Bigger Is Better? An Empirical Analysis of Urban Compactness and Spatial Autocorrelation in Guangdong Province

摘要

In the process of rapid urbanization in China, the problems caused by urban sprawl are becoming increasingly serious. Guangdong province’s GDP ranked first for 29 years in China. Its spatial and temporal characteristics of urban compactness are exceedingly typical. This paper uses catastrophe progression method to calculate the urban compactness of 21 prefecture level cities in Guangdong province from 2000 to 2015, then carries out the spatial analysis. The findings of this study indicate that 1) with the core of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay Area, fan-shaped diffusion of city compactness and spatial distribution pattern is formed. 2) The average city compactness of Guangdong province has changed little from 2000 to 2015 which fluctuates in the range of 0.75 - 0.80. And the urban compactness of Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Dongguan is the top three stably. 3) The Global Moran’s I in Guangdong changed from ?0.3315 to 0.4102; namely, the spatial autocorrelation of urban compactness changed from dispersion into agglomeration in 16 years. 4) The spatial difference of urban compactness in Guangdong is mainly affected by polarization effect, diffusion effect and return effect. After analysis, we suggest that Guangdong province should focus on the development of intercity rail transportation in order to consolidate the mutual relationship within the urban agglomeration of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. In the meantime, it’s supposed to promote the process of Three Old Transformation in the low gradient city. These findings may have implications regarding the improvement of urban compactness and efficiency.