China’s Harmonious Urban Competitiveness: Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou not in Top 10, Chongqing near the Bottom
2013-05-19 14:49:02 source: China News
Today the Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness of China (2013), collaboratively written by National Academy of Economic Strategy, Social Sciences Academic Press and Center for City and Competitiveness of CASS, is issued in Beijing. The Blue Book says that Jinan, Xi’an and Shenzhen ranked the top three in China’s harmonious urban competitiveness ranking in 2012, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou didn’t make top 10, and Beijing even didn’t make top 100 in ecological urban competitiveness ranking, but Jiangxi and Shandong province were quite eye-catching.
Harmonious Urban Competitiveness: Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are not in top 10, while Chongqing is ranked near the bottom.
2013 Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness of China: New Benchmark: Constructing the Ideal City with Sustainable Competitiveness, is the first book to use all-municipal objective data to study the comprehensive competitiveness of 293 cities and the sustainable competitiveness of 287 cities of China mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in 2012.
The Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness says that Jinan, Xi’an, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Weihai, Dalian, Xiamen and Ningbo from China mainland rank in top 10 of cities with most harmonious urban competitiveness, besides Hong Kong and Macao. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou don’t make top 10. Jinan and Xi’an, two conventional capitals in mainland, are top 2 of mainland cities, while other six cities are beautiful and developed coastal open cities. In top 50, non-capital and non direct-controlled municipalities are 35, accounting for 73% (except for Hong Kong and Macao). Among 35 cities, those who have less than 1 million population are 19, accounting for 38%.
In the ranking of harmonious urban competitiveness, the last 10 cities are those locate in west China and have underdeveloped economy. What’s odd is that Taizhou, which is quite economically developed, is the tenth from the bottom of harmonious urban competitiveness ranking. Tianjin, the direct-controlled municipality, ranks 133 and Chongqing ranks 210, even though they had fast economic growth in last few years. It means economic development does not inevitably lead to social harmony. Among 37 cities that rank after 250, Shanxi and Hunan province in Middle China have 6 and 2 cities respectively, Heilongjiang and Jilin province in Northeast China have 2 and 2 cities respectively, Gansu, Shaanxi and Ningxia province in Northwest China have 7, 2 and 2 cities respectively, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan province in Southwest China have 6, 5, 2 and 2 cities respectively, and Zhejiang province in Southeast China has 1.It’s noteworthy that Shanxi province, which has abundant energy resources, has 6 cities that rank near the bottom. Its city development pattern is worth thinking.
Ecological Urban Competitiveness: Jiangxi and Shandong province are eye-catching but Beijing ranks 119.
The Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness says that top 10 cities with most ecological urban competitiveness in 2012 are Macao, Hong Kong, Nanchang, Suizhou, Shangrao, Huangshan, Jingdezhen, Yantai, Jiujiang and Guangzhou. Jiangxi province takes 4 seats, and the Pearl River Delta takes 3 seats, while other cities are from Hubei, Anhui and Shandong province.
Analyzing geographic locations of the ten cities, 4 are in coastal areas in the East and 5 are near to Poyang Lake in the Middle. It shows geographic position is very important to ecological city construction.From the indexes of ecological urban competitiveness, Macao and Hong Kong are far ahead of mainland cities, 0.296 and 0.289 respectively higher than Nanchang, the best city in mainland. It means that Macao and Hong Kong are ecologically more competitive, while mainland cities still have a long way to go.
Comparing ecological urban competitiveness and sustainable competitiveness, Hong Kong, Macao, Nanchang, Guangzhou and Yantai are much more competitive in sustainability. It means ecological environment is an important part of urban sustainable development; generally cities with good ecological environment have stronger sustainable competitiveness. Other five cities are in the central region and underdeveloped, so they lag behind in comprehensive competitiveness, but a little more competitive in ecological construction.
In top 50 cities, Jiangxi and Shandong have 6 respectively, Anhui and Guangdong province have 5 respectively, Fujiang has 4, Hubei and Zhejiang province have 3 respectively, Liaoning, Sichuan, Jilin, Hunan and Henan have 2 respectively, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Xinjiang and Guangxi have 1 respectively (the two left are Macao and Hong Kong). Shandong and Jiangxi province have outstandingperformance; each of them has 6 cities ranking in top 50. It means the coastal areas of Shandong province and Poyang Lake areas of Jiangxi province have good ecological environment and construction. In addition, in the ranking of “ecological urban competitiveness” of 287 cities, Shanghai ranks 51 while Beijing ranks 119.
Knowledge Urban Competitiveness: Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang province are the best three.
The Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness says that in top 50 cities with most knowledge urban competitiveness, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang province are the best three provinces, as each of them has 6 cities in the ranking. The pattern of three competitive provinces is not changed. The three account for 36% of top 50 cities. The next province is an economy province ---- Shandong province ---- that has 4 cities in the ranking, while Anhui, Fujian and Liaoning province have 2 respectively. Other provinces only make 1 city into top 50. The knowledge urban competitiveness in China is not balanced among provinces. Developed provinces have stronger knowledge urban competitiveness. It well justifies the theory that science and technology is the primary productive force.
Compared among regions, the Southeast region is the most competitive one, which has 5 cities in top 10 ranking of knowledge urban competitiveness, accounting for 50% and has 21 cities in top 50 ranking, accounting for 42%. It means Southeast China is much better than other regions in terms of developed economy, rich culture and technical innovation. The Circum-Bohai Sea Region is not as good as Southeast Region, but still very competitive, as its all cities are in top 200 and has no worse or worst competitive knowledge cities.
The Circum-Bohai Sea Region is a very competitive knowledge city belt, where Beijing and Tianjin are the core cities and cities along the Bohai Bay are the rest. This region has the most balanced knowledge urban competitiveness. Cities in Middle and Southwest China have worse or worst knowledge urban competitiveness but are the main sources of labor forces. Lots of local labors from these two areas migrate to the coastal areas, so they are short of human capital and cannot have circular accumulating effects of human capital. Among the output-input indexes of knowledge urban competitiveness, their per capita increment of high-end service industry is much lower than any other regions.
Universe Urban Competitiveness: East China, Middle China and West China have huge gradient differences.
The Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness makes a ranking of urban-rural integration universe urban competitiveness. It says that the top 10 cities with most universe urban competitiveness in 2012 are Hong Kong, Macao, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Dongguan, Beijing, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Zhuhai and Wuxi. The average universe urbanization index of top 10 cities is 3.23, while the average index of last 10 cities is 0.20. The former is almost 16 times of the latter. The average index of cities with best universe urban competitiveness (top 50 cities) is 2.08, while the average index of cities with worst universe urban competitiveness (ranking after 250th) is only 0.32. It means cities have huge differences in universe urban competitiveness and are extremely imbalanced.
The major cities are much better than the minor cities. Among mainland cities, 35 medium- and large-sized cities have a higher average value than national mainland cities; vice-provincial cities have a higher average value than the 35 medium- and large-sized cities; the average value of 4 direct-controlled municipalities which are administratively highest is 2.46, the highest among all.
For the geographic locations of cities, top 15 cities of universe urban competitiveness in 2012 are from Southeast China, except for Beijing; Southeast China also takes 23 seats of top 50. Among 287 cities, Southeast China has only 2 cities in last 87 ranks; the worst city from Southeast China ranks 225. West China takes 7 seats of last 10. For the average index of universe urban competitiveness, Southeast China has the highest index value ---- 1.61, while Southwest China has the lowest index value ---- 0.63. It indicatesthat East China and West China have huge difference in universe urban competitiveness.
Informationization Urban Competitiveness: Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong top three.
The Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness says that the top 10 cities with most informationization urban competitiveness are Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Wuxi, Nanjing, Chongqing and Qingdao. Shanghai and Guangzhou are ahead of Hong Kong and become the most competitive cities in China. As for the four direct-controlled municipalities, only Tianjin ranks 13 but other are in top 10. Provincial capitals take 28 seats of top 50 cities. It indicates that direct-controlled municipalities and provincial capitals have more informationization competitiveness, and provincial capitals are usually much more competitive than regular cities.
The Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness says that Chinese informationization starts from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Comparing the current pattern, cities with most competitive informationization locate in Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Circum-Bohai Sea Region represented by Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing. Thanks to convenient transportation and developed economy, the coastal cities are much more competitive than inland cities.
As for the geographic locations of top 10 most competitive knowledge cities, Yangtze River Delta has 4 cities, Pearl River Delta has 3 cities, Circum-Bohai Sea Region has 2 cities and West China has 1 direct-controlled city besides Yangtze River. Among the top 50 cities, Guangdong province has 7, Jiangsu province has 6, Zhejiang province has 5, Shandong province has 4, Hebei province has 3, Liaoning province has 3, Henan province has 2, and the rest are Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macao, Chongqing, and the capitals of Heilongjiang, Fujian, Hunan, Anhui, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan province.Except for those capitals, competitive cities from the top 50 are from Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and the eastern coastal area. (Journalist Kan Feng)