The Effects Of Urbanization On Urban Innovation Capacity

The report of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China explicitly pointed out that innovation is the primary driving force for development,and it is a strategic support for the construction of a modern economic system.In recent years,the competition among cities has gradually evolved towards groups.City Clusters with highly concentrated innovation elements are not only new geographical units in which countries participate in international economic competition and global social division of labor,but also gradually being developed as the main area to enhance the competitiveness of countries or regions.In April 2015,the " a plan to develop City Clusters along the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River " was formally approved.From a geographical point of view,the City Clusters of the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River runs through the north and South and connects the East and West.It has a unique geographical advantage.From a strategic point of view,it thoroughly implements the principle of deepening reforms and building countries such as the central and western regions.It is not only a reserve army for the steady development of the Yangtze River Delta,but also can better achieve China's new urbanization construction goals.Therefore,this article takes the City Clusters of the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River as the object of investigation,clarifies the development status of urbanization and urban innovation capacity,and discusses how urbanization promotes the improvement of urban innovation capacity.This is to accelerate the urbanization process of the City Clusters in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River and enhance overall technological innovation.The strength,which is about to undertake the three major economic belts of Yangtze River Delta,Pearl River Delta,Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei,will become the “fourth pole” that will promote the coordinated development of China's economy.Based on the relevant research results and theories of scholars at home and abroad,this article takes the 28 cities of the City Clusters in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River as an example to examine the effects of urbanization development on the urban innovation capacity.This study first explained the intrinsic mechanism of urbanization that influences urban innovation capacity from the aspects of gathering innovation elements and accelerating innovation diffusion.Secondly,through the collection of data,the urbanization and urban innovation capacity of the City Clusters in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River have been described in more detail.Finally,this paper uses the production function as a model and uses the data of 28 prefecture-level cities of the City Clusters in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River from 2010 to 2015 to empirically analyze the factor aggregation effect of urbanization on urban innovation capacity.At the same time,with the aid of the urban innovation flow model,the innovation diffusion intensity of 28 cities of the City Clusters in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River in 2015 was measured,and the results of its research were specifically analyzed.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Although the urbanization level of the City Clusters in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River has increased year by year,it is still relatively low and the gap between cities is large;cities with higher levels of urbanization are mainly distributed along the axis of traffic;the structure of the urban system is imperfect,there is a phenomenon of lack of layers,and it presents the characteristics of “small in the both ends and large in the middle”;the spatial distribution of innovation output is uneven,and is mainly distributed in the regional center and its neighboring cities or cities with better industrial infrastructure.(2)The level of urbanization,human capital,and physical capital all contribute significantly to the improvement of urban innovation,but their respective influences are different.Among them,compared with human capital and R&D funds,the level of urbanization has a greater role in promoting urban innovation.(3)The interaction terms of urbanization and innovation input factors(human capital and material capital)are all positive,indicating that urbanization can produce positive human and material capital spillover effects and indirectly drive innovation capability,but this driving effect is not obvious.The reason may be that there are still some problems in the urbanization of the City Clusters in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River,which has caused the human and capital spillover effects of urbanization not to be fully realized.(4)Cities with high intensity of innovation diffusion of the City Clusters in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River are characterized by the spatial distribution along the railway lines;their innovation diffusion intensity and urban scale are also strongly related in space;The diffusion of urban innovations in the urban systems of the City Clusters in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River presents a more obvious characteristic of hierarchical diffusion.