An Empirical Study Of Urban Hierarchy And Its Service Industry Development Differences In The Pearl River Delta

Under the background of deepening development of global economic integration,the service industry has got an increasingly prominent position in the nationaleconomy. Over the past decade, many countries in the world have recognized thehuge profits in the service industry as well as its enormous contribution to the nationaleconomy development.The service industry’s development depends on the city which is a natural carrierof the service industry. After years of historical change, most cities have formed aservice-oriented industrial structure. Existed academic studies have also shown thatthere is a close relationship between urban hierarchy and its services development.Since1996, the services of the nine cities in the Pearl River Delta have developedrapidly. However, the urban services development differences of different types ofcities have gradually expanded. Expanding services development differences arebound to affect the urban services’ sustainable development.First of all, according to the urban population and economic development level,this paper divides the nine cities of the Pearl River Delta into three categories andthen it analyzes the urban services development differences of the three categories ofcities from1996to2010. Secondly, based on the new growth theory, it uses panel datamodel to analyze the related factors’ effects on the urban services development ofthree categories of cities. Thirdly, it uses the gray prediction method to forecast thefuture development trends of urban services of the three different categories of cities.Finally, on the basis of above empirical analysis and the features of the three differentcategories of cities, it provides some advices on how to develop urban services, so asto make a further study of urban hierarchy and its services development differences.