中国城市经济韧性和人口收缩——基于相关多样性和城际联系的解释

Economic Resilience and Population Shrinkage of Chinese Cities:An Explanation from the Perspectives of Related Variety and Inter-City Linkages

城市经济韧性和人口收缩是城市应对结构性危机中两种相关联的特征。文章以2010—2020年中国地级及以上城市为对象,分析当前中国城市的经济韧性和人口收缩特征,并从城市自身技术相关多样性和外部城际联系两方面进行解释。研究发现,城市经济韧性和人口增长正相关,但也存在经济韧性和人口增长相背离的城市,中国城市据此可以分为人口扩张—韧性强、人口扩张—韧性弱、人口收缩—韧性强、人口收缩—韧性弱四种类型。实证结果表明:相关多样性和城际联系都影响城市经济韧性和人口变动,对于人口收缩型城市来说,经济韧性提升的关键是城市自身的技术相关多样性和城市网络联系,而“中心—腹地”联系的极化效应会导致腹地和边缘城市的人口收缩,但城市自身的技术相关多样性和城市网络联系则可能帮助抑制人口收缩。

Urban economic resilience and population shrinkage are two interconnected characteristics of cities in response to structural crises.This paper analyzes the economic resilience and population shrinkage of Chinese cities at the prefecture level and above from 2010 to 2020,and explains them in terms of the city’s internal technological related variety and external inter-city linkages.Overall,there is a strong positive correlation between economic resilience and population growth in Chinese cities,but there are also cities where economic resilience and population growth diverge.Based on these observations,Chinese cities are classified into four types,including growing population with high resilience,growing population with low resilience,shrinking population with high resilience,and shrinking population with low resilience.The empirical results confirm that related variety and inter-city linkages are conducive to promoting the economic resilience and population change of cities,and the economic resilience of cities with shrinking population highly depends on the related variety and urban network connections of cities.The polarizing effect of“center-hinterland”linkages leads to population shrinkage in both hinterland and peripheral cities,while the related variety and urban network externalities can help avoid population decline in shrinking cities.