Urban Agglomeration Spatial Structure Research

With the rapid developm ent of urbanization,the imbalance of regional economy development in China becom es more and more serious.Big cities attract more people and resources with the generation of “big-city diseases”.However,small cities are hard to develop due to its lack of m anpower and m aterial resources.As the main configuration of the urbanization in Chin a,urban agglomerations are cap able of searching better balance between its gatheringforce and bearing capacity,and thus play crucial roles on the regional econom ic development.Constructing a reasonable spatial structure is of critical importance for the sound development of an urban agglomerations.Studies on spatial structure of urban a gglomeration should focus on the econom ic developing spatial features andthe intercity connectionswithin an urban agglomerations,from which corresponding optim izing suggestions can be m ade to prom otethe integration of its soc ial and economic development.In this paper the concept connotations of urban agglom eration and its spatia l structure as well as the related spatial structure theories are first interpreted in order to determine the research route of this study.The urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of Yangtze River is selected as a case for the study of urban agglom eration spatial structure,from both the theoretical and evidence-based perspectives.From the perspective of organizational space configuration,the spatial distributions of city scales,populations,econom ics and industries are studied using the m ethods of first degree analysis,urban rank-size analysis and city-pyramid analysis.Furthermore,these spatial structuresand their ev olution laws in the urban agglomeration are also discussed based on the ArcGIS visualized analysis.The interrelationship among cities in an ur ban agglomeration is another important aspect in the spatial structure research for urban agglomerations.The traffic connections are interpreted from two aspects,i.e.the capacity of c onnections provided by transportation infrastructures and the actua l intercity traffic flow of car goes and passengers.Thus,the spatial structures of the traf fic connection network in urban agglomeration are studied from the view of supply and dem and in transportations.Using the social network analysis m ethod,the traffic connection network based on the accessibility and the traffic flow is established theoretically.The accessibilities and the cargo/passenger distribution within cities in an urban agglomeration are then evaluated.Moreover,the spatial agglom eration and di spersion characteristics of the traf fic connectionsare also summarized.Finally,the problems existing in the spatial structure of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches o f Yangtze River are discussed.Corresponding optim ization suggestions are also made from the three basic aspects(city scale,industries and traffic network)of urban agglom eration spatial structure,providing possible strategic references for the development of urban agglomerations.