Abstract
In the process of economic urbanization, because of competition among cities, agglomerations and polarization of regional economies are produced. This paper studies the urban polarization with Chinese characteristics and the regional economic urbanization, which include the imbalance under the influence of different geographical factors between the east and west of China and the imbalance under the comprehensive influence of natural and human factors in the province. The urban economic polarization index (UEPI) is constructed to describe the regional imbalance caused by the economic polarization of capital cities in China. The purpose is to explore the polarization of provincial capitals in their respective provinces and to reveal the strength and evolution of their role in the imbalance of economic urbanization. Then, combined with relevant analysis of natural and socio-economic background data, the induced factors and the mechanism of urban polarization are diagnosed. The results show the following: (1) The UEPI can accurately measure the polarization level of provincial capitals through the calculation of typical cities. (2) Based on the UEPI, capital cities can be divided into four categories, which include inapparent, obvious, prominent, and striking. Different cities have different effects on the imbalance in economic urbanization. (3) The main inducing factors of urban polarization are the resource environment, policy system, industrial structure, investment, scientific and technological innovation, location, and extroversion. The policy system is often an important link that integrates and adjusts various factors to form a comprehensive driving mechanism.
Highlights
After World War II, world urbanization entered a period of unprecedented diffusion and comprehensive development [1,2]
(2) Based on the urban economic polarization index (UEPI), capital cities can be divided into four categories, which include inapparent, obvious, prominent, and striking
This paper summarized the contributions of this paper into three aspects: research perspective, method, and results: (1) From the perspective of research, this paper studies a special imbalance in the process of China’s economic urbanization, which is the agglomeration effect of provincial capitals and the economic imbalance within provinces
Summary
After World War II, world urbanization entered a period of unprecedented diffusion and comprehensive development [1,2]. From the 1970s until now, the wide range of urbanization processes of developing countries is noticeable [3]. It is expected that the urbanization level of developing countries will reach 50% by 2020 [4]. Despite the rapid expansion of urban land, the urban population grew faster, resulting in increasing densities for the majority of urban agglomerations, including those in both more-developed (Japan, South Korea) and industrializing nations (China, Vietnam, Indonesia) [6]. Rapid urbanization in developing countries presents challenges for sustainable environmental planning and peri-urban cropland management [7]. With the rapid expansion of the global urban population, unprecedented new changes have taken place in urban structures and spatial layouts. With the continuous expansion of cities, new forms of spatial organization, such as megacities or metropolitan areas, have emerged
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