A Study On The Relationship Between Urbanization And Economic Development In Yunnan Province And Its Spatial Pattern

Since the Reform and Opening up, the urbanization and economic developmentof Yunnan Province have achieved considerable progress. The number, population,size and lifestyle of cities and towns have undergone tremendous changes. Theprocess of urbanization continues to deepen and has become an important feature ofthe economic development in Yunnan Province. Economic Mode Transformation,Upgrading of Industrial Structure and Industrialization also provide opportunities tothe development of urbanization in Yunnan. Thus, to study the relationship betweenthe two can let urbanization and economic development move forward towards in amore coordinated way.This paper, based on the theories of urbanization and economic development inNew Urban Economics, Development Economics and New Economic Geography,using statistical software SPSS and quadrantal diagram analysis method of ChenMingxing, based on the national statistics of1989,1999，2009and2011, empiricalresearch horizontally and vertically to study the relationship between Yunnan’surbanization rate and five variable factors of economic development level, and alsothe gap between Yunnan’s urbanization rate and the national average. The results ofthe analysis indicate: First, To analyze from the perspective of positive-negativecorrelation, in Yunnan’s16cities and states, only the level of urbanization and allvariables of economic development level of Kunming, Pu’er, Dali, Diqing remainpositive correlation, while most of other regions are negatively correlated. To analyzefrom the perspective of degree of correlation, highly correlated are cities includingPu’er and Lincang，12cities and prefectures in Yunnan Province. Second, the spatialdifference between Yunnan’s urbanization and economic development level.(1) In2011the province’s16cities and prefectures unit is classified into six types.Urbanization of one of them are moderately advanced; urbanization of seven of themare slightly aheaded; two of them are basically coordinated, urbanization of three of them slightly lag behind; urbanization of one of them is moderately retarded;urbanization of two of them seriously lag behind.(2) On the scale of city and state,the relationship between urbanization and economic development level hassignificant regional differences. In different regions of Yunnan Province, both on thelevel of urbanization lagging behind the level of economic development the city state,there are regions whose level of urbanization lag behind level of economicdevelopment, and also the regions whose level of urbanization is ahead of its level ofeconomic development, and the degree of lag behind or advance between the citiesand states are quite different; a few cities and states belongs to the type that hasbasically coordinated relationship between urbanization and economic development.(3) On the scale of city and state, the relationship between urbanization and economicdevelopment has obvious north-south differences. The northern regions are mainlyurbanization lag behind the level of economic development type, such as the Nujiang,Diqing; while the central and southern zones are mainly characterized as urbanizationahead of economic development, such as Kunming, Pu’er. Therefore, two importantimplications can be drawn:①The current situation of urbanization speedingphenomenon in many cities and prefectures in Yunnan is worthy of attention andprecaution.②Urbanization in northern parts of city and state are still needed tovigorously develop.(4) The relationship between urbanization and economicdevelopment level is similar to the Matthew Effect. From the relationship betweenurbanization and economic development level, and spatial pattern, we can see that inregions with higher economic development, such as central and southern regions, theurbanization of are mostly ahead of economic development; while in economicallyunderdeveloped regions, such as northern regions, urbanization are mostly morelagged behind their lower economic development level.