China has becoming a rapid urbanizing country since the reform and opening-up. In this process, the development of economy and the change of social structure are accompanied with the change of civic activities and the structure transformation of space. As the central area of the city, the central urban area is the essence of the whole city’s economic and social development, as well as the expression of its function. Along with the development of urban economy, the expansion of scale and the increase of function, the central urban area is facing the cycle of decline and rebounding, especially under the interaction of economic globalization and informatization, the transformation and upgrading of central urban area has become a indispensable approach to revive.The transformation and upgrading of central urban area is now a hot topic in urban economics and city planning science. According to the history over the world, there used to be some representative examples of the transformation and upgrading of central urban area. Particularly, when the developed countries changed from industrialization to post-industrialization, there were numbers of large industrial city that used to be glorious slumped, especially the central urban area. Some of the city transformed promptly and became revived, while the others failed and decline thoroughly. So what’s the reason of the difference between those areas? This can be analyzed from different academic perspectives. Nevertheless, one of the important aspects is to analyze the transformation and upgrading of central urban area form the economic perspective. Although the transformation and upgrading is also related to the migration, the morphological change of city, the remodeling of social structure and cultural evolution, the basic sectors are the economic function and industrial adjustment. Therefore, analyzing the transformation and upgrading of central urban area through the economics view is the same as analyzing the problem about economic function and industrial adjustment in the central urban area, actually. If we could understand this problem, we would find the essential reason of the success or failure of the transformation and upgrading of central urban area, which can help for the instructor of the practice to it.Shanghai is one of city in our country that has the fastest speed of urbanization. In the progress of the construction of four centers and a modern international metropolis, the city’s function constantly upgrades, the outskirts’ construction are also planned. As the space structure changes, the land resource constrain and the business cost rises quickly, the central urban area is facing a lot of pressure and challenge. So, it is urgent to transform and upgrade the function of central urban area as well as industry. This article is based on the analysis of existing theories of city system and urban economic and the case study. After further abstraction to the theoretical consideration, the article expands the economic studies of the transformation and upgrading of the central urban area, which would have significant values to guide the transformation and upgrading of the central urban area in Shanghai.Firstly, analyze the connotation and mechanism of the central urban area upgrading. The development of China’s urbanization is distinctive. The urbanization has an obvious period, and the central urban area was critical in every stage of the urbanization. In fact, the urbanization process is the development process of central urban area transition. This article comprehensively elaborates the connotation of the upgrading of the central urban area trough many ways, such as the object, the definition, the stage characteristic, the measurement of upgrade and the influence reasons. Then, the article discusses the general mechanism of the transformation and upgrading of the central urban area: internal logic and dynamic mechanism of the urban industrial spatial division refinement is the premise to exert the upgrading of central urban area. Since the urban space is influenced by various forces and brings different affect, the productive service industry would be the important driving to promote the level of city and the upgrading of industry.Secondly, by analyzing the successful experience and the failure of the transformation and upgrading of the typical central urban area in overseas countries and regions, the rule of it is revealed. In this paper, learning from the experience such as the rebuilding of Berlin, Germany, the waterfront reform in Oslo A Cab Gio, Norway, the redevelopment of Roppongi Hills in Japan, and the building practice of central CBD in Hong Kong, it is founded that the transformation and upgrading of overseas central urban are based on the following aspects: advanced concept and target localization, the integration of industry and city, the organic combination of multiple elements, the functional upgrading guide based on flowing space, the feasibility studies, the overall planning and the developmental mechanism about multiple themes.Thirdly, analyze the approach to the transformation and upgrading of central urban area with the perspective of economics. It is true that the transformation and upgrading of central urban area is involved to economy function and industry adjustment, but since it happens in a special place, the core area of city, it has a specific modification and mechanism. This article analyzes the general relation between the function of city and industry, and also studies the process of evolution, the result shows that to approach the transformation and upgrading with economic aspect, it is supposed to obey the following principles: develop the function of city and industry in a balance way, find the innovative things over the path dependence, and organically combine the old elements and the new one. On the other hand, the article uses mathematical model to analyze the change of industry pattern brought by the urban transformation, which means the urban transformation promotes the manufacturing industry to move from central area to outskirts, it also makes the modern service industry gather to the central urban area, and the gathering process can conversely promote the urban transformation.Fourthly, analyze the spillover effect and externality of the transformation and upgrading of the central urban area. The central urban area has always been the critical part of city’s development. Different cities would use different approaches to it, which brings different effect. This article discusses the characteristics of the central urban area function diffusion by studying the adjustment diffusion, the radiation diffusion and the correlation diffusion, and then compartmentalizes them into three types, the functional industry transfer, the “background†industry transfer and the “branching†transfer. It also points that the central urban area play a role as the bridge of cities to cities, from areas to areas, and its function of network node reflects in connectivity, mobility, control and intermediary.Fifthly, after the previous work, the article then demonstrates the dynamic influence of the urban transformation to modern service industry through dynamic economic methods. The conclusion shows that large city is better for modern service industry to develop, while the transformation of small and medium sized city is accompanied by the expansion of modern service industry. And the short term effects of the expansion should be larger than the long term effects. After that, Shanghai was chosen as the research object to analyze the pattern of urban transformation and modern service industry development both theoretical and empirical, which indicate that Shanghai’s transformation as an international metropolis will be conductive to the development of modern service industry. This article also uses the relevant data of Shanghai from 2004 to 2010 to study about the impact on modern service industry sector.Finally, using the game theory, this article reveals the participation’s behavior, the game process as well as the development model and cooperation mechanism behind that, which has guiding significance to the practice of the transformation and upgrading of the central urban area.In summary, this paper analyzes the economic function of the central urban area and industrial adjustment from economic view, which has the advantage of perspective innovation. Meanwhile, this paper further upgrade the downtown empirical analysis to the theory level, induct and sort the commonness, and build a theoretical model of the transformation and upgrading of the central urban area, which is quite innovative in theory. However, the paper still has some space to research, transformation and upgrading of the urban center area are related to all aspects of economic, social, cultural, etc., which is a systematic project and still has many problems need careful analysis and research. From the spatial distribution perspective, the issue is a process to reshape the functions of the urban center area, which needs the certainty in terms of the overall macroeconomic and development strategies. Moreover, how to analysis the upgrade of the urban center area from the perspective of the world city and the global industrial chain, which is as well as the key research direction. |