Abstract
With the increasingly close relations between cities in China, it is of great significance to explore the regular characteristics of the intercity connection. Through Tencent’s population migration heat and Baidu map big data, this paper analyzes the regular characteristics of the relations between complex cities based on such index as the rich node propensity index, preference level index, and relative heat index and also investigates the influence of geographical proximity factors on the external relations of different cities. The research has the following results. Firstly, the relations between cities have obvious club characteristics. The rich nodes tend to connect with the rich nodes, while the nonrich nodes tend to connect with the nonrich nodes. Secondly, the connection between cities has the effect of hierarchical proximity, and cities mainly establish spatial connections with cities of the same level and adjacent level. Thirdly, the relations between cities also have the effect of geographical proximity, and the degree of influence of geographical proximity in low-level cities is greater than that in high-level cities. Fourthly, the external connection mode of high-level cities is to establish close contact with high-level cities adjacent to the level, with strong attraction to low-level cities adjacent to the location at the same time. The low-level cities are closely related to the high-level cities adjacent to the location and other cities of geographical proximity or adjacent level. This study helps to further understand the complex characteristics and laws of intercity connections and urban networks.
Highlights
With the rapid development of China’s economy and society and the rapid promotion of urbanization [1, 2], cities are increasingly closely connected in China. e rapid construction of high-speed railway, expressway, and other transportation networks provides convenient conditions for the flow of population, capital, information, technology, and other elements between cities [3, 4]
Hierarchical diffusion reflects the order of diffusion, which is seldom manifested as one step spread from a high-level city to a low-level city. is order highlights the hierarchical isolation between the high-level city and lowlevel city
China’s intercity links are mainly concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and a few other rich node cities. e connection between cities in China has club characteristics; that is, the rich nodes tend to connect with rich nodes, consistent with the conclusions of work of Opsahl [42] and Wei [30]. e higher the city level is, the tendency of connecting rich nodes is stronger. e nonrich nodes tend to connect with the nonrich nodes, and the lower the city level is, the stronger the preference of connecting nonrich nodes is
Summary
With the rapid development of China’s economy and society and the rapid promotion of urbanization [1, 2], cities are increasingly closely connected in China. e rapid construction of high-speed railway, expressway, and other transportation networks provides convenient conditions for the flow of population, capital, information, technology, and other elements between cities [3, 4]. With the rapid development of China’s economy and society and the rapid promotion of urbanization [1, 2], cities are increasingly closely connected in China. Urban development is no longer confined within the city, and administrative barriers are gradually broken. Since the 21st century, with China’s city linkages and city network evolving, a few center cities still occupy the absolute controlling position, but the city link is no longer limited to between core cities and between core cities and general cities, connection between general cities gradually enhances and the connectivity of the urban network is increasing. Academic circles focus on researches on the relations between cities and the complexity of the urban network [5]. There is still a lot of space to explore in the research of revealing the characteristics of urban interaction and mining its regular characteristics and mechanisms
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