In recent years, as China's economy and urban development have slowed down, shrinking cities, mainly characterized by decreasing population, have begun to emerge. With the reform of the household registration system, restrictions on population movemen...
In recent years, as China's economy and urban development have slowed down, shrinking cities, mainly characterized by decreasing population, have begun to emerge. With the reform of the household registration system, restrictions on population movement have been gradually eased, and inter-regional population movement has increased, leading to intensified urban population movement. This phenomenon is accompanied by issues such as industrial declire and uncontrolled land expansion. This poses new challenges for urban development planning. Therefore, it is of great importance to thoroughly analyze the spatial distribution pattern and causal mechanisms of urban shrinkage. This not only helps to understand the current situation of urban development and re-examine the necessity of urban planning, but also helps to provide theoretical guidance and strong support for the future sustainable development of Chinese cities.
This paper takes 336 administrative units at the prefecture level and above in China as the research object. It analyzes the process of urban shrinkage in China from 2000 to 2020, and explores the definition of urban shrinkage, as well as the spatial distribution and influence mechanisms of urban shrinkage in China. The main findings of this study are as follows.
1. The shrinkage rate model was used to calculate the shrinkage rate of each city. The results show that the number of shrinking cities is increasing in terms of the shrinking status of each city, and the degree of shrinking rate of shrinking cities has deepened. At the regional level, the shrinking cities are mainly concentrated in the three northeastern provinces and the western region. In terms of city size, large cities tend to shrink.
2. From the Global Moran's I , the Moran's I indexes are all significant at the 1% level of significance, indicating that urban shrinkage is spatially autocorrelated and shows a certain degree of spatial aggregation effect. From the perspective of Local Moran's I, the phenomenon of urban shrinkage mainly shows low-low and high-high agglomeration.
3. In studying the factors affecting shrinking cities, a theoretical model of the factors affecting shrinking cities was constructed based on economic factors, industrial factors, demographic structure, government regulation, and market development. Using the spatial Durbin model, the factors affecting the population of shrinking cities are empirically analyzed from the perspective of spatial correlation. The results show that economic development, demographic structure and government regulation have a greater impact on shrinking cities. Then, the geodetector model is used to empirically analyze the intensity of factors affecting the population of shrinking cities from the perspective of spatial heterogeneity. It is found that shrinking cities are mainly influenced by economic development, government regulation and other factors, and the results of interaction probes show that shrinking cities have formed a system of two main factors and several auxiliary factors.
4. Population projections for 2025 and 2030 were made using the gray model. The results show that the number of shrinking cities will decrease by 2020 and 2025, but the number of shrinking cities with shrinkage rates below stage I will increase. In the future, China's urban shrinking rate may remain low for a long time, but the number of shrinking cities will increase slowly.
The reasonable solution and alleviation of the problem of urban shrinkage can be considered from the following aspects: (1) Changing the traditional concept of development. (2) Promoting the reemployment of elderly and retired people. (3) Reasonable transformation of industrial structure. (4) Strengthening intercity exchanges and cooperation. (5) Dealing with urban shrinkage objectively.