also positively influences neighboring regions via technology spillovers and industrial synergy. These findings suggest that incentive policies should strengthen GTI to enhance region-wide land utilization efficiency.