Study On The Rhythm Of Population Suburbanization In Shanghai

Population suburbanization is an important shift of urban population's distribution from centripetal congregation to centrifugal diffusion. Alike other natural geographical phenomena, it also contains rhythm, which means rhythmic and regulatory occurrence could be observed during its development. It is of great empirical and applied importance to study this rhythm.As the biggest metropolis in China, Shanghai has obvious suburbanization in population distribution. Adopting analysis of statistics and GIS, as well as other research methods of human geography, this study attempts to explore a general rule of the population suburbanization in Shanghai by observing time sequences from analyzing different stages of population distribution in Shanghai. It also discussed the interaction between social-economic development and population suburbanization. Analysis on the dynamic mechanism causing population suburbanization in Shanghai is also carried out and the observed rule and mechanism are validated by a detailed examination on population distribution changes of Pudong New District, an inner district of Shanghai.The following conclusions could be made through this study:Emergency of population suburbanization could be dated back to 1980s, symbolized by lower population growth of core districts, compared with that of outer districts. From then on, population suburbanization continuously developed outward, with presence of continuous decrease of population density gradient and shift from abruptness to plainness of Population Density Distribution Curve in term of space. Different from the mechanism of suburbanization in western cities, suburbanization in Shanghai was ahead of local economic development. It was closely related with changes of governance regulations, urban planning, development of real estate market, infrastructure construction, and rebuilding of old residence region. As a part of Shanghai, Pudong New District was also observed with tendency of population of suburbanization, with presence of centrifuge population mobility.