Yangtze Delta Region: urbanization development and megalopolis restructuring

Yuemin NingThe Centre of Chinese Modern City Studies

East China Normal UniversityShanghai, China

The 4th International Conference on Population GeographiesThe Chinese University of Hong Kong 10-13 July 2007

1. Introduction

• The rapid globalizing of world’s 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.

• 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.

• As one of the important coastal development regions in China, the Yangtze Delta region has become the nation’s most urbanized area and economic centers.

• By 2005 the Yangtze Delta region with 1 percent of the nation’s land and 6 percent of total population, it produced 18.6 percent of national gross domestic product (GDP) and absorbed 43.5percent of the nation’s 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 nation’s most prosperous region in both the levels of urbanization and economic development.

The administrative division of the Yangtze Delta

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

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 nation’s 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.

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. .

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.

Spatial pattern of urbanization in the Yangtze Delta by 16 cities

Spatial pattern of urbanization in the Yangtze Delta by county

• 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.

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.

• 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.

Spatial distribution of floating population

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.

The system of city size in the Yangtze Delta

Population size

Total

>10 mill. 1

5-10 mill. 0

2 – 5 mill. 2

1 - 2 mill. 5

0.5 – 1 mill. 6

0.2 – 0.5 mill. 18

0.1 - 0.2 mill. 56

Total 88

Distribution of large cities with 500,000 person

3. Principal component analysis of the urbanization process in the Yangtze Delta

• 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.

• 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 ).

• 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.

Principal Composition

principal compositio

n 1

principal compositio

n 2

X1 -0.81 -0.13

X2 0.42 0.74

X3 0.86 0.40

X4 0.79 0.58

X5 0.91 0.27

X6 0.90 0.02

X7 0.83 0.31

X8 -0.04 0.95

X9 0.39 0.90

• 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.

• 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, it’s named as the centralization factor of central city.

4. Spatial Restructuring Of The Yangtze Delta Megalopolis

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 6. Two great channels.

• The Hangzhou Bay channel connecting from Shanghai to Ningbo.

• The Shanghai—Chongming --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.

The urban network of the Yangtze River Delta Megalopolis by railways and expressways

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

• 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；

• 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.

• 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 Ma’anshan, 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.

The End