Impact of coupling coordination development of port and city environments on urban economic competitiveness:Evidence from the coastal port cities in eastern China

Promoting the coupling coordination development of port and its hinterland city environments is an important way to improve urban economic competitiveness.Based on relevant data of 13 coastal port cities in eastern China from 2000 to 2018,this study explores the coupling coordination development of port and city environments and its impact on urban economic competitiveness by constructing the coupling coordination degree model and the panel threshold model.The research results show that:(1)In terms of the coupling coordination development of port and city environments,most coastal ports and their hinterland cities are in a state of moderate or serious disorder.Overall,the degree of coupling coordination of port and city environments needs to be further improved;(2)The coupling coordination degree of port and city environments has a significant impact on urban economic competitiveness,and this effect gradually increases with the development of the ports and the urban economy.Among the variables that impact the urban economic competitiveness,fixed assets investment and foreign trade are significant factors that can enhance urban economic competitiveness.(3)At present,there is a“U-shaped”relationship between the coupling coordination degree of port-city environments and the urban economic competitiveness.This relationship lies on the right side of the inflection point of the“U-shaped”curve.Therefore,following the concept of assigning priority to ecological development,expanding fixed assets investment and actively developing foreign trade can further enhance the urban economic competitiveness.

Relationship between urban eco-environment and competitiveness with the background of globalization: Statistical explanation based on industry type newly classified with environment demand and environment pressure

Within the global urban system, the statistical relationship between urban eco-environment(UE) and urban competitiveness(UC)(RUEC) is researched. Data showed that there is a statistically inverted-U relationship between UE and UC. Eco-environmental factor is put into the classification of industries, and gets six industrial types by two indexes viz. industries' eco-environmental demand and pressure. The statistical results showed that there is a strong relationship, for new industrial classification, between the changes of industrial structure and evolvement of UE. The drive mechanism of the evolvement of urban eco-environment, with human demand and global work division was analyzed. The conclusion is that the development stratege, industrial policies of cities, and environmental policies fo cities must be fit with their ranks among the global urban system. At the era of globalization, so far as the environmental policies, their rationality could not be assessed with the level of strictness, but it can enhance cities' competitiveness when they are fit with cities' capabilities to attract and control some sections of the industry's value-chain. None but these kinds of environmental policies can probably enhance the UC.

Conceptual Model for Urban Competitiveness

Urban competitiveness is always the focus of researches on urban economy. The variety of definitions and evaluation systems of urban competitiveness are the results of lack of accurate and comprehensive understanding on urban competitiveness. This paper reviews five groups of definitions on urban competitiveness and establishes a conceptual model for urban competitiveness.

EXTERNAL SOURCES OF URBAN COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES IN CHINA

Urban competition refers to capacities of cities for attracting, capturing, controlling, dominating and transforming certain resources during urban development, and capacities for wealth creating, life-standard improving and sustainable development maintenance. This paper first analyzes the external sources of urban competitive advantages: the global network-based advantages and the location-based ones. Then with the aid of method of principal component analysis in SPSS 10.0 for Windows, the Chinese urban global and local competitive advantages are explored. The finding is that the global network-and location-based advantages are remarkable for the cities in the eastern China. While for those in the western and the middle regions, affected by much lower regional competitive advantages and lower degrees of urban-regional integration, the urban competitive advantages are deeply influenced and weakened.

INFLUENTIAL FACTORS COMBINATION AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES IN STAGES OF URBAN COMPETITIVENESS——Case Study of Suzhou in China

The urban competitive advantages rely on the combination and interaction of influential factors. As a dynamic progressive process, the city at different time has different competition influential factors combination. Because of this, the urban competitive advantages take on time-series characteristics. Stages of urban competition can be summed up into three ones, the basic factor-driven, the investment-driven and the innovation-driven. The finding of the study on the stages of urban competitive advantages in Suzhou is that in the current stage of Suzhou its competitive advantage is the investment-driven. The investment, especially FDI, plays remarkable functions for Suzhou competition with other cities.

Putting Places First in Competitive Urban Transformation European Urban Creativity Perspectives and the City of Sarajevo

The inter-urban competition seems to be of paramount importance for city-development today. The extensive reliance of competitiveness-oriented urban governance agendas on the knowledge-based, ＂new＂ economy, introduced the notion of ＂creativity＂ into discussion on the future of urban development. Though still on the margins of serious urban theory, the discourse on ＂creative cities＂ that emerged in the early 2000s, has already had massive influence on the ways in which cities are managed and transformed in Europe. After examination of how the competitiveness-oriented strategies based on creativity and related to the qualities of place increase cultural and social sustainability of urban transformation and development, this paper briefly rethinks the current urban development policy of the city of Sarajevo in relation to the notion of ＂place＂, by leaning on the contemporary European urban development paradigm. The conclusion points out that the sustainable increase of urban competitiveness in Sarajevo should be pursued by the development projects of urban transformation promoting creative knowledge sector, based on the inclusive cultural urban narratives related to places, thus assuring simultaneous growth of creative knowledge industries and preservation of diverse social geography.

Evolution of Industrial Competitiveness Based on Evaluation of Urban Competitiveness of Dongguan City:A Case Study of Songshan Lake High-tech Zone

Based on the theoretical system of urban competitiveness,the evaluation model of urban competitiveness from the perspective of competition and cooperation was established.According to the significance index and explanatory index,the urban competitiveness was divided into urban comprehensive competitiveness(UC),urban internal node competitiveness(NC)and external competitiveness of urban network(EC).The scores and rankings of UC,NC and EC in 2006,2010 and 2015 were obtained by conducting the comprehensive evaluation of the urban competitiveness of Dongguan City with integrated usage of the principal component analysis and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution and the data of other 20 cities in Guangdong province,Hong Kong and Macao.The research showed that the competitiveness of Dongguan City has been greatly improved during the decade of 2006–2015,and the regional cities in Guangdong Province had significant differences,which are reflected in the two dimensions of urban internal node competitiveness(NC)and external competitiveness of urban network(EC).Based on this,this study further analyzed Dongguan’s urban competitiveness from two dimensions of NC and EC,and took Dongguan Songshan Lake High-tech Zone as an example to study how to promote Dongguan’s urban competitiveness from the industrial level.

How to Improve Urban Competitiveness

Urban competitiveness has been the hot topic for researches and studies over years. The aim of this paper is to elaborate urban competitiveness. First, definition of competitiveness is discussed in detail and then the differences of competitiveness of nations and enterprises are presented. In Section 2, urban competitiveness is defined. Since the assessment of urban competitiveness is the focus of many studies, Section 3 elaborates four models or frameworks for assessing urbancompetitiveness. Last, but by no means the least, Chengdu has been discussed as a case on how to improve urban competitiveness. Three suggestions are put forward, which are clustering strategy, more efficient governance and urban marketing campaigns respectively.