On The Intercity Population Attractiveness In The Pearl River Delta Based On The Theory Of Sustainable Space Of Flows

Today,both population and environmental concerns are often subsumed within the dialogue on “sustainable development”.Population keeps flowing from one place to another.To analyze the way in which people flow is one of the most crucial issues to find out solutions for lessening regional urban ecological environmental pressure.Although there are studies that focus on specific elements of population issues,there is very little empirical work that evaluates the interactions between the dynamics of population flow propensity and population flow intensity from the aspect of space of flows.The theory of space of flows was integrated with the idea of sustainable development,and this study put forward the concept of the sustainable space of flows,which was employed to analyze the intercity population attractiveness in the Pearl River Delta region.To analyze the population flow propensity and its intensity could help grasp the dynamic change trends of potential population flow.In addition,to analyze the intercity difference of population attractiveness could be conducive to a better understanding of the regional population spatial distribution to offer scientific basis to coordinate the complex relations in the composite ecosystem consists of population,society,economy,resource and environment.From the perspective of space of flows,population flow could not occur without the interaction between different space of flows.The passenger flow was an important carrier of population;the flows of goods and funds were necessary material insurance for population flow;the information flow could provide necessary information for population flow.This paper employed the relative linkage coefficient model,the world city network model and the urban flow intensity model to respectively analyze the node spatial distribution and network linkage structure of the passenger flow,information flow,goods flow,funds flow and urban external service flow.In addition,with the rapid development of the information and communication technologies,information flow has been playing a more crucial role in influencing the intercity population flow propensity.Therefore,this study emphasized the importance of information flow and its impacts on population flow,building up the population flow propensity model with the Baidu Index data that based on a significant amount of web users' behavior data.Compared with the traditional data collection approaches such as questionnaire survey and interview,the way of obtaining Internet behavior data with help of computers and the Internet could break through limitations of sample size and structure to some extent to improve the data reliability.This study selected “recruitment in city j”,“map of city j” and “real estate in city j” as three keywords to inquire the search index data which could reflect common demands people had before they made decisions to move to a new place.Mental propensities of people who would move could be uncovered well by these search index online.Thus,the intercity population flow propensity model based on Internet attention degree data was built up to evaluate the dynamic trends of population flow propensity among cities in the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration.The total relative intensity of population inflow propensity had been introduced to the radiation model and the modified population flow radiation model was used to analyze the dynamic features of intercity population flow intensity,and the intercity population attractiveness index(PAI)was established to evaluate the ranking of the capability of attracting population to move in.Results of the intercity population flow propensity model and the social network analysis method showed that the degree centrality ranking kept stable that Guangzhou,Shenzhen,Foshan and Dongguan ranked from the first to the fourth place in the region,which was in line with the realistic population flow features in 2011 and 2015.Therefore,the analysis method used in this paper could reflect well the potential population flow trends.As for the spatial distribution of the intercity population flow propensity,people in the west bank cities of the Pearl River estuary had been attracted to move to Shenzhen in the east bank as the population flow propensity paths were strengthened gradually.The relative population flow propensity intensity results of Guangzhou-Foshan and Shenzhen-Dongguan were at a high level.Furthermore,Guangzhou and Shenzhen were in the first grade followed by Dongguan and Foshan in the second grade with respect to the total relative population flow propensity intensity.As the distributional difference of the total relative population flow propensity intensity showed,cities along the bank of the Pearl River estuary attracted more population flow propensity,and the spatial distribution showed a “n” form along the estuary.Moreover,the intercity population attractiveness index showed that Guangzhou and Shenzhen ranked the first two places and Dongguan and Foshan took the third and the fourth places followed by Huizhou,Zhongshan and Jiangmen,and Zhaoqing and Zhuhai ranked the last two places in the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration.The dual-core status of Guangzhou and Shenzhen had firmly established.However,there was no new core city in the west bank of the Pearl River estuary as the relative dispersion of the population attractiveness.In addition,the intercity population attractiveness index could help to analyze and predict the trend of urban land expansion from the perspective of population concentration potential and population flow features.Finally,policy suggestions for regulating and controlling the intercity population flow were put forward from the perspectives of urban geographical position and industrial distribution,urban functional difference and mitigating the environmental implications of population flow to provide scientific basis for the formation of a sustainable space of population flow in the Pearl River Delta region.