The Regional Difference Study Of Urban Population Growth Path In China

Population agglomeration and dispersion are two diametrically opposed processes of population movement,which are the most direct representation of the prosperity and decline of cities.In view of the imbalance in economic and social development,there are regional differences in the growth of modern urban population.According to the《2018 Report on China’s Migrant Population Development》,it shows that the total floating population of 2017 is 244.5 million,0.82 million more than 2016,which means the floating population go to adjustment period after long rapid growth.China’s labor,particularly migrant workers,have a tendency to return from the eastern coastal areas to the central and western regions along with industrial gradients,① The slow decline of population size and new distribution of the floating population from east to west will optimize the distribution of human capital across the region,and the choice of inflowing area will not only affect the urban development,but influence the reconstruction of China’s urban structure.For these reasons,we need in-depth research on the flowing directions of China’s floating population,the change of population size in every region and its influencing factors.On the current spatial distribution of China’s urban population,population growth in metropolitan cities has weakened for the significant increasing marginal cost and the decreasing net benefit.And with the investment,management technology and other factors concentrated in the second-tier and third-tier cities,and the industries in the large cities and coastal cities are transferred to small and medium-sized cities and inland cities,so the wages gap between small cities and big cities has gradually narrowed and the original path of labor transfer has been changed.In addition,the infrastructure of small and medium-sized cities has gradually improved,and the level of education,medical care,public services has been continuously developed,and employment opportunities increase,which has led to an increase of population gathering capacity of small and medium-sized cities.The labor migration path will meet new changes based on a measure of net utility of individual.This paper aims to analyze the different urban population growth path between the eastern,central and western regions,then explain the differences from the perspective of cost and benefit,combining the economic and social development backgrounds,and finally judge there will be more balanced or big cities will gather more population and judge eastern cities or central and western cities will concentrate more population.From this paper we can foresee China’s urban population distribution is tending to gather or disperse.From the perspective of cost and benefit,this paper has theoretical analysis on the growth of urban population scale,constructing four kinds of curves of a city’s population growth and five kinds of curves of a region’s city population growth.Using the data of 2002-2014 in 286 cities of prefecture level or higher,the paper analyzes the population growth in western,central and eastern cities alone to test the hypothesis.Research found that(1)the population growth curve in western,central and eastern cities is decreasing then increasing curve,decreasing curve,increasing then decreasing curve respectively;(2)wages,housing price,capital accumulation,environment and education are the main influencing factors of eastern cities;provincial capital,fixed asset investment and industrial structure are the main influencing factors in the central cities;wages,transportation,infrastructure and provincial capital are the main influencing factors in the western cities;(3)single city’s population growth curve is mainly increasing then decreasing curve and decreasing then increasing curve in west,increasing then decreasing curve and decreasing curve in central region,increasing then decreasing curve and decreasing then increasing curve in east.(4)China’s urban population growth curve is decreasing then increasing then decreasing,and urban population distribution is tending to gather in large cities and disperse in mega cities;corresponding urban population size of extreme point is 1.276 million in east,1.158 million in west,and cities in the central region with more than the urban population size of 0.480 million will meet little change in the population growth rate,and remain stable at a low level;the growth rate of population in large cities in east is mainly above 2.The agglomeration effect of China’s Urban population scale has not fully released,and population growth in large cities still has room for growth,further attracting more residents.From the perspective of city size,large cities will gather more people;from the regional perspective,the eastern region is still the main region that attracts population movements.The capacity of attracting people in the western regions is increasing,and the central regions should increase provincial capitals’ability of concentrating people.