An Empirical Study on Chinese City Network Pattern Based on Producer Services

Globalization and informatization have accelerated city networking process over the world, which makes research on city network a hot topic in the fields of urban geography and economic geography. With Chinese economic structure adjustment and city economic growth, producer services have begun to play an increasingly important role in city-region networking. This paper employs the methodology of world city network to analyze and explain the spatial development characteristics of China's urban network system based on the data of nationwide producer services enterprise network. The research result indicated that the distribution of producer services network has a positive effect on the development of Chinese city networks. City network connectivity is closely related to the significance of city in producer services development, and the former will gradually decline with the drop of the latter. Accordingly, the 64 cities can be divided into the national central cities, regional central cities, sub-regional central cities and local central cities in accordance with their position and role in the nationwide producer services network. It is concluded that high-grade cities with quality producer services dominate the pattern of Chinese city networks and there emerges three spatial agglomerations of producer services enterprises in Changjiang (Yangtze) River Delta, Zhujiang (Pearl) River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan Economical Region. Moreover, the distribution of different producer services industry varies from city to city, which also affects the characteristics of network development.

Hierarchy, clusters, and spatial differences in Chinese inter-city networks constructed by scientific collaborators

The Chinese urban system is currently experiencing a fundamental shift, as it moves from a size-based hierarchy to a network-based system. Contemporary studies of city networks have tended to focus on economic interactions without paying sufficient attention to the issue of knowledge flow. Using data on co-authored papers obtained from China Academic Journal Network Publishing Database （CAJNPD） during 2014-2016, this study explores several features of the scientific collaboration network between Chinese mainland cities. The study concludes that： （1） the spatial organization of scientific cooperation amongst Chinese cities is shifting from a jurisdiction-based hierarchical system to a networked system; and （2） several highly intra-connected city regions were found to exist in the network of knowledge, and such regions had more average internal linkages （14.21） than external linkages （8.69）, and higher average internal linkage degrees （14.43） than external linkage degrees （10.43）; and （3） differences existed in terms of inter-region connectivity between the Western, Eastern, and Central China regional networks （the average INCD of the three regional networks were 109.65, 95.81, and 71.88）. We suggest that China should engage in the development of regional and subregional scientific centers to achieve the goal of building an innovative country. Whilst findings reveal a high degree of concentration in those networks - a characteristic which reflects the hierarchical nature of China＇s urban economic structure - the actual spatial distribution of city networks of knowledge flow was found to be different from that of city networks based on economic outputs or population.