中国城市群的竞争力及对区域差异的影响

城市群已成为中国推进新型城镇化的主体形态,但各城市群的发展水平和在区域经济发展中的地位不同。本文引入竞争力这一概念,通过对城市群竞争力概念、内涵和评价方法的回顾,从经济竞争力、人力资源竞争力、基础设施竞争力、国际化竞争力和科技竞争力五个方面构建中国城市群竞争力评价指标体系。研究结果发现中国城市群的竞争力存在着发展水平差异和区域差异。按照综合竞争力和五项一级指标竞争力评价,13个城市群的发展水平可以分为四个层次：第一层次包括长三角、京津唐和珠三角三大城市群,是中国的经济中心和参与国际竞争合作的重要平台;第二层次包括成渝、山东半岛、辽中南、武汉等四个城市群,它们在部分方面的竞争力体现出了一定的优势和潜力,是区域经济的增长极。第三、第四层次城市群的竞争力较为薄弱。本文进一步提出城市群核心竞争力的概念,科创能力、国际化水平、资本集聚度是构成城市群核心竞争力的三大要素,城市群核心竞争力的差异在很大程度上造成了中国三大地带之间的发展差异,且由于先进生产要素分布的高度不均衡,中国区域发展差异的现象还将长期存在。

Competitiveness and regional inequality of China’s mega-city regions

Mega-city regions have emerged as the main spatial form of China's new urbaniza-tion strategy, and become the basic spatial units of participating in global and regional competition for China. However, mega-city regions are not equally capable of boosting regional economic development due to different levels of development. Therefore, this paper adopts the concept of competitiveness, as both theoretical framework and empirical model, to evaluate the development status of China’s mega-city regions. This paper firstly reviews the definition of China’s mega-city regions, the concept of competitiveness of mega-city regions and the methodology to evaluate the competitiveness of mega-city regions. Based on the review of related literatures, this paper proposes a multi-tier evaluation system to calculate the competitiveness of 13 mega city-regions of China. The chosen indicators come from the five perspectives of economic development, human resource, infrastructural accessibility, integration into global economy and capacity of scientific and technological innovation. The result shows that there are great disparities and regional inequality in competitiveness across different mega city-regions. Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan are the first-tier mega city-regions with the highest level of comprehensive competitiveness and have significant global influence as well. Chengdu-Chongqing, Shandong peninsula, South-central Liaoning and Wuhan belong to the second-tier mega city-regions that shows partial advantages and has significant regional influence. Southeast Fujian, Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan, Central Plains and Central Shaanxi Plain belong to the third-tier mega-city regions. Harbin-Daqing-Qiqihar and Changchun-Jilin belong to the fourth-tier mega-city regions. The third and fourth tiers of mega-city regions have relatively weak competitiveness. Aside from disparities in competitiveness, regional inequalities exist for the uneven distribution of high-weight indicators that consist of the core competitiveness. In general, core competitiveness consists of the advanced productive factors such as the ability of scientific and technological innovation, integration into global economy and capacity of capital agglomeration. The differences of the core competitiveness between coastal and inland mega-city regions are the main manifestation of regional inequalities. Due to the highly unbalanced distribution of the advanced productive factors among the eastern, central and western regions, the regional inequalities of China will probably exist for a long time.