TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparing China's city transportation and economic networks
AU - Lao, Xin
AU - Zhang, Xiaoling
AU - Shen, Tiyan
AU - Skitmore, Martin
N1 - Funding Information:
This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (Project No: 71303203), Research Writing Grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong (Project No: 9618005) and funded by the Early Career Scheme of Hong Kong Research grant council (Project No: 9048039). The work described in this paper was substantially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Fund (Project No: 71303203), the grant from the Environment and Conservation Fund (Project No. 92110732) funded by HKSAR Depts; the Matching fund for NSFC (Project No: 9680114 and 7004309); Start up grant from City University of Hong Kong (Project No. 7200376) and another Research Writing Grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong (Project No: 9610315).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier B.V.
Copyright:
Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/4/1
Y1 - 2016/4/1
N2 - The urban system has been a prevailing research issue in the fields of urban geography and regional economics. Not only do the relationships between cities in the city system exist in the form of rankings, but also in a more general network form. Previous work has examined the spatial structure of the urban system in terms of its separate industrial networks, such as in transportation and economic activity, but little has been done to compare different networks. To rectify this situation, this study analyzes and reveals the spatial structural features of China's urban system by comparing its transportation and economic urban networks, thus providing new avenues for research on China's city network. The results indicate that these two networks relate with each other by sharing structural equivalence with a basic diamond structure and a layered intercity structure decreasing outwards from the national centers. A decoupling effect also exists between them as the transportation network contributes to a balanced regional development, while the economic network promotes agglomeration economies. The law of economic development and the government both play important roles in the articulation between these two networks, and the gap between them can be shortened by related policy reforms and the improvement of the transportation network.
AB - The urban system has been a prevailing research issue in the fields of urban geography and regional economics. Not only do the relationships between cities in the city system exist in the form of rankings, but also in a more general network form. Previous work has examined the spatial structure of the urban system in terms of its separate industrial networks, such as in transportation and economic activity, but little has been done to compare different networks. To rectify this situation, this study analyzes and reveals the spatial structural features of China's urban system by comparing its transportation and economic urban networks, thus providing new avenues for research on China's city network. The results indicate that these two networks relate with each other by sharing structural equivalence with a basic diamond structure and a layered intercity structure decreasing outwards from the national centers. A decoupling effect also exists between them as the transportation network contributes to a balanced regional development, while the economic network promotes agglomeration economies. The law of economic development and the government both play important roles in the articulation between these two networks, and the gap between them can be shortened by related policy reforms and the improvement of the transportation network.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84954530572&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.cities.2016.01.006
DO - 10.1016/j.cities.2016.01.006
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84954530572
SN - 0264-2751
VL - 53
SP - 43
EP - 50
JO - Cities
JF - Cities
ER -