Changing Population Spatial Pattern Of Metropolitan City In The Perspective Of Political Sociology

On the background of globalization, fast domestic industrialization and urbanization, the urban structure of various Chinese Metropolises has been sharply changing since 1990. Change of population spatial pattern is an important part of urban structure transformation, and it is one of the many focuses of contemporary urban study and policy making. However, there are some obvious insufficiencies in previous study and policy on population spatial pattern of metropolitan city. In previous theoretical studies, particular stress is put on the macro facet of changing population spatial pattern, but the micro facet is largely neglected. And by the "Economic Benefit First" principle, the evaluation of improving metropolitan population distribution is mostly partial in the policy making process of local government. So it is not strange that the regulation of metropolitan population distribution encounters a variety of challenges and the benefits of regulation is also below the original anticipation of local government. Therefore, it is imperative to break through existant study frame, and reconsider mechanism of changing population spatial pattern, which hopefully could provide a theoretically reasonable explaination for current challenges and problems.Chinese socio-economic development just has met a critial phase in which conflicts is very distinct. So comes the concept of "Scientific Development". A turn also comes in the theoretical study and policy practice of metropolitan population distribution. As for the theorictial study, it is imperative to strengthen the synergy of Geography and social science, and explore the scheme of improving metropolitan population distribution that accord with contemporary concept of "Scientific Development" and "People First " by which to manage state affairs. According to the concept of "Scientific Development", population distribution should not summit to the require of economic development. The require of people and the harmony of various social classes should be considered first and foremost in the regulation practice.On the perspective of Political Sociology, human mobility and changing population distribuion is a kind of social phenomena, behind which exist a series of political process arose by conflicts of interest. In the present study, the Geography advantage of spatial analysis is combined with the particular perspective of Political Sociology, and positive analysis is composed by both the macro and the micro facet of metropolitan population spatial pattern. The political process hiding behind human mobility and populatioin distribution is disclosed, which means that the dynamics of changing metropolitan population distribution is set up on the conflicts of interest groups, then the urban problems brought by changing population distribution is reconsidered and the policy enlightment of the present study is pointed out. The whole study can be divided into three parts: the first part, including chapter one and chapter two, is theoretical reviews, mainly pointing out significance of the present study and looking back to previous relevant studies; the second part, including contents from chapter three to chapter eight, is mainly positive analysis of Shanghai; the third part is chapter nine which includes main conclusions of the present study and future expects of relevant study. The conclusions are as follows.Under the influence of "Overtaking Strategy", two urbanization processes quickly advanced within Shanghai, that is quality upgrading in the inner city and quantity enlarging on the outskirts. During the extrodinarily fast urbanization process, conflicts is particularly distinct among local government, business interest groups and metropolitan inhabitants. Local government is a kind of interests-comparing group, always lingering between common and partial interests. Business group is economic ratioalist, who is always pursuing maximum profits. The metropolitan inhabitants is a kind of self-regarding group, whose goal is to stick up for the interests of themselves and their families. During the process of urban regeneration and suburb development, there usually exists a growth union of local government and business interest groups. In such a union there also exist some conflicts, but local government usually adopts strategies of catering and conceding instead of confronting, and business interest groups give a series of reasoningly response. In the face of powerful grow-up union, most metropolitan inhabitants have to adopt the strategies of obedience or limited opposition.Metropolitan population sptial pattern is the entia of the micro and macro facets, that is human mobility and different population size in different area of the metropolis. The present study lists the characteristics of human mobility in the districts of Luwan, Pudong and Jinshan, respectively on behalf of inner city, inner suburb and outer suburb. In ininer city, a tremendous outflow is formed as old houses are pulling down, at the same time the reconstruction of new houses attracts people from other districts move into the inner city, and quickly developing service sectors attacts people from other provinces outside Shanghai. And that is why the proportion of new faces is pretty high. In inner suburb, massive new houses are constructed and the secondary industry development is flourish, which respectively attracts white collars from other districts and blue collars from other provinces. On the whole, the inner suburb is an area of huge flow-in and relatively petty flow-out. In contrast with the inner city and the inner suburb, human mobility in the outer suburb is not that vibrant, and the existant movement mainly happens within the area, being characteristic of close quarters. As one of the three communities in outer suburb, human mobility in towns is most active.The macro facet of changing population spatial pattern in Shanghai since 1990 is embodied in the following aspects. In the inner city, population size sharply reduces on the whole, whereas population density in local areas rises. In the inner suburb, the number of inhabitants quickly and unevenly increases in the area close to the inner city and in some particular points. The suburbanization of floating population is rather peculiar and inconsisten with typical model, and the number of floating population increases in both the inner core city and the suburb. The number of people in outer suburb increases much slower, population is distributed dispersedly in this area and it is hard to authentically change this condition. Hopefully, floating population increases might make improvement on population spatial pattern in out suburb in the future. Ecological competition is the core mechanism hiding behind changing metropolitan population distribution. Inhabitants belonging to different classes compete for the common cozy area, however the capacity of resource and environment in a particular area is unfortunately limited, which likely results in human mobility and further changes population spatial pattern. Interpretation in this way settles the essential status of "human" in the mechanism of changing metropolitan population distribution. The population density in inner city of Shanghai has decreased quickly since 1990, whereas contrasted with the suburb, this area still is characteristic of convenint public traffic, a variety of high quality schools, high density of commercial services sites, pleasant living environment and abundant occupational positions, which together make the inner city a cozy area to live. Inhabitants, who more actively flow out of the inner city of Shanghai, is to some extent characteristic of disadvantage. And inhabitants who more actively flow into the inner city are mainly labor forces in prime of one's life. Inhabitants, more activly flowing into the inner city from the inner suburb, can be summed up into two conditions, that is young people for the reason of learning and training and relatively rich middle-aged people for the reason of choosing new inhabitats. And inhabitants, more actively flowing into the inner suburb, are mainly those disadvantaged people, including disadvantaged people used to living in shabby houses of inner city, ordinary white collar, and poor educated young labor forces from other provinces.Ecological competition among various classes in the metropolis is often affected by the surroundings. The case study of Shanghai indicates that the most important influence is made by local government and business interests, which expedites the ecological competition and elimilating process among various social classes . Local culture, that is traditional cognitive ranking of urban area, strengthens the competition between classes. Individual characteristics and family situation also make some relatively slight influence. Based on this, the comprehensive dynamic mechanism of changing metropolitan population distribution could be generalized as follows: conflicts and gaming between inhabitants and growth union affect mobility decision-making process, further result in demographic changing in different urban places. Confronting various urban vicissitudes brought by the growth union, different classe adopt different responding strategy. As for those who has no power to oppose, their mobility highly depends on the behavior of growth union, just like chessman that could be settled arbitrarily. As for those who has somehow limited power to oppose, they usually choose the inferior area close to inner city, and their mobility is not entirely consistent with the expectation of growth union, but still go to the desirable direction set by the growth union.Nowadays, competition among metropolises becomes increasingly intenser. Guided by the principles of "Focus on economic construction" and "Overtaking Strategy", metropolises also develop at competitive speed, and growth union of local government and capitals almost monopolises the say during urbanization. Metropolitan inhabitants' mobility and population distribution concede to the require of economic development in order to meet the expectation of local government and business interests, but the require of inhabitants themselves is put in the second rank. Without direction of concept of "scientic development", changing metropolitan population distribution inevitably brings about a variety of troubles and problems, including its inconsistency with coordination development between urban and rural areas, its negative effects on constructing harmoniou relationship between cadres and masses and building livable city, and bringing about problems on social management in suburb. The present study is of great significance to metropolitan policy making in three aspects. Firstly, the developing guideline and strategies is under correction. Secondly, as for Chinese littoral metropolises, population policy, especially policy on population distribution and human mobility, should be put in particularly important position among various kinds of urban policies. It shuold be strengthened that population policy and other urban policies coordinate with each other to form comprehensive driving force that is advatageous to constructing "Harmonious Ctiy". Thirdly, in an era being characteristic of distinct conflicts and gaming, masses' consciousness of sticking-up to their own interests is being stepwisely aroused, thus the living space of a mighty government will be much narrower, which make it necessary that government return to be the representative of public interests and be neutral person balancing various kinds of interests, so the concept of "Scientific Development" and "People First" principle demand. Metropolitan inhabitants should have more choice in movement, not just being forced to change according to government expectation.