An empirical study on Chinese city network pattern based on producer services

Abstract

Globalization and informatization have accelerated city networking process over the world, which makes research on city network a hot topic in the fields of urban geography and economic geography. With Chinese economic structure adjustment and city economic growth, producer services have begun to play an increasingly important role in city-region networking. This paper employs the methodology of world city network to analyze and explain the spatial development characteristics of China’s urban network system based on the data of nationwide producer services enterprise network. The research result indicated that the distribution of producer services network has a positive effect on the development of Chinese city networks. City network connectivity is closely related to the significance of city in producer services development, and the former will gradually decline with the drop of the latter. Accordingly, the 64 cities can be divided into the national central cities, regional central cities, sub-regional central cities and local central cities in accordance with their position and role in the nationwide producer services network. It is concluded that high-grade cities with quality producer services dominate the pattern of Chinese city networks and there emerges three spatial agglomerations of producer services enterprises in Changjiang (Yangtze) River Delta, Zhujiang (Pearl) River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan Economical Region. Moreover, the distribution of different producer services industry varies from city to city, which also affects the characteristics of network development.