From Spatial Division Of Labour To Spatial Organization Of Metropolitan Regions

The forming and subsequent development of metropolitan regions represents an important trend of the world urbanization in the 21^st century. This dissertation theorizes the spatial process of division of labor. The author analyzes the economic activities in metropolitan regions to demonstrate and explain the theme of spatial organization, which focuses on the discussion of the process and mechanism rather than the description of phenomenon. The dissertation will hopefully promote the study and research on the basic theory of metropolitan regions and, thus, shed light on planning and management of the metropolitan regions.The dissertation consists of two parts and total 7 chapters. The first part is composed of three chapters, aimed at digging out the meaning of space through the discussion of division of labor in economics as well as reestablishing a theoretical base of SDL. The second part includes four chapters, which utilize SDL to study spatial organization of metropolitan regions and for the purpose of verification, include an experiential study of the Shanghai Metropolitan Area.Chapter One: Introduction. Firstly, the objective and basis for the selection of the theme will be demonstrated. The author emphasizes that SDL, as a tool for middle-scale theoretical analysis, can well connect urban economics and plutonomy, and better analyze spatial organization of metropolitan regions. Secondly, the author systematically restates the theories on SDL home and abroad, concluding the theories in the west as two loca, domestic and international, regional uneven development, Marxist plutonomy, new institutional economics, and world economics, putting forward that SDL is the product of location theory under the influence of human geography paradigm, pointing out the weak points in the study and research home and aboard, and the pressure of reestablishing the theoretical framework. Lastly, the author presents the structure and methodology of the current study and research.Chapter Two: The development of the theory's spectrum of division of labor. The author will focus on the core concept of division of labor, discussing the history of development of division of labor by studying classical economics of Adam Smith, Marxist plutonomy, international trade theory, neoclassical economics, and new international economics in a uniform framework. Further, the author will give an overall commentary on the relevant study and research, presenting a clear locus of evolution of the theory of division of labor.Chapter Three: SDL: Transformation from economics to human geography. On the basis of the discussion of the above chapter, the author will restate and reorganize the concept of labor division, proposing that labor division is the combination of specialization and transaction, so as to establish the basic framework of economics of labor division. Then the perspective will shift to the contradictory unification of mode of production and organization of enterprises. By observing the historical change of labor division development, the author finds that labor division is always the evolution based on the balance between specialization and transaction, which does not only coincide with the foregoing theoretical judgment, but digs out the meaning of space, namely, along with the process of specialization of labor division, the importance of space becomes higher. Thereby, labor division shifts to SDL. According to whether there is spatial division of the labor process or not, SDL can be divided into inter-industry SDL and intra-product SDL, as two development phases. Under the background of globalization and informationalization, for the pursuit of maximized economic benefit of labor division, different labor processes will have spatial agglomeration and dispersion in a global scale, resulting invarieties of phenomena of SDL. During the above described process, because of the existence of the endogenous comparative advantage and economies of scale, space generally becomes a sort of productive material. Thus, SDL is the product of the evolut...