Measurement and Spatial Distribution of Urban Agglomeration Industrial Compactness in China

Key words: 
• industrial compactness /
• urban agglomeration (UA) /
• China

Abstract: Urban agglomeration (UA) compactness means spatial concentration degree of physical entities, such as cities (towns), industries, resources, funds, traffic and technologies, whose concentration is formed according to specified economic and technologic association in the process of UA formation and development. The UA industrial compactness means the concentration degree of industry and industry clusters with reference to the industrial, technological and economic relations among the cities in the UA in the process of rational industrial division and with the exten- sion of industrial chain. After analyzing the researches on compactness, this paper finds that the relevant measurement coefficient and methods reflecting industrial geographical concentration fail to link industries spatial concentration with urban spatial concentration. Taking 23 UAs as samples and classifying them by development degree, this paper probes into UA compactness and spatial distribution characteristics from the perspective of industry by adopting UA index systems of industry and measurement models. The research finds out: 1) there is obvious positive correlation between UA industrial compactness and UA development degree; 2) the spatial distribution difference of UA industrial compactness is relatively great; and 3) UA industrial compactness shows a gradually decreasing tendency from the eastern part, the middle part to the western part of China. From the research thoughts and approaches, this article suggests that studies on the UA integrated compactness measurement should be enhanced from a multidimensional perspective involving space, traffic, population density and so on.