关键词: 大城市, 小城市, 空间相互作用, 增长溢出, 集聚阴影, 长三角

Abstract:

Promoting coordinated development among large, medium-sized, and small cities as well as small towns, is highly emphasized in Chinese National New Urbanization Plan. Therefore, it is of great significance to clarify the spatial interactions between cities from different hierarchies, and to confirm whether large cities are really conducive to the economic growth of small cities. However, previous empirical literatures mainly focused on the spatial spillover effect between cities from the same hierarchy, and neglected the heterogeneity of urban hierarchy. Furthermore, the sample of previous studies generally included all the provinces or prefecture cities in China, which led to the lack of exploration on the internal spatial interactions within urban agglomerations such as the Yangtze River Delta. Taking 108 small cities in the Yangtze River Delta as study samples, this paper examines the spatial spillover effects between cities from both same and different hierarchies, by adding geographical distance to different-hierarchy cities, whether within administrative boundary or not and market potentials into classic economic growth model. It is found that approaching large cities may contribute to the economic growth of small cities, and the agglomeration shadow hypothesized by the New Economic Geography is not supported in the Yangtze River Delta. This also means the economic growth of small cities is still under the influence of metropolitan areas, which demonstrates the necessity and benefits of metropolitan development strategy. Secondly, spatial interactions are more likely to happen between high- and low-hierarchy cities, whereas those between same hierarchy cities are relatively weak. The positive growth spillover effect from sub-provincial city on small cities is found to be most significant. Thirdly, the market segmentation caused by administrative boundaries weakens the spatial spillover effect. The small cities under the administrative jurisdiction of the nearest prefecture city receive lower economic growth rate than those beyond the administrative boundary of their nearest prefecture city. Finally, policy implications are put forward on how to make use of spatial spillover effect and promote the coordinated development among large, medium-sized, and small cities as well as small towns. The first and foremost is to strengthen the radiation and impetus function of large cities. Considering the urban hierarchy heterogeneity of spatial interaction and breaking market segmentation caused by administrative boundaries are of great urgency as well.

Key words: large cities, small cities, spatial interaction, growth spillover, agglomeration shadow, Yangtze River Delta