Competitiveness and regional inequality of China’s mega-city regions
Received date: 2018-04-03
Request revised date: 2019-05-10
Online published: 2019-07-12
Copyright
Mega-city regions have emerged as the main spatial form of China's new urbaniza-tion strategy, and become the basic spatial units of participating in global and regional competition for China. However, mega-city regions are not equally capable of boosting regional economic development due to different levels of development. Therefore, this paper adopts the concept of competitiveness, as both theoretical framework and empirical model, to evaluate the development status of China’s mega-city regions. This paper firstly reviews the definition of China’s mega-city regions, the concept of competitiveness of mega-city regions and the methodology to evaluate the competitiveness of mega-city regions. Based on the review of related literatures, this paper proposes a multi-tier evaluation system to calculate the competitiveness of 13 mega city-regions of China. The chosen indicators come from the five perspectives of economic development, human resource, infrastructural accessibility, integration into global economy and capacity of scientific and technological innovation. The result shows that there are great disparities and regional inequality in competitiveness across different mega city-regions. Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan are the first-tier mega city-regions with the highest level of comprehensive competitiveness and have significant global influence as well. Chengdu-Chongqing, Shandong peninsula, South-central Liaoning and Wuhan belong to the second-tier mega city-regions that shows partial advantages and has significant regional influence. Southeast Fujian, Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan, Central Plains and Central Shaanxi Plain belong to the third-tier mega-city regions. Harbin-Daqing-Qiqihar and Changchun-Jilin belong to the fourth-tier mega-city regions. The third and fourth tiers of mega-city regions have relatively weak competitiveness. Aside from disparities in competitiveness, regional inequalities exist for the uneven distribution of high-weight indicators that consist of the core competitiveness. In general, core competitiveness consists of the advanced productive factors such as the ability of scientific and technological innovation, integration into global economy and capacity of capital agglomeration. The differences of the core competitiveness between coastal and inland mega-city regions are the main manifestation of regional inequalities. Due to the highly unbalanced distribution of the advanced productive factors among the eastern, central and western regions, the regional inequalities of China will probably exist for a long time.
Key words: competitiveness; mega city-region; evaluation indicators; regional inequity; China
ZHANG Fan , NING Yuemin , LOU Xiyang . Competitiveness and regional inequality of China’s mega-city regions[J]. GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, 2019 , 38(7) : 1664 -1677 . DOI: 10.11821/dlyj020180328
Fig. 1 The index system of the competitiveness of China’s mega city-regions图1 城市群竞争力评价指标体系 |
Tab. 1 The rank of competitiveness of China’s 13 mega-city regions表1 13个城市群竞争力排名 |
| 排序 | 城市群 | 综合竞争力 | 经济竞争力 | 人力资源竞争力 | 基础设施竞争力 | 国际化竞争力 | 科技竞争力 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 长三角 | 1.9747 | 1.5858 | 1.8205 | 2.1878 | 2.3683 | 2.1714 |
| 2 | 京津唐 | 1.2823 | 1.3588 | 1.2806 | 0.8183 | 0.9356 | 1.8949 |
| 3 | 珠三角 | 0.8560 | 0.7469 | 1.0026 | 1.2106 | 1.3250 | 0.1280 |
| 4 | 成渝 | -0.0484 | -0.1893 | 0.3081 | -0.0653 | -0.0290 | -0.1795 |
| 5 | 山东半岛 | -0.1374 | -0.1098 | -0.1348 | -0.0984 | -0.1990 | -0.1500 |
| 6 | 辽中南 | -0.2741 | -0.1838 | -0.2611 | -0.5122 | -0.1055 | -0.3822 |
| 7 | 武汉 | -0.3006 | -0.0645 | -0.3463 | -0.3388 | -0.6227 | -0.2432 |
| 8 | 闽东南 | -0.4005 | -0.4028 | -0.4223 | -0.3643 | -0.1927 | -0.6099 |
| 9 | 关中 | -0.4691 | -0.3976 | -0.5336 | -0.5271 | -0.6792 | -0.2583 |
| 10 | 长株潭 | -0.4759 | -0.3011 | -0.5719 | -0.3600 | -0.6790 | -0.5300 |
| 11 | 中原 | -0.5217 | -0.6213 | -0.4381 | -0.1952 | -0.5933 | -0.6552 |
| 12 | 长吉 | -0.6757 | -0.5162 | -0.8934 | -0.7991 | -0.6803 | -0.5960 |
| 13 | 哈大齐 | -0.8097 | -0.9052 | -0.8104 | -0.9563 | -0.7745 | -0.5901 |
Fig. 2 Scores of comprehensive competitiveness and first-tier indicators of China’s 13 mega-city regions图2 中国13个城市群的综合竞争力与分项竞争力得分 |
Tab. 2 The Herfindahl index and regional distribution of advanced elements of production表2 核心指标的赫芬达尔指数和空间分布 |
| 核心指标 | 赫芬达尔指数 | 三大城市群所占比例(%) | 占比超过5%的城市群 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 进出口总额 | 0.239 | 80.24 | 长三角、珠三角、京津唐、山东半岛 |
| 中国500强企业总部数量 | 0.230 | 75.48 | 京津唐、长三角、珠三角、山东半岛、成渝 |
| 发明专利数量 | 0.197 | 67.20 | 长三角、京津唐、珠三角、山东半岛、成渝 |
| 国家重点实验室数量 | 0.194 | 62.35 | 京津唐、长三角、武汉、成渝、关中、长吉 |
| 985/211大学数量 | 0.171 | 57.14 | 京津唐、长三角、关中、武汉、成渝 |
| 日均高铁班次数量 | 0.171 | 64.48 | 长三角、珠三角、京津唐、山东半岛、中原、长株潭 |
| 金融机构存款 | 0.165 | 64.11 | 长三角、京津唐、珠三角、成渝、山东半岛 |
| 外商直接投资 | 0.159 | 56.38 | 长三角、京津唐、珠三角、辽中南、成渝、山东半岛 |
| 科技研究人员从业数量 | 0.156 | 59.56 | 京津唐、长三角、珠三角、成渝、关中 |
| R&D投入 | 0.156 | 60.07 | 长三角、京津唐、珠三角、山东半岛、成渝 |
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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