Quantitative Study of the Network Tendency of the Urban System in China

Abstract

China’s rapid urbanization has been attracting widespread interests of the economists, sociologists, and geographers all over the world in recent years. This study was conducted to analyze the network tendency of the urban system in China based on quantitative methods. In the theoretical analysis part, this paper reveals the transformation from a size-based to a network-based urban system in the urban system research and planning concept in China. Then, this paper established the network economy model and the linear model for quantitative analysis about network tendency of the urban system. The results were established based on the employment data for 18 major industry categories data and flow data of 35 cities from statistics on Chinese cities over the period 1999–2010. This paper reveals that urban networks have begun to affect the urban system increasingly more significantly, even more so than the size-based hierarchy. Further analysis shows that there will be a transition from size-based control to network-based control in the Chinese urban system in the coming decade (in 2018). The results of this study demonstrate that the methods applied here can facilitate an effective analysis of the change in urban hierarchy that has occurred in China. This research also provides lessons for urbanization studies in other developing countries.