With the rapid development of the digital economy, it is of great significance to explore the impact of digital technology innovation networks on regional economic resilience. Taking 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta as the example, this study used the data of digital technology innovation cooperation patents and economic and social development from 2010 to 2021, and the social network analysis method and economic resilience measurement index, to describe the temporal and spatial change characteristics of digital technology innovation networks and economic resilience in cities in the Yangtze River Delta, and empirically test the influence of the structural characteristics of digital technology innovation networks on urban economic resilience. The results show that: 1) The cooperation degree of digital technology innovation in the Yangtze River Delta was constantly increasing, and it has gradually evolved into a core-periphery structure and a cohesive subgroup structure. The economic resilience of the cities in the Yangtze River Delta has been steadily increasing through the study period, but the spatial differences were gradually increasing. 2) Degree centrality and closeness centrality of digital technology innovation networks in Yangtze River Delta cities had a significant positive effect on the promotion of urban economic resilience, while betweenness centrality had a negative impact on economic resilience. Robustness test also showed that this conclusion is valid. 3) Compared with the central cities, the digital technology innovation network in peripheral cities had a greater impact on their economic resilience, and the degree of intermediary centrality was more significant, which was quite different from that in core cities. This study is useful for clarifying the relationship between digital technology innovation networks and economic resilience, and exploring the path to enhance regional economic resilience.
With the in-depth development of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, intelligent manufacturing equipment has become an important force to promote the high-quality development of industry, and the study of its production and supply relationship is of great significance to optimize the distribution of new quality productivity.Based on the data of core enterprises and suppliers in China's intelligent manufacturing equipment industry from 2010 to 2023, this study explored the spatial change characteristics of production-supply relationships of China's intelligent manufacturing equipment industry from three dimensions: production and supply linkage, production and supply network, and production and supply cluster by Pareto analysis and k-kernel analysis. The results are as follows: 1) The number and intensity of enterprise connections were increasing, and 700-1800 km was the general distance of production and supply connection of intelligent manufacturing equipment enterprises. The pattern of intercity production and supply links evolved from the shape of dual core radiation, triangle, to bow and arrow in China, and there were similarities and differences in the dominant flow of intercity production and supply links. The strong production and supply links between enterprises gradually shifted from intracity to intercity, and the number of export-oriented cities increased rapidly. 2) For more than a decade, the structure of the intercity production and supply network of China's intelligent manufacturing equipment industry has become increasingly compact and complex. After 2015, the city hierarchy of the intercity production and supply network has moved from a "pyramid" to a flat structure. 3) The number of production and supply clusters of China's intelligent manufacturing equipment industry has increased from 21 to 29. The production and supply cluster of the Yangtze River Delta has always maintained a leading position, the production and supply clusters of the Pearl River Delta, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and Shandong Peninsula have developed steadily, and the status of the production and supply clusters in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the Chengdu-Chongqing region have significantly improved. The pattern of association of node cities within the clusters can be divided into five types: Single center, one core and multiple subordinates, two cores and multiple subordinates, multi-center, and low-level equilibrium, and the node association patterns within the clusters have showed spatiotemporal heterogeneity from 2010 to 2023.
As China's economic and trade cooperation with Southeast Asia and other regions becomes increasingly close, accelerating the construction of the new western land-sea corridor and enhancing the quality and efficiency of logistics development is of great significance for promoting economic development and high-level opening-up in the inland areas of western China. This study focused on 30 urban units within the core coverage area of the new western land-sea corridor. Based on long-term statistical data, it employed the back propagation (BP) neural network model to predict the railway and highway freight volumes of each city after the completion of the main corridor. An improved gravity model was used to simulate the freight connections between cities under future corridor capacity conditions. Additionally, social network analysis was applied to compare the railway and highway logistics network structures before and after the completion of the corridor. The results indicate that: 1) The construction of the new western land-sea corridor helps reduce the railway and highway distances between cities in the core coverage area, increasing the total freight volume of each city. 2) Upon completion of the corridor, logistics connections between seaports and landports, such as Fangchenggang and Kunming facing Southeast Asia, and cities such as Chongqing and various provincial capitals, will be significantly strengthened. This will also promote the flow of goods to prefecture-level cities, leading to a hierarchical and integrated development pattern in the logistics network. 3) In terms of the distance reduction effect, changes in freight volume, and shifts in logistics network structure, the construction of the corridor has a stronger impact on the railway logistics network compared to the highway network. By comparing the changes in land logistics network patterns before and after the construction of the corridor, this study provides scientific insights for optimizing corridor layout, upgrading logistics networks, and promoting high-quality regional economic development.
Functional polycentricity is a reflection of the essential attributes of urban agglomerations, and an important way to build a new urbanization pattern of division of labor and cooperation with improved functions.Based on Tencent's population movement data from 19 urban agglomerations of China, this study analyzed the spatiotemporal change characteristics of population flow networks at the national and regional scales and functional polycentricity in urban agglomerations, and further explored the influencing factors of functional polycentricity. The results show that: 1) The regional functional polycentricity index of urban agglomerations of China as a whole is larger than the national functional polycentricity index and evolves toward stronger polycentricity, and there is a large gap between the national and regional functional polycentricity indices of the three types of urban agglomerations. 2) The regional functional polycentricity index of most urban agglomerations is larger than the national functional polycentricity index, which is in line with the general pattern that the larger the scale, the smaller the polycentricity index. The functional polycentricity type of each urban agglomeration is stable, but the direction of change differs. There is no obvious relationship between the functional polycentricity type of urban agglomerations and the type of urban agglomerations' development, and the type of urban agglomerations' functional polycentricity shows complexity. 3) The increase in GDP per capita reduces the national functional polycentricity index and shows a "U"-shaped correlation with the regional functional polycentricity index. The increase in the ratio of the total value of the secondary and tertiary industries promotes the increase of the national functional polycentricity index, and the increase in the size of the resident population and the decrease in the proportion of Internet users promotes the increase of the regional functional polycentricity index. The results of this study can provide relevant references for the development strategy of the spatial structure of urban agglomerations.
Under the background of globalization, informatization, industrialization, and urbanization, the hierarchical structure of China's urban system and its flow networks are intertwined and interact with each other. Based on the improved gravitational field model and the spatial econometric model, this study analyzed the economic efficiency of the Wuhan metropolitan area under the interaction of urban hierarchy and population flow (hierarchy-flow). The study found that the economic performance of cities and towns in the Wuhan metropolitan area showed a significant center-periphery pattern, and the Wuhan-Ezhou-Huangshi-Huanggang axis of economic efficiency is initially formed. The total economic volume of cities and towns grew super-linearly with the increase of urban population scale, but the gap between them tended to narrow. Population flows across scales promoted the growth of urban economic efficiency, and there was heterogeneity in the effects of different dimensions of urban hierarchies on urban economic efficiency. The influence of scale hierarchy on urban economic efficiency was negative, while increased population flows to large cities reduced scale diseconomies. Functional hierarchies contributed to the economic efficiency of cities and towns, and they further promoted agglomeration economies through cross-scale population flow. The administrative hierarchy promoted efficient economic growth in cities and towns, and growth in the scale of urban mobility at high administrative tiers promoted hierarchical diffusion. The interaction of hierarchy-flow expands the research perspectives of urban economic growth, deepens the understanding of the mechanism of high-efficiency growth of cities with different hierarchies, and lays the foundation for the coordinated and high-efficiency development of urban economy in metropolitan areas.
In the context of China's rapid urbanization, the migration of ethnic minority population is becoming increasingly more active, and has become an important component of China's migration groups, which has attracted widespread attention. This article reviewed the existing studies from the perspective of geography, which is conducive to enhancing interdisciplinary dialogue and expanding the research direction of ethnic minority population migration in China. Based on the reality of ethnic minority migration in China, this study incorporated the relevant migration theories on the basis of Chinese ethnicity theories, and established a macro-micro analytical framework. The study found that the migration of ethnic minority population has entered an active period, and the overall pattern of migration was from rural to urban areas, mainly within the provinces and across provinces from west to east; China's ethnic minority migration was also affected by factors that are common for the overall migration of the country, including ethnic minority languages, specific cultural practices, and co-ethnic network connections. Other factors related to ethnic culture also played an important role, but existing studies are weak in examining the mechanism of cultural factors; Ethnic minority migration in China not only promotes urbanization but also facilitates a wide range of interaction, communication, and integration among all ethnic groups, and its impact on urban-rural integration and the protection and revitalization of ethnic villages in ethnic minority areas requires the joint attention of different disciplines. Looking forward to future research, the study can be expanded in terms of the dispersal pattern and characteristics of change of ethnic minority migrants in urban scale hierarchies, the examination of the role of cultural factors in whether and how to migrate, and the effects of migration on the development of urban-rural transformation in ethnic minority areas and on ethnic minority individuals, respectively.
The economic space of urban-rural interface is an important topic that has long been concerned by geography, sociology, urban and rural planning, and other disciplines. This study adopted a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods: we read the classic literature to examine the research lineage; and we downloaded the Chinese and English publications from China National Knowledge Infrastructure and the Web of Science databases and quantitatively analyzed the data by using the CiteSpace 6.26 software, which was used as supporting evidence for the division of the research phases. This study examined the three stages of international research related to the economic space of the urban-rural interface: the emergence of early exploration in Europe and the United States, the development of attention to less developed regions, and the emergence of the post-industrial era. Then it examined the three stages of Chinese research: the reference of foreign theories at the beginning of urbanization, the concern of real problems during the acceleration of urbanization, and the exploration of multiple values in the middle and late stages of urbanization. It also concluded that the economic space of the urban-rural interface presents three characteristics: inclusive mixing of economic types, dynamic fragmentation of morphological evolution, and dualistic coexistence of economic dynamics. There are two paths in the evolution of economic space in the urban-rural interface: one is led by top-down forces, showing the path of peri-urban agriculture-centralized large-scale industry-high-tech industry; the other is driven by bottom-up forces, showing the path of peri-urban agriculture-township industry in the early stage, and then different branches with regional differences in the later stage. Urbanization is the fundamental driving force for the economic space evolution of the urban-rural interface; technological factors are the core factors for this evolution; and the government, the market, and the society all play a key role in the change. Based on the above review, we proposed four directions for future research on the economic space of the urban-rural interface in terms of scale and regional differences, post-industrial characteristics, cross-border network characteristics, and governance guidance.
The world is currently experiencing unprecedented changes, with frequent geopolitical conflicts, major public health incidents, extreme natural hazards and disasters, and other emergencies. The risks of the global grain supply chain are becoming increasingly prominent, and enhancing the resilience of the global grain supply chain has become a fundamental way to ensure the security and stability of the global grain supply chain. This study measured the resilience of international grain supply chains by identifying multidimensional supply chain network resilience measurement indicators based on the perspective of complex network. The characteristics of change of resilience and node anti-interference ability were analyzed. The results show that: 1) The global supply chains of rice and corn have a higher level of resilience, followed by the global supply chain of wheat, and the global supply chain of soybean has the lowest level of resilience. 2) The global supply chain networks of the four types of grain products are all resilient networks with fast recovery capacity and adaptability and their resilience levels have all improved. However, there are differences in their improvement levels, with soybeans, rice, wheat, and corn in descending order. 3) In the global supply chain network of the four types of grain products, China's anti-interference level is higher than the world average, but lower than the United States, and the anti-interference level of wheat and corn needs to be improved. The results of this study have important practical and theoretical significance for clarifying the resilience level and characteristics of change of the global grain supply chain, which may help enhance China's position and anti-interference ability in the global grain supply chain network.
Rural and urban spatial systems are a spatial support for implementing the rural revitalization strategy. Against the backdrop of increasingly prominent issues in individual village development, constructing a rural and urban spatial system identification path that serves rural cluster development is an effective way to achieve regional coordinated development. This study established a rural and urban spatial system identification path of "rural development poles-rural development clusters" and used multi-source data from 379 villages of 18 towns in Jinghai District, Tianjin Municipality, to analyze the spatial network characteristics of villages and towns. Based on the rural and urban spatial system identification path, rural development clusters were then delineated, and revitalization paths for different development clusters were proposed. The main conclusions are as follows: 1) The spatial network characteristics under the dimensions of economic development, resource endowment, and living environment vary, with notable local agglomeration characteristics of comprehensive development levels. The network density exhibits a distribution pattern that decreases from the northeast to the southwest. 2) Based on resource characteristics, villages were categorized into four types and eight variants: multi-resource dominant (P-C-A), dual-resource dominant (P-C, P-A, C-A), single-resource dominant (P, C, A), and non-resource dominant (p-c-a), with single-resource dominant and non-resource dominant villages being the majority in Jinghai District. 3) According to the rural and urban spatial system identification path, central villages, characteristic villages, and rural development clusters were sequentially identified based on the spatial network. Furthermore, sub-clusters of rural development were identified based on the dominant resource evaluation results. A rural and urban system in the study area was ultimately mapped, comprising 24 central villages, 13 characteristic villages, 9 rural development groups, and their 30 subordinate rural development sub-groups. 4) Based on the optimization pattern of the rural and urban spatial system, the characteristics of rural development clusters were further analyzed, and a clustered development path for promoting rural revitalization by zoning and classification was proposed.
The Triangle of Central China is one of China's important growth poles. However, while its core area is growing, the non-core area is suffering serious shrinkage. Traditional identification methods that focus solely on the population dimension can lead to a "one-size-fits-all" approach. In this study, we explored the spatial patterns and characteristics of shrinkage in the Triangle of Central China using multidimensional scaling dimensionality reduction and clustering algorithms, considering population, economy, and land use dimensions. Compared with the single indicator method, our approach provides a better identification of "potential shrinkage" and has a more accurate description of characteristics and status of shrinkage. Based on this approach, we derived the following findings. First, our study revealed that the Triangle of Central China primarily experiences three types of shrinkage—population shrinkage-led, land use shrinkage-led, and all-around shrinkage-led urban shrinkage. Second, the spatial features of shrinkage can be described as partial shrinkage within the core cities, extensive shrinkage in the surroundings, and scattered growth in the periphery. Third, the rapid industrial transformation, the siphoning effect of higher-level cities, the preferential policy for ethnic minorities, and the regional development strategies are the key factors contributing to the three typical growth and shrinkage patterns. Fourth, under the combined effects of the reduction of urban demand, the increase of urbanization cost, and the development of counties as a national strategy, the return of population and resources may become a new trend for the Triangle of Central China. Last, as a response to this new trend, central cities should face up to the insufficient momentum for land urbanization, avoid excessive expansion, and prevent the formation of false urbanization and debt problems. County seats may become the main carrier of the population inflows. This requires provincial and municipal governments to move resources down to the county level and rely on the county economy to absorb some of the cities' excess production capacity and labor force. The new approach can improve the accuracy of identification of shrinkage. And our findings of the new shrinkage pattern of the Triangle of Central China based on this approach can contribute to a better understanding of the urbanization process.
Green finance is also called environmental finance or sustainability finance. As an important kind of financial development, green finance focuses on the win-win situation between the environment and economic growth by supporting the environmental protection industry. On the other hand, the green low-carbon transformation development can form diversified green capital needs, which will induce financial institutions to adjust products and services structure, innovate green finance service models and application scenarios with ecological concepts, and this will promote the development of green finance. Therefore, the concept and practice of green financial development and green low-carbon transformation are highly consistent, and there is an inherent logic of coordination and mutual promotion. However, there is limited literature on the coupling and coordination relationship between green financial development and green low-carbon transformation, and the research on influencing factors needs more in-depth discussions. To reveal the status of coupling and coordination between green financial development and green low-carbon transformation, this study used the entropy method to measure the level of green financial development and green low-carbon transformation, and introduced the coupling and coordination degree model, geodetector, and ArcGIS technology to explore the spatial and temporal variation characteristics and influencing factors of coupling and coordination between green financial development and green low-carbon transformation based on the data of Hunan Province from 2013 to 2021. The results show that the coupling and coordination degree between green financial development and green low-carbon transformation in Hunan Province was on the rise year by year, and continued to improve over time. The status was transiting to a coordinated stage step by step. The coupling and coordination degree in various regions showed a relatively consistent trend with the entire province. The coupling and coordination degree exhibited spatial agglomeration characteristics and presented a green development pattern radiating from Changsha City to the surrounding areas. The spatial differentiation of the coupling and coordination degree was obvious, greater in the eastern region than the western region, and in the northern region than the southern region. However, the growth speed in the western and southern regions was higher than that in the eastern and northern regions. The geodetector test results show that the coupling and coordination degree was influenced by factors of economic development, financial development scale, green R&D investment, digital infrastructure, and regional openness. Among them, the explanatory power of green R&D investment and financial development scale was greater than other factors, and both of them were the driving factors for the coupling and coordination between green financial development and green low-carbon transformation. The research may enable governments to clearly understand the integrated pattern of green financial development and green low-carbon transformation, so as to provide a decision-making reference for the integrated development of green financial development and green low-carbon transformation, and a reliable theoretical basis for cultivating new quality productivity according to local conditions to promote high-quality development.
The Internet and digital platforms have driven the establishment of external network relationships in creative industries, and the formation of virtual network relationships has profoundly changed the resource acquisition ability of cities and further influenced the development of local creative industries. Based on the data of China's online game industry from 2010 to 2022, this study explored the impact of cities' embeddedness in industrial networks on the development of local online game industries. This study found that: First, while digitization drives decentralized production in the game industry, it also exacerbates the dominance of existing game centers. The main nodes of the online game industry cooperation network are dominated by eastern coastal cities, but small and medium-sized cities in the central and western regions have also begun to rise and are gradually embedded in the external network dominated by core cities due to the widespread use of digital technology. Second, external network embedding has a positive impact on the development of local online game industries. Even though cities with higher network power control the flow, matching, and combination of creative resources in the network, other cities are still able to improve their access to resources through a large number of external collaborations and strengthened connectivity with superior nodes. Lastly, the spatial dependence of local game industry development is low, and the spillover effect of virtual agglomeration-type network relationship is more obvious than that of geographical proximity. The results of the study help to deepen the understanding of the spatial organization of creative industries in the context of high digitization and provide references for local governments to optimize the layout of the game industry on the basis of clarifying the spatial structure and development logic of China's online game industry.
In the context of global warming, there is a higher probability of occurrence of the summertime compound hot extremes when daytime and nighttime heat sustains, which lead to the reduction of continuous precipitation and increase of precipitation with short duration and high intensity, resulting in changes of diurnal precipitation pattern at summertime in the Northern Hemisphere land area. Compared with the well-understood summer precipitation on the annual scale, current knowledge about combined daytime and nighttime precipitation remains too scarce for the Loess Plateau of China. Based on the daily precipitation and maximum temperature dataset from 1970 to 2020 released by the National Meteorological Information Center and using the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) and Mann-Kendall trend analysis method, we investigated the spatiotemporal variations of rainfall amount, days, and intensity for four types of diurnal precipitation process on the Loess Plateau in summertime (from June to August), including sunny days and rainy nighttime, hot daytime and rainy nighttime, rainfall days for diurnal composite precipitation, as well as rainy daytime and rainless nighttime. The results are as follows: 1) From 2000 to 2020, the Loess Plateau witnessed a significant increase of precipitation amount in summertime and nighttime, which had not changed the spatial pattern characterized by a decreasing gradient of precipitation from southeast to northwest. 2) Consistent with the fluctuating precipitation amount and decreased precipitation days, there was a significant increasing trend for the precipitation intensity in sunny days and rainy nighttime, rainfall days for diurnal composite precipitation, rainy daytime and rainless nighttime from 2000 to 2020, while for hot daytime and rainy nighttime the precipitation intensity maintained stable fluctuations after the 1990s. 3) Areas in the central arid zone of Ningxia, eastern part of the Hetao Plain, northern Shanxi Province, and from the Fen-Wei Plain to the Yiluo River Plain were sensitive to the variations of sunny days and rainy nighttime. However, the Earth-Rock Mountain and high-altitude regions of the southwestern Loess Plateau are sensitive to hot daytime and rainy nighttime changes. Meanwhile, we observed a high sensitivity for the variations of rainfall days for diurnal composite precipitation, as well as rainy daytime and rainless nighttime in the valley and plain areas of the southeastern part of the Loess Plateau. The findings highlight that the increased intensity of daytime precipitation and diurnal composite precipitation is changing the patterns of diurnal extreme precipitation on the Loess Plateau, inspiring to enhance the research regarding the variations and mechanism of diurnal extreme precipitation in summertime.
To support the safe and effective growth of regions, resilient city networks should be built in metropolitan areas. Current research is focused on understanding how disaster risk propagates in city networks and assessing network resilience. This study developed a multiplex city network model composed of facility and function based on the fundamental concept of the city network, and investigated the functional, physical, and geographic relationships across networks. Second, we examined the resilience of the multiplex city network in terms of both the structure and function and the network as a whole and local areas. Third, we illustrated how disaster risks spread in the multiplex city network from three perspectives—propagation path, propagation process, and propagation impact, which establish a logical relationship between disaster impact and network resilience. Lastly, we proposed a three-step framework for assessing the resilience of multiplex city networks: modeling the multiplex city network, simulating risk propagation of the network, and using indicastors to measure the network's resilience. The feasibility and validity of the framework were verified by the case study of resilience assessment of the "road-people's flow" multiplex city network in the Wuhan metropolitan area under the impact of flooding. The case results demonstrate that as disaster risks spread through the network, certain cities' structural and functional status will alter, drawing attention to these changes as a means of enhancing network resilience. For instance, some cities and network paths will have much less connectedness and as a result, these cities should improve their own preparedness during the latent phase of disasters and recovery capacity during the mitigation phase. Certain cities and paths have an absorptive capability during the risk outbreak period that helps keep the city network operating as intended. This research offered a fresh look at the theory and methodology of city network resilience assessment that considers disaster risk transmission. It concentrated on the real requirements for the development of regional network security. By examining and altering the interactions between cities, the suggested framework can contribute to making city networks more resilient.
Exploring the impact of urban morphology on the thermal environment is crucial for implementing sustainable urban planning and improving thermal conditions of cities. However, current research on the multiscale analysis of the heterogeneity in urban morphology's thermal environmental effects at the community scale is still insufficient, and the process of effectively integrating research findings into urban planning and management practices also faces numerous challenges. This study focused on the Nankai District, a typical high-density urban area in Tianjin Municipality, and used the building vector data and Landsat 8 remote sensing imagery to quantify urban morphology and land surface temperatures during the summer at the community scale. It integrated the multiscale geographically weighted regression and K-means clustering methods to investigate the spatial heterogeneity of urban morphology's impact on land surface temperatures and to perform cluster zoning. The results revealed that: 1) The summer land surface temperatures in Nankai District exhibited a high in the north and low in the south distribution with significant spatial autocorrelation, forming high-high and low-low aggregation patterns. 2) The multiscale geographically weighted regression model significantly outperformed ordinary least squares and geographically weighted regression models in fitting and explaining the relationship between urban morphology and land surface temperatures. 3) The impact of urban morphology factors on summer land surface temperatures showed multiscale spatial heterogeneity, with influences ranking from highest to lowest as follows: building density > normalized difference vegetation index > floor area ratio > building volume density, where building density and building volume density contributed to higher temperatures, whereas the normalized difference vegetation index and floor area ratio had a notable cooling effect. 4) Clustering based on the spatial heterogeneity of urban morphology indicators affecting summer land surface temperatures allowed the study area to be divided into three distinct regions, which enabled the formulation of differentiated planning strategies. The findings of this study provide a basis for optimizing community thermal environments. Moreover, effectively integrating multiscale geographically weighted regression and K-means clustering methods offers new perspectives and methodological frameworks for urban thermal environment research and related fields.
