Jiangnan Towns, Cities And Regions

Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, town in Wu County had experienced rapid progress with the development of commodity economy and family handicraft industries, mainly went through three stages-formation stage, development stage and mature stage, and ultimately formed a relatively mature town network structure system until the period of Republic. From the perspective of geographical distribution, we can find that the development of towns was mostly influenced by natural factors, such as natural geographical environment, water and land transportation and economic structure in the early stages.In modern times, with the prosperity of the commodity economy, towns got rid of natural environent restrictions gradually, while the effect of market took advantages instead. These phenomena were more obvious in the economic developed areas in the south of Jiangsu region. According to the analyse of this thesis, there are certain similarities in the distribution of towns of Wu County and G. WilliamSkinner’s Mode.During recent years, towns of Wu Province have appeared different degree of decline because of the changes of the traffic, the decline of the traditional handicraft industries and the impact of modern industries. On the other hand, the towns also have emerged modern factors under the influence of modern style, such as the variation in the construction of municipal, industrial, transportation and social customs. Cities in Wu County also have experienced decline due to the fading of the leading industries, the imbalance of commercial and industrial structure and the attenuation of cities’ economic functions. Towns and cities, acting as the important components of "Urban Area", the weakening of their relationship is bound to lead to decline of the whole.In the regional society, cities play an important role as a part of whole system. Recently, city system of the south of Jiangsu whose center is Shanghai has formed gradually. The division of labor and cooperation among cities contribute to the prosperity and development of the whole city system. Suzhou. which is the "Second Financial Center" followed with Shanghai, has played a very excellent communication and promotion role in the improvement of financial circulation and the development of industries and commerce in the south of Jiangsu. As "The biggest city" in this area, Shanghai not only produces positive radiation for the surrounding areas but also highly concentrates all kinds of resources such as capital, talent and raw materials, labor from their affiliated areas with its geographical advantages providing relatively inhibition to the affiliated cities.