Yangtze Delta Region: urbanization development and megalopolis restructuring

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Yangtze Delta Region urbanization development
and megalopolis restructuring
The 4th International Conference on Population
Geographies The Chinese University of Hong Kong
10-13 July 2007

• Yuemin Ning
• The Centre of Chinese Modern City Studies
• East China Normal University
• Shanghai, China

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1. Introduction
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• The rapid globalizing of worlds production and
  trade has helped to accelerate the division
  progress of labor on the world scale over the
  past decades.
• The forming and continuous adjustment in labor
  division process at a global scale makes the
  crowds, logistics, capital and information flows
  and return more frequently among cities, thus
  facilitates the urbanization progress, and
  contributes to the changes of the urban spatial
  configuration and regional urban system. New
  urban spatial organization is taking shape and
  displays a new pattern.

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• French geographer Jean.Gottman (1976) proposed
  the concept of megalopolis.
• According to the characteristics of Chinese
  urbanization, Chinese scholar Zhou Yixing (1988)
  proposed the concept of Metropolitan Interlocking
  Region, abbreviated as MIR.
• American scholar A. Scott (2001) also put
  forward the concept of global city-region .
• These concepts reflect the emergence of
  mega-cities which has become a prominent
  characteristic of world urbanization nowadays.

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• As one of the important coastal development
  regions in China, the Yangtze Delta region has
  become the nations most urbanized area and
  economic centers.
• By 2005 the Yangtze Delta region with 1 percent
  of the nations land and 6 percent of total
  population, it produced 18.6 percent of national
  gross domestic product (GDP) and absorbed
  43.5percent of the nations total utilized
  foreign direct investment capital, its per capita
  GDP was 3.44 times of the national average.
• In fact, the Yangtze Delta region has already
  become the nations most prosperous region in
  both the levels of urbanization and economic
  development.

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The administrative division of the Yangtze Delta
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• 2. The main characteristics of the urbanization
  progress in the Yangtze Delta

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• 2.1 A High level of urbanization
• With Shanghai being the center of the region, the
  Yangtze Delta consists of more than 80 cities,
  counties and city districts. As the nations
  highly developed and most populous region, the
  Yangtze Delta covers an area of 110,000km2 and
  has a total population of 87,430,000 (in 2000).
• The 5th Census in 2000 revealed the
  urbanization level of Yangtze Delta reached to
  52.63 (45 mill. Urban population ), which higher
  than the average level of whole country (36.09)
  and reached to the level of middle-income
  countries.

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• 2.2 Fast urbanization development
• Comparing the 3rd Census conducted in
  1982 and the 5th Census in 2000, the national
  urbanization level rose from 20.55 of 1982 to
  36.09 of 2000, a 15.54 percentage growth in 18
  years. For the Yangtze Delta area, the level of
  urbanization increased from 25.9 in 1982to 52.6
  in 2000, a big difference of 26.7 in 18 year,
  almost doubling the national speed of
  urbanization. .

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• 2.3 A uneven pattern of urbanization versus
  imbalance among different regions
• The Yangtze Delta exists a development uneven of
  urbanization.
• Firstly, there exists the regional gap of
  urbanization level. Some large cities, such as
  Shanghai and Nanjing, had an over 70
  urbanization ratio, while, some small cities had
  only below 40 urbanization ratio.

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Spatial pattern of urbanization in the Yangtze
Delta by 16 cities
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Spatial pattern of urbanization in the Yangtze
Delta by county
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• Secondly, there exists the gap of growth speed.
  From 1982 to 2000, there were 10 cities whose
  urbanization level rose more than 30 percentiles.
  For the cities with a higher urbanization level
  and greater population, such as Shanghai,
  Hangzhou and Nanjing, etc. however, the
  urbanization level rose fewer than 30
  percentiles.

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• 2.4 Floating population is main source of new
  urban population
• One of the basic concepts of the
  urbanization is the population's urbanization.
  The family planning policy of one-child in China
  has been carrying out in the urban areas since
  1980s. This policy makes the natural growth rate
  of population in urban areas drop rapidly, and
  some cities have already realized population's
  negative growth. In this case, the floating
  population from rural areas is the main source of
  growth of urban population.

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• According to the data of 5th census, Shanghai had
  4,360,000 immigrants of inter-counties and inter-
  provinces, accounted for 26 of the total
  population. Among them, the floating population
  come from other provinces reached 3.1 mill.
• In addition, some big cities such as Nanjing,
  Wuxi, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Changzhou, Ningbo etc. ,
  floating population exceeded 10 of total
  population.
• In general, more developed cities attract more
  floating population.

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Spatial distribution of floating population
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• 2.5 The hierarchical feature of urban system
• The pattern of urban size system in the Yangtze
  Delta appears obvious pyramid type. As the only
  mega-city, Shanghai has become the biggest city
  in China's Mainland and development pole of the
  Yangtze Delta
• It is also obvious for Nanjing and Hangzhou as
  provincial capitals to be the secondary leader's
  status in the Yangtze Delta.
• Relying on the rapid growth of economy, Suzhou,
  Wuxi and Ningbo etc. play an important role of
  economic centers within the Yangtze Delta.

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The system of city size in the Yangtze Delta
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Distribution of large cities with 500,000 person
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3. Principal component analysis of the
urbanization process in the Yangtze Delta
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• 9 initial indexes are chosen.
• X1 is location conditions of each city.
• Shanghai, as the economy center in China and the
  biggest communication hub to the world, is the
  central city in this region undoubtedly. So, the
  paper use the distance of each city to Shanghai
  to appraise the location conditions of each city.

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• X2 population density
• X3 per capita GDP,
• X4 per capita industrial output
• X5 per capita investment in fixed assets
• X6 per capita absorbed FDI
• X7 per capita total export value ( to reflect
  the impact of the export-oriented economy on
  urbanization development ).

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• In addition, the proportion of GDP of the urban
  districts accounted for the whole city-region (
  X8 ) and the proportion of non-agricultural
  population of the urban districts accounted for
  total population ( X9 ) are chosen so as to
  reflect the impact of centralization of the
  central city on local urbanization development .
• Carrying on principal composition analysis, 2
  principal compositions are drawn out. These two
  principal factors can explain 84.8 of the
  variables, having higher convincingness.

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• In the first principal composition, X1 location
  conditions, X3 per capita GDP , X4 per capita
  industrial output, X5 per capita investment in
  fixed assets , X6 per capita FDI, X7 per capita
  total export have higher loads. The
  characteristic value is 4.684.
• Among them, location conditions are obvious
  negative correlated other economic development
  index and opening development index are obvious
  positive correlated.
• This indicates urbanization development is
  negative to the distance of each city to Shanghai
  and positive to economic development. So, the
  first principal composition is named as the
  economic development and location factor.

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• The characteristic value of the second principal
  composition is 2.954. Two variables of X8 and X9
  have obvious high load. X2 possesses relatively
  weak load.
• its meaning is that urbanization level have
  positive correlation with centralization
  capability of central city and population
  density. So, its named as the centralization
  factor of central city.

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• 4. Spatial Restructuring Of The Yangtze Delta
  Megalopolis

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• Today, as the globalizing of world economies
  progresses, international competition is
  characterized by fierce competition among cities
  and metropolitan areas.
• The 11th five-year plan for the social and
  economic development of China ( 2006-2010 ) has
  been made. For the first time, this plan
  considers to make the trans-provincial regional
  plan, including the planning of the Yangtze
  Delta, so as to reinforce the competitiveness and
  sustainable development.
• The planning is a comprehensive plan, including
  social and economic development, construction of
  infrastructure, and environment protection.

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• Through the construction of transportation
  infrastructure, the Yangtze Delta has already
  formed comprehensive transportation system with
  different kinds of way, such as freeways
  network, river transport, railway, aviation, and
  pipeline, etc. Especially, the operation of
  Yangshan deep water harbor in Hangzhou Bay
  indicates that Shanghai has founded the base
  towards to the international shipping centre.

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• In the future, some new transportation
  infrastructures will be constructed
• 1. Shanghai Nanjing Beijing high speed
  railway
• 2. Shanghai Hangzhou Maglev raiway,
• 3. Intercity railways network,
• 4. The second and third phase projects of
  Yangshan deep water harbour ( the capacity of
  container handled will reach 30 mill. TEU)
• 5. Shanghai International Aviation Hub served for
  west Pacific area.

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• 6. Two great channels.
• The Hangzhou Bay channel connecting from
  Shanghai to Ningbo.
• The ShanghaiChongming --Jiangsu channel
  connecting Shanghai, Chongming island and north
  Jiangsu province.
• this will form a coastal great channel, and
  greatly strengthen the connection of Shanghai
  with peripheral cities in the south wing and
  north wing of the Yangtze Delta.

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The urban network of the Yangtze River Delta
Megalopolis by railways and expressways
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• Under the guidence of the spatial strategy,
  the megalopolis will step forward to form a
  grand, integrative, opening frame of three
  spatial layers
• Shanghai-Wuxi-Jiaxing,
• Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou,
• The whole of the Yangtze Delta Megalopolis
• and Three metropolitan regions.
• Shanghai metropolitan region
• Nanjing metropolitan region
• Hangzhou-Ningbo metropolitan region

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• The inner layer is the golden growth triangle
  consisted of Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi and Jiaxing.
  It is also the core area of Shanghai metropolitan
  region that includes Changzhou, Nantong of
  Jiangsu and Huzhou of Zhejiang

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• The second layer extends to Nanjing and Hangzhou,
  forming the Shanghai--Nanjing--Hangzhou growth
  triangle.
• The third layer is the fringe areas of the
  Yangtze Delta megalopolis its periphery even can
  extend to the northern Jiangsu province, the
  southern Zhejiang province and the eastern Anhui
  province.

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• Nanjing forms an independent metropolitan regions
  for its position as provincial capital and strong
  economic strength. Nanjing metropolitan region
  mainly includes Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou, and
  Maanshan, Chuzhou, Wuhu of Anhui Province its
  influence area includes Changzhou, Taizhou, etc.
• Both Hangzhou and Ningbo forms the third
  metropolitan region, and it includes four main
  cities of Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Ningbo, Zhoushan
  its influence area includes Jiaxing, Huzhou,
  Taizhou, etc.
• IN the future, the Yangtze Delta will work for a
  spatial structure characterized by networks,
  symmetry and multiple centers.

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The End