Changes In Beijing And New York's Industrial Structure

During the second decade of the21stcentury, the Beijing government put forward thedevelopment goal of building a world city. Thereafter, the boom of “world city study”appeared in the regional economy circle in Beijing. At present, however, the studies arelimited to comparative studies of world cities like New York, London and Tokyo in termsof general index. There is still an obvious lack of the comparative study of world city’sindustrial structure, especially the internal industrial structure. At the same time, the recentBeijing-Tianjin-Hebei Synergetic Development Conference also proposes a problem thatawaits urgent solution for Beijing. Against the backdrop of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebeisynergetic development, what industries conform to the development goal of buildingBeijing into a world city and what industries need the support from its surrounding areas,which may be clear from the developing study of the industrial structures of Beijing andNew York.Proceeding from this research background and objective, the author carries anin-depth research into the evolution of industrial structures of Beijing and New York, andsummarizes its main contributing factors. Apart from the unique resource endowment, thetwo industrial structure’s evolutions are greatly influenced by the economic and politicsystems which further determine the speed of the evolution. In addition, it is seen from theleading industry evolutions in the two places that classic industrial structure evolutiontheory may not fully apply in the limited area of the city. At least, both Beijing and NewYork enjoy their uniqueness. For the quantity comparative analysis of industrial structure,this thesis selects metropolitan statistical area of New York which is comparable to Beijingin terms of special scale, urban function, population size, etc. Also, there is a big differenceof economic aggregate between the two for Beijing has only one fifth of economicaggregate of New York’s urban metropolitan statistical area, but its economy developsrapidly. In the thrice industrial structure, the secondary industry has a higher proportion inthe Beijing’s national economy. Within the internal structure of manufacturing, heavychemical industry takes the lead in Beijing, while urban industry is the primary in NewYork. In the modern service industry, finance and real estate are the leading industries inthe two areas. But Beijing’s capital gathering ability is slightly inferior. By comparativeanalysis of the industrial structure development and status in the two cities, the authorthinks that Beijing should improve its industrial structure, speed up its building of worldcity and promote the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei synergic development in the following aspects:1. Importance should be attached to developing the tertiary industry with modern service industry as the core, weakening the influence of manufacturing industry over the regionaleconomy and insisting on the direction of industrialization.2. Manufacturing industryneeds to transfer from heavy chemical industry to urban industry.3. The Beijingcharacteristic modern service industry system should be formed.