Research On The Regional Types And Developing Models Of Central Towns In Zhejiang Province

"The small towns, the big strategies" is the only way for the development ofurbanization in China, and developing the central town is a further strategic choice topromote the process of the urbanization under the background in which the smalltowns are numerous with the serious internal differentiation. To comprehensivelyaccelerate the construction of new socialist countryside, Zhejiang province has beenimplementing the cultivating project of central towns since2007, emphasizing that thebuilding of central towns should be further intensified. Judging from the reality,however, the development of central towns in Zhejiang province is confronted with alot of problems, which limits the exertion of their role as a bridge between cities andrural areas. For this reason, on the basis of the whole Zhejiang province, this articleuses the traditional economic analysis method combining with a spatial statisticalmethod to classify the regional types of central towns. By taking the distinguished ofregional types as a foundation, the article researches the developing models andregulating countermeasures. Offering certain theoretical guidance and policyrecommendations for the development of central towns in Zhejiang is the final aim.First of all, by systematically combing the existing research literatures, thisarticle finds that current studies on the classification and development model of smalltowns are mainly conducted from the a single angle, such as their own resourcesendowment, economic base and industrial power, ignoring the regional principle sothat it is difficult to fully grasp the influence that the geographical environmentfactors make on the development of the central towns. Combining the theory of thecore–edge and circular cumulative causation theory, this article argues that to solvethe problems of the development of central towns, the choice of its developmentmodel must fully analyze the regional differentiation regularity and environmentcharacteristics of the central towns. Among them, the town spatial morphology is thelocation basis for the development of central town, the economy development level ofcounties is the regional economic basis and the industrial spatial differentiationbetween counties is the main driving force which reflects the economic ties betweenareas. From the above three dimensions, this article takes the69counties in Zhejiangas the classification units, and uses mathematical analysis methods including the city’sfirst degree and the rank-size rule, the factor analysis, and spatial autocorrelation tosubdivide the regional types on different levels, then uses the multi-factor space overlap method, finally gets the result of four regional types of the town developmentin Zhejiang province, respectively the core-nucleus development area, the sub-core-intensive development area, the transition-grouped development area and theedge-scattered development area.Secondly, on the basis of the above results, this paper analyzes the characteristicsof spatial organization of the four regional types as well as the momentum ofdevelopment of their central towns, and builds the different development models fordifferent areas, with the corresponding implementation countermeasures put forward.Among them, the central towns in the core-nucleus development area, which acceptthe economic radiation from urban centers with their superior geographical location,mainly implement the anti-magnetic center’s model. The central towns in thesub-core-intensive development area, where the characteristic of massive economic isobvious, can implement the vocational-group model. The central towns in thetransition-grouped development area depend on the regional market oriented in themiddle of Zhejiang urban agglomeration to implement the market-oriented clusterdevelopment model. And the central towns in the edge-scattered development areamainly rely on the local advantages of rich resources to build characteristic industries,and implement the resource-based joint development model, so as to realize the jointdevelopment of the resources, industries and towns.Finally, this article makes a brief summary of the main research conclusions andthe deficiency. Combining with the realistic background of the development of centraltowns and city cluster space in Zhejiang province, it is concluded that thedevelopment of central towns must connect three aspects of the model in the processof unbalanced development strategy. First is the butt of the industries, the industrydevelopment of central town should form a reasonable pattern of specialization withthe large and medium-sized cities. Second, it is the infrastructure docking,emphasizing the regionalization of infrastructure construction, urban infrastructureand public services should extend to the central towns. And the last one is the spacedocking, which refers to integrating central towns into the development model of thecity cluster.