Study On The New Trend Of Urbanization Development In Hunan Province From The Perspective Of "Shrinking City" Theory

The city life cycle includes the city’s growth and decline.In the background of slowing down of global economy,more and more cities are in the dilemma of population loss and economic recession,and the "long-term and all-region growth" is no longer realistic.The theory of shrinking city is a reflection of the growth paradigm and provides a possible path for the cities who suffer from population loss.In China,the process of urbanization not only creates the myth of growth,but also creates the area where the growth power is lost due to the population output,and it is neglected because of the long-term growth.Therefore,it is necessary to carry on the localization research of shrinking theory in China,and it can provide some new ways of thinking and useful advices for its urbanization.On the basis of summarizing the theory of shrinking city at home and abroad,this paper chooses Hunan Province,which is a large population export province,as a regional research case.There are more population loss areas except the growth of Chang-Zhu-Tan and this province is facing the new tendency of city shrinkage.Based on the data of the two censuses in 2000 and 2010 and the socioeconomic data of the past year,this paper conducts a quantitative analysis of population loss under the scale of provincial,prefecture,county and township streets.We found that the province faces a forthcoming slowing of total population growth and an ongoing decline of the labor pool(population aged 16-64 years).Regardless of this context,targets are too high in the expectations for further population and land growth that are contained within planning documents which resulting in a contradictory situation of“slow-down in population growth and increase in construction land supply".At the county scale,more than half of them are facing the labor pool’s shrinkage or stagnation,and three types are summarized according to its mechanism:population taking over,labor hollowing-out and resource degrading.In the study of the more detailed town scale,it is found that a statistically significant clustering of population growth in major prefecture-and county-level cities,which are surrounded by generally scattered shrinking regions,and county-level cities were seated at the very edge of population gain or loss in the process of urbanization.After analyzing the current situation of the shrinkage of different geographical units,this paper analyzes Leishuijiang’s shrinkage course,the motive mechanism and the government’s strategies in the framework of the shrinking theory.Thus,we can learn about the local government’s attitude towards the shrinkage:growth and shrinking has not yet been included in the same discourse system.Population are constant in the period of time and growth and shrinkage are undoubtedly co-exist,so the urbanization of the development of different situations clearly need different ways of thinking and diversified means of governance.It is recommended that the provincial government should prepare for coming decades of population shrinkage,and started to find alternative urbanization pathways during the labor population decline.And also take shrinking as an opportunity to develop compact,but higher quality,urban spaces.