Theory And Practice On Modern Service Industry Agglomeration District In Metropolitan Area

With the fast growing of information technology and the speed up of economicglobalization,such factors of production as capital,knowledge,information andhuman resources began its global flow and allocation.The global industrial structurethus featured with great changes and has a new trend of service-orientation.Compared with that in Western countries,the service sector of China still falls behindin scale,structure and growing speed.The low quality and efficiency of service sectorbecome the"bottle neck"of healthy development of China's economy.China has entered the new stage of economic resturcting and upgrading,whichwill be featured by more significance of service industry.We may easily find itsimportance in"National Eleventh Five-Year National Economic and SocialDevelopment Plan".In this national plan launched by State Council,a general goal setout for service industry is to keep the direction of marketization,industrialization andsocialization,to enlarge the scope and scale,to optimize the structure and strengthenits function,with the result of increasing proportion and standard of service sctor.Hence,it is an urgent task for China to develop the modern service industry.As the leading city in China,Shanghai acts as the pioneer to develop modernservice industry in China.It will also be helpful for Shanghai to construct a financialcenter and a shipping center.The Shanghai municipal government defines its task ofdeveloping service sector as a construction of service agglomeration area.As a brandly new concept,the meaning,reason of birth and the spatialdistribution of Modern Service Industry Agglomeration District (MSIAD)is still a hottopic.And it will push forward the upgrading of urban planning under the newconnotation.Based on the theory of human geography and urban planning,and with thesupport of theory in industrial structural evolution,new industrial district and CentralBusiness District (CBD),the thesis gives an explanation of the birth,evolution andspatial distribution of MSIAD.It will be a good attempt to enrich the theory of urbangeography and economic geography.The paper is divided into two parts,which is theory and empirical study.The partof theory,which includes the first three chapters,constructs a framework on MSIAD,accompied with reviews on evolution of industrial structure theory.The empiricalstudy,which includes the rest four chapters,makes a systematic analysis on the process and spatial evolution of MSIAD in Shanghai.It arues that the MSIAD,whichfeatured by urban-orientation,innovation and knowledge intensiveness,is anindustrial district that agglomerates the service firms and related institions.It needstwo prerequisites for the birth of MSIAD.The first is post-industrialization ofregional economy and a GDP per capita of US$10,000.The second needs perfectmarket system,modern firm management and high residential caliber.The form and development of MSIAD is the result of endogenous andexdogenous factors.The endogenous factor includes requirement of firms forknowledge,information,technological diffusion and share.The exdogenous factorincludes effects of economy of scale,economy of scope and regional prestige.Thepaper argues that the formulation of MSIAD in industrially advanced countries isfeatured by endogenous power of bottom-up,which is the collective behavior ofservice firms.While in China,the exdogenous power of government direct theprocess of MSIAD,which acts in a way of top-down.Agglomeration and scatterness are two basic spatial distribution modes ofmodern service sector.The spatial distribution of modern service sector experiencedthe process of agglomeration to scatterness,and agglomeration again.Modern servicefirst agglomerated in Central Business District (CBD),then scattered to suburbs andfinally re-agglomerated specific locations in metropolitan area.In the early stage ofmetropolitan development,modern service sector is based in CBD and shaped withcentral-periphery framework.Then,with the deepening of labor regional distribution,the framework developed more than one center and enjoys a multi-centeredframework.And CBD witnessed its upgrade of function and specialization.MSIADcomes into being in other locations and suburbs of the metropolis.The paper makes a compare study between that of developed countries anddeveloping countries in MSIAD development.In developed countries,CBD enjoysthe core area of service sector and have experienced a process of single-core tomulti-core.In developing countries,MSIAD starts with multi-core under thegovernment policy and urban planning.The MSIAD in developed countries functionswith spatial difference.The CBD is the area for finance sector,informationconsultancy and technological service,while the MSIAD in suburb loctates intransportion joints or near key roads and act as center of comprehensive office andspecial office.The MSIAD in China functioned unclearly.City center of Shanghaifunctioned differnently with various CBDs,which are lack of specialization.But in suburb of Shanghai,MSIAD enjoy more specialization.Furthermore,MSIAD inChina extend slowly to suburb area of metropolis due to the co-function of variedregional economy,dual structure of urban-rural economy and backward of regionallabor distribution.