Employment centers and polycentric spatial development in Chinese cities: A multi-scale analysis

Abstract

This paper analyzes urban polycentricity for 287 Chinese cities at the prefecture level and above, by identifying and examining employment centers within both their administrative regions and central urban areas. We discover that the majority of Chinese cities had more than one employment center in their administrative regions, and the polycentric spatial development is evident in urban China. However, this conclusion is dependent on the spatial scale under discussion, since the majority of Chinese cities still had monocentric urban forms in their urban areas. The spatial trend of Chinese cities is consistent with theoretical expectations and that of Western urban evolution. Nevertheless, our study also revealed some unique features of polycentric spatial development in Chinese cities. For example, the spatial structures in administrative regions are more polycentric than in urban areas; the emergence of polycentricity in Chinese cities is more linked to the decentralization of manufacturing industries. Suburbanization and more development in the outer region beyond the central urban area contribute to the polycentric development in the administrative region but restrain the polycentric development in the urban area. These findings highlight the predominant role of planning and government interventions in the polycentric urban development of China.