Research On Mutual Development Of Cities And Development Zones

Since China initiated its reform and opening up, development zones have played a crucial role in promoting its industrialization and urbanization. The past 30 years has witnessed these areas serve as central platforms for driving regional economic development, facilitating population and industrial cluster, giving full play to the spillover effects of innovation and further deepening reform and opening up. Emerging as a new form of industrial organization over a certain area, development zones have always been interacting closely with cities in their evolvements and growth. On the one hand, the strong support offered by cities has been of great help in the course of development zones’ evolvement. Alternatively, cities also have benefited a lot from development zones in its further expansion, industrial and spatial structure upgrading to become more fully-fledged.As the world enters the post-crisis period, a new round of economic and trade structure adjustments and financial reforms have come into the spotlight as vital driving forces for global economic recovery. At the same time, scientific and technological innovations and industrial structural upgrading have become ever more important in obtaining greater grounds amidst the fierce international competition. As a result of multiple factors including international political and economic climates, the national economic adjustments, China’s economic development has entered the New Norm, which requires a more appropriate growing speed, a better industry mix and a shift to new driving engines. The current external and internal circumstances have both made it imperative that more efforts be invested in stepping up modern industrialization and urbanization to secure sound economic growth and structural transformation. China’s industrialization and urbanization efforts largely depend on development zones both spatially and in terms of various industries. Therefore, fully functioning development zones have a great stake in helping China become more competitive in international cooperation and competitions. Besides, they also have a lot to offer in China’s reform and economic structure upgrading as well as optimizing growth pattern endeavors. Development zones are becoming more interconnected with cities. With the spatial boundaries between the two getting less and less important, these few years have seen increasing functional integrations. However, despite this, an array of emerging problems are still confronting the interactions between cities and development zones. For instance, against the complex and ever changing external and national political and economic environments, how to achieve sound integrations and healthy developments between the two is now high on the government’s agenda. Currently, theoretical and empirical studies around the world on interactions between cities and development zones are all yet to be further promoted. And it is absolutely necessary to acquire general analysis about the potential patterns that these integrations are following so as to enrich the related theory system which can offer some crucial guidance for the actual work.Based on the fundamental principles from population ecology theory and system dynamics, this paper intends to build up a theoretical framework for interactions between cities and development zones by studying the formation and further evolvement as well as the functioning mechanism of those interactions. Different patterns and development routes have also been generalized through the study of typical cases, which helps offer some constructive advice for promoting fruitful city-development zone integrations.This paper consists of seven chapters:The first chapter is Introduction, mainly dealing with why this topic has been chosen, the significance of this research and related studies around the world. After analyzing the industrial upgrading and urban expansion against the global economic integration, modern industrialization and urbanization process under the New Norm, transformation of development zones following the new layout of regional developments and other macroeconomic trends, this paper intends to figure out the right guidance for modern urbanization and industrialization efforts through the study of interactions between cities and development zones. In addition, chapter 1 also includes summarizations of the outcomes of the past related studies around the world and spells out the contents of this research and the methods used. Besides, the original and creative thoughts as well as the shortcomings of this paper are also talked about in this chapter.Chapter 2 mainly talks about related concepts and the basic theories. This chapter is divided into 2 parts. This first one defines what development zones are, including their types and functions. It also analyzes various development zones’ past evolving courses and current states. The second part summarizes the basic theories about how the development zones come into existence and how they interact with cities. Location theory, growth pole theory and industrial cluster theory are used to explain the setting up of development zones and when talking about the initiation and further developments of the interactions between development zones and cities, the life cycle of cities theory, Co-opetition theory and system theory are drawn upon.Chapter 3 analyzes how the interactions between cities and development zones evolve and the various factors behind it. Starting from the historic backdrop against which the setting up of development zones began, this paper tries to present a continuous developing course of these areas, which leads to the conclusion that it is under the influence of multiple factors including global economic integration, the new technology revolution and China’s reform and opening up policies as well as each zone’s particular locations, factor endowments and other policy implications that this type of organization form with clear Chinese features came into being. Then this paper divides the whole interacting process into three phases. The first one is the formation stage featuring separation and competition,the second mutual-growing stage featuring co-competition and the third mature stage which is characterized by integration. Depending on this division and drawing on the ecological and Co-opetition models, explanations are given as for how the interactions between cities and development zones progress.Chapter 4 relates to the driving force of the city-development zone interactions and their inner mechanism. These interactions share the features of complex giant systems. In this chapter, system dynamics methods are introduced to analyze the dynamic factors in the development zone-city system, concluding that government, enterprises, market, and innovation constitute the essential driving forces behind the mutual development of the two. Then the analysis of the driving factors in the system makes it possible to build up the cause-effect feedback loop and system flow chart, paving the way for further system simulation. At last, a typical case, the Guangzhou development zone-city system, is chosen and its development route as well as future trends is analyzed through simulation.Chapter 5 presents an empirical case study on the mutual development of cities and development zones. Locations, different types and certain levels of economic scale can all influence the interactions between cities and development zones, which therefore possesses both universality and diversity. This chapter studies three types of development zones: national-level economic development zone, national-level high and new tech development zone and frontier tech development zone. They are Guangzhou economic and technical development zone, Nanjing High-Tech Zone and Huichun international cooperation demonstration zone. The study of these zones is used to analyze different types of interactions between development zones and cities as well as certain areas,including various mutual-development patterns promoted by urbanization and industrialization, innovation and entrepreneurship, coordinated initiatives among border hinterlands.Chapter 6 provides strategic analysis for promoting sound city-development zone interactions. The first focus of this chapter is on the possible routes to a fruitful integration between the two, concluding that different locations, factor endowments, spatial features and economic scales can lead to three types of mutual-development routes: industry-city integration to build new urban districts, development zone clusters integration in complementation with cities, coordinated plans among city clusters over regions. Advice is given for virtuous interactions between cities and development zones: improve regional competitiveness through building emerging and featured industrial clusters, establish regional innovation system through innovation-oriented strategies, build up modern service industry system through vigorously developing the third industry, make cities more functioning through upgrading infrastructure and supporting service, step up development zone-city integration through deepening institutional mechanism reforms, create agreeable working and living environments through paying more attention to environmental protection.Chapter 7 concludes the whole paper and provides guidance for further studies.