Kunshan Export-oriented City And Its Dynamic Analysis

Urbanization is an inexorable trend of the social and economical development; urbanization level is a significant indicator of the level of industrialization and modernization of a country or a region. In general, the speed of regional urbanization and the quality of urban development are to a large extent directly related with the driving forces and mechanism of urbanization. Kunshan, a county-level city, locating in the core of Yangtze River Delta, takes great efforts to develop export-oriented economy with the process of continuous influx of foreign capital and increasing number of population, and becomes the typical representative in China. Kunshan’s urban economy and urban-scale has developed and expanded rapidly since reform and opening-up. As a result the level of urbanization has risen rapidly after2000, and the level of urbanization is high at present. The urbanization of Kunshan has the characteristics of exo-urbanization which is a new urbanization type proposed by V. F. S. Sit and Chun Yang. Kunshan’export-oriented urbanization shows an explosive development trend and its internal development process and drive mechanism can not be fully explained by the traditional theory of urbanization, so some further research is needed.This thesis focuses on the urban development of Kunshan and the actual process of urbanization and measures the level of urbanization by using different demographical statistical approaches. Remote sensing is used to analyze the expansion of built area. Here the characteristics of urbanization in Kunshan are described from the perspectives of demographic, economic and social. Based on the theories of urban economics, urbanology, geography, with the help of several related studies on driving forces of urbanization and mechanism, the author try to develop an analysis framework of the driving forces of urbanization. The main argument of the paper is that the changes of industrial structure, the increasing of foreign-invested enterprises and the floating population are the three main motivities of Kunshan’s urbanization. In order to explore the driving forces of urbanization a key quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis of Kunshan’s exogenous urbanization is developed by using multiple methods. The driving forces of urbanization in Kunshan are not independent, they interrelate and affect each other, and all contribute to the development of urbanization. Several problems existing in the development of urbanization are given according to the analysis of the urban development in Kunshan. This paper also tries to propose some suggestions and ideas for the healthy and sustainable development of urbanization in Kunshan.