A Research On Pattern Of Economic Growth In Mega-cities

Mega-cities are outcomes of development of economy and society which are at the top of a country's city system. Mega-cities are defined by its population. According to National Bureau of Statistics of China, mega-city is a city with a population of 2 million in its urban area. Mega-cities are important to national economy since they usually are economy, politics and culture centers and growth pole in surrounding areas. As a result, their economic growth patterns are significant to the whole country.Since the reform and opening-up, the number of mega-cities of China has increased rapidly and the scale has kept continuously extending. The economic efficiency, economic openness degree and intensive degree of mega-cities are correspondingly high so that they play important role in the upgrading of the industrial structure. At the same time, they also face many problems such as bottlenecks of land resource, entironment and service capability, and echo effect causing the"loss of blood"surrounding areas. These problems inevitably influence the potential and prospects of economic growth of mega-cities to a large extent. In order to strengthen the role of mega-cities in promoting national economy, make best of all the resources and keep rapid and sustainable economic growth, it's necessary to study the economic growth pattern.In the existing theoretical results, economic growth pattern is in the absence of a clear definition. This article presents a specific connotation from the level of mega-cities; namely, economic growth pattern of mega-cities includes four aspects: driving force of economic growth, resource allocation, resource exploiting efficiency and environmental support ability and relationship between mega-cities and their surrounding areas. Economic growth patterns of mega-cities are decided by history, economic status and functions etc. and can be compared and evaluated by the economic growth outcomes, economic potential and growth sustainability.Beijing and Shanghai are the top mega-cities in China whose economic growth patterns represent the developing trend of national economy and national economic growth pattern. They also can be references for other mega-cities.This dissertation analyze the economic growth patterns of Beijing and shanghai with both the deductive method and inductive method. Based the literature review, the dissertation studies a large number of authoritative data using quantitative analysis methods including diagrams, marginal analysis and flexibility analysis. In addition, SWOT matrix is also used to discuss the developing trend of Beijing and Shanghai economic growth patterns. With the cases study, general conclusions are made on the selection and improvement of mega-cities economic growth patterns.Economic growth pattern of Beijing is characterized by domestic demand-driven growth and market-oriented mechanism. With the position of "national capital, international city, cultural city, livable city" becomes clear, Beijing had speed up its upgrading of industrial structure with ordinary manufacturing industry being transferred to surrounding areas and tertiary industry becoming the pillar of industrial structure. In addition, the intensive degree of economy has increased in Beijing. As to relationship with its neighboring region, echo effect is greater than spreading effect leading to increasing competition and hurt to the competitive ability of the whole region. The economic growth pattern of Shanghai is characterized by engines both of domestic demand-driven and foreign-related business driven growth and strong local government-led economic growth. With the dominant position of mordern manufacturing and service industries, the intensive degree of resource exploiting has been improved. Compared with Beijing, Shanghai holds a more friend relationship with its surrounding areas so that Yangtze River Delta region provides strong support to it. Generally speaking, the economic growth patterns of Beijing and Shanghai have both common points and different points. Overall, economic growth patterns of the two cities have matched their history, functions, resources endowment and development trend and are successful on the whole with the sustainability and intensive degree of economy increasing. However, bottlenecks of resources leave unsolved, intensive degree needs further improve and market mechanism has to be strengthened. From the analysis of economic growth patterns of Beijing and Shanghai, different cities have different economic growth patterns. The most important thing is meet their economic growth patterns with their functions and resource endowments. In one word, the orientation of economic growth pattern of mega-cities is to increase the sustainability of economic development continuously.Although in recent years, mega-cities of China have paid special attention to and accelerated their pace of economic growth pattern transition aiming at increasing their intensive degree, improving the cooperation with surrounding areas and strengthening the domestic demand-driven growth. At the same time, problems still exist including unclear functions, insufficiency of comparative advantages, convergence of industrial structures and economic growth patterns and resource constraints. So, mega-cities should make further progress on economic growth patterns. The first thing is to make clear position. Central Government should layout national economy guide the functions planning of mega-cities and local governments should make the position based on scientific analysis of their status. The second thing is to push up the upgrading of industry structure with stimulating the domestic demand of economy growth and adjusting the relationship between investment and consumption. As to Beijing and Shanghai, they have strong economic power and international prestige and should be built up to international cities.The main innovation lies on two things. One is that the specific connotation of economic growth pattern of mega-cities is defined in this dissertation. The other thing is that the whole pattern of economic growth pattern of mega-cities is described different with most of existing researches focusing on certain aspects of mega-cities. However, this article inevitably has deficiencies such as the weak representation of Beijing and Shanghai as well as lack of the depth of quantitative analysis.