Regionalization in the Yangtze River Delta, China, from the perspective of inter-city daily mobility

ABSTRACT

Regionalization in the Yangtze River Delta, China, from the perspective of inter-city daily mobility. Regional Studies. This paper applies a community detection algorithm to the Yangtze River Delta’s (YRD) daily inter-city mobility network to produce an interaction-based regionalization, and then explores the processes underlying this regional (re-)production by comparing it with attribute-based regionalization. The results show that political boundaries and historical patterns of socio-economic integration are strikingly visible, and the effects of overlapping physical, economic, cultural and administrative spaces on regional integration are apparent. The authors conclude that both notions of ‘territory’ and ‘network’ come together as the YRD region is spatially configured, while ‘regional path dependence’ also seems to be relevant for understanding its relational formation.

摘要

基于城际日常流动视角的中国长江三角洲区划研究。Regional Studies. 本文通过将社区探测技术应用至长三角 (YRD) 城际日常流动网络，进行了基于城际联系的区划，并通过与基于属性的区划方案进行对比，探索此一区域的 (再) 形成过程。研究结果发现，政治边界和社会经济整合的历史形成显而易见，且自然、经济、文化和行政空间对区域融合起到显著的叠加作用。本研究于结论中主张，“领域”和“网络”共同作用于长三角区域的空间组织，且“区域路径依赖”也似乎适用于理解区域的关系构造。

RÉSUMÉ

La régionalisation dans le delta du Yangtze, en Chine, du point de vue de la mobilité quotidienne interville. Regional Studies. Cet article applique un algorithme de détection de la structure communautaire au réseau de la mobilité quotidienne interville dans le delta du Yangtze pour élaborer une régionalisation fondée sur l’interaction, et il s’ensuit un examen des processus sous-jacents de cette (re-)construction régionale en la comparant à la régionalisation fondée sur les attributs. Les résultats laissent voir que les frontières politiques et l’évolution historique de l’intégration socioéconomique sont tout à fait évidentes, et que l’impact des zones de chevauchement physiques, économiques, culturelles et administratives sur l’intégration est plus marqué. Les auteurs concluent que les notions de ‘territoire’ et de ‘réseau’ se réunissent parce que le delta du Yangtze est configuré sur le plan spatial, alors que la notion de ‘dépendance du sentier’ à l’échelle régionale semble aussi aider à comprendre sa formation relationnelle.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Regionalisierung im chinesischen Yangtze-Delta aus der Perspektive der täglichen interurbanen Mobilität. Regional Studies. In diesem Beitrag erzeugen wir durch Anwendung eines Gemeinschaftserkennungs-Algorithmus auf das tägliche interurbane Mobilitätsnetzwerk im Yangtze-Delta eine auf Wechselwirkungen basierende Regionalisierung und untersuchen durch einen Vergleich mit der attributbasierten Regionalisierung die dieser regionalen (Re)produktion zugrundeliegenden Prozesse. Die Ergebnisse zeugen von frappierend sichtbaren politischen Grenzen und historischen Abläufen der sozioökonomischen Integration sowie von deutlichen Auswirkungen von sich überschneidenden physischen, wirtschaftlichen, kulturellen und administrativen Räumen auf die regionale Integration. Wir ziehen den Schluss, dass sich die Begriffe des ‘Gebiets’ und ‘Netzwerks’ bei der räumlichen Konfiguration der Yangtze-Delta-Region miteinander verbinden, während die ‘regionale Pfadabhängigkeit’ ebenfalls für ein Verständnis ihrer relationalen Bildung relevant zu sein scheint.

RESUMEN

Regionalización en el delta del río Yangtsé, China, desde la perspectiva de la movilidad interurbana diaria. Regional Studies. Mediante un algoritmo de detección comunitaria para la red de movilidad interurbana diaria en el delta del río Yangtsé, en este artículo producimos una regionalización basada en la interacción, y luego analizamos los procesos que subyacen en esta (re)producción regional comparándola con la regionalización basada en atributos. Los resultados muestran que las fronteras políticas y los patrones históricos de la integración socioeconómica son sorprendentemente visibles y que los efectos del solapamiento de espacios físicos, culturales y administrativos en la integración regional son evidentes. Concluimos que ambas nociones de ‘territorio’ y ‘red’ van de la mano, dado que la región en el delta del río Yangtsé está configurada espacialmente, mientras que la ‘dependencia de la ruta regional’ también parece ser relevante para entender su formación relacional.

KEYWORDS:

• regional geography
• regionalization
• urban interaction
• human movements
• community detection
• network analysis
• Yangtze River Delta

关键词:

• 区域地理
• 区划
• 城际互动
• 人口移动
• 社区探测
• 网络分析
• 长江三角洲

MOTS-CLÉS:

• géographie régionale
• régionalisation
• interaction urbaine
• mobilité humaine
• détection de la structure communautaire
• analyse des réseaux
• delta du Yangtze

SCHLÜSSELWÖRTER:

• Regionalgeografie
• Regionalisierung
• Wechselwirkungen zwischen Städten
• menschliche Bewegungen
• Gemeinschaftserkennung
• Netzwerkanalyse
• Yangtze-Delta

PALABRAS CLAVES:

• geografía regional
• regionalización
• interacción urbana
• movimientos humanos
• detección comunitaria
• análisis de redes
• delta del río Yangtsé

JEL:

• O18
• R1
• R58

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2017.1334878

ORCiD

Weiyang Zhang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8002-3207

Jianghao Wang http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5333-3827

Notes

1. In network science, a group of nodes that are more closely connected to one another than to the other nodes in their network is termed a ‘community’. For reasons of clarity, the clusters of cities generated by the community-detection technique in this paper are referred to as ‘communities’.

2. ‘City’ has two different meanings in China’s urban system. One is a municipal unit that consists of urban districts and extensive counties and is literally translated as ‘Shi’. The other is an urbanized or metropolitan area that approximately corresponds to the concept of ‘city’ in Europe and the United States. Such areas are literally translated as ‘Chengshi’. In this paper, ‘city’ refers to the municipal unit (for additional detail, see Chan, 2007). In addition, statutory cities in China consist of municipality-, prefecture- and county-level cities, and the latter are under the administrative jurisdiction of prefecture-level cities (for additional detail on China’s administrative divisions, see Ma, 2005).

3. Because our research object is cities, if a region has more than one landform, we unify physical landforms according to the landform of the urban centre. The partition according to dialects follows the same rule.

4. The official geographical scope of the Zhejiang ocean economic development demonstration zone in Figure 1(d) does not include the counties in Hangzhou. This paper extended its scope to include the extensive counties of Hangzhou to maintain a consistent research scale.

5. The number of monthly active users registered within the YRD is calculated based on the data from the Weibo users annual statistical report of 2014 issued by Sina Corp.

6. Newman–Girvan modularity is a quality measure of the community structure of networks. It is calculated by comparing the edge density within modules with the edge density in a random distribution with the same number of nodes (for additional detail, see Newman, 2006).

7. The range of modularity is from –1 to 1, with positive values indicating the presence of community structure. Values within the range of 0.3–0.7 are typically considered to signify a strong cluster structure.

Additional information

Funding

Jianghao Wang acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 41421001] and the Key Research Program of Frontier Science, CAS [grant number QYZDY-SSW-DQC007].