Hongming Zhang (p)

Ben Derudder

External urban relations have been studied for decades in the literature of regional science, which are described as central place theory and central flow theory. However, the relationship between these two general urban processes, the central place process and the central flow process, is not clear. This study explores how the central flow process facilitate the central place process based on the urban networks in China. We find that the central flow process can facilitate the central place process within a nation, but the central flow process only facilitates the flows between central cities and hinterland cities not the flows among hinterland cities. Moreover, the central flow process facilitates the flows from hinterland cities to central cities more than that from central cities to hinterland cities, which suggests the polarization or backwash effects, causing agglomeration shadow. The facilitation is generated by the upstream-downstream relationships between the advanced producer service in central flow process and the manufacturing industry in central place process.

Yizhao Du (p), Rodrigo Cardoso

Nino Javakhishvili-larsen

The Chinese regional development pattern, prioritizing growth poles, brought great wealth in the 1990s during the wave of globalization, marketization, and decentralization of the national economy, but at the cost of massive inter-regional unevenness. Such unevenness has been perceived as a threat by authorities over the past three decades. Therefore, the cultivation of new "growth poles" in underdeveloped regions has been recognized as a competitive way to address the problem. With the rise of an increasing number of regional core cities under policy preferences and prioritized development plans, another issue has begun to emerge as a bottleneck to sustainable regional growth: intra-regional unevenness. Namely, there is a growing development gap between the regional core cities and the smaller neighboring secondary cities. This not only puts overwhelming economic, social, and environmental pressure on the core cities, but also exposes these smaller players to urban shrinkage and industrial decline. Faced with such challenges, mega-regions have been promoted by the authorities as a panacea for rebalancing the regional development system. It is an emerging spatial concept for strengthening regional connections and fostering inter-city cooperation through re-centralized governance. Over the past decade, the central government has approved plans for 19 mega-regions. By interpreting the planning documents and the history of mega-regionalization, this paper aims to understand the position and expectations of secondary cities, which have not been thoroughly noticed and studied, in mega-regionalization. We find that economic upgrading is a requirement for secondary cities in the emerging mega-regional system and a gateway of opportunity for these cities to better integrate and benefit from the mega-regional system. The planning expectations for economic upgrading of secondary cities have three levels, including the optimization of traditional heavy industries, the introduction of emerging high-end economic clusters, and the development of locally specific economic sectors. This is aimed at enhancing the quality of the overall industry and economy of the region on one hand, and the formation of virtuous partnerships between the cities within the region towards a diversified and complementary economic structure on the other hand. However, we also observe that underlying this planning vision, the winding path to economic upgrading brings more challenges to most of secondary cities.

Wander Demuynck (p), Ben Derudder, Evert Meijers

Yizhao Du

Multiple urban processes are unevenly weaving formerly rural or suburban places into the fabric of metropolitan regions, especially in Europe. Collectively termed ‘metropolisation’, these integrative processes produce an increasing number of places situated in between erstwhile urban, suburban, or rural areas, and are hence referred to as ‘interplaces’. Although interplaces have long remained secondary to their primary urban counterparts, a growing body of literature on different types of interplaces as diverse as Sieverts’ (2003) Zwischenstadt, Garreau’s (1991) Edge City and many other types of peripheral centralities has emerged. Despite the many similarities across these interplace-concepts, they each stem from a particular geographical context and/or a particular perspective, hampering a comprehensive analysis that traces commonalities and highlights differences. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to establish conceptual clarity in the manifold concepts that make reference to interplaces by producing a typology of interplaces. We do so by employing the metropolisation framework developed by Cardoso & Meijers (2021) and its tripartite dimensions of spatial-functional, political-institutional, and cultural-symbolic integration. Within this framework, interplaces can be defined as those places that are shaped by ongoing integration in the wider metropolitan region yet where contradictory processes of integration unfold. In a similar vein, they can be classified depending on the dimensions according to which they are or are not integrated. We operationalise each dimension of metropolitan integration and illustrate each type of interplace with an example from the Metropolitan Core Area of Belgium, the urban area roughly delineated by the cities of Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, and Leuven and characterised by a seemingly incomprehensible and structureless regional urbanisation. By disentangling metropolitan integration into three dimensions and operationalising each for the Metropolitan Core Area of Belgium, this research contributes to a systematic and nuanced comprehension of interplaces and their socio-economic, cultural, and political tensions.

Borys Cieslak, Paula Nagler (p), Frank van Oort

Wander Demuynck

Among Polish cities facing socioeconomic difficulties are the former regional capitals which lost their administrative status due to the 1998 reform, reducing the number of regions. Making use of this quasi-experimental setting, we assess the impact of the loss of administrative status on the affected cities with difference-in-differences estimations. Our findings show the negative impact of the regional amalgamation on economic and, to a lesser extent, on other dimensions of local development. We identify the reform’s contribution to the growing disparity between the second-tier and the largest cities and reflect on the design of place-based compensatory measures.

Nino Javakhishvili-larsen (p), Hans Thor Andersen

Paula Nagler

This paper examines counterurban migration in Denmark, focusing on the impact of human capital immigration on II-tier towns and III-tier rural areas. Using Danish micro register and geographical data, we analyze migrants moving from large cities to smaller towns and villages, employing Javakhishvili-Larsen & Hansen’s (2023) methodology to identify urban typologies. The study extends human capital beyond formal education, considering age, job skills, and socioeconomic characteristics. Addressing a gap in existing research, we introduce the Regional Entropy Index (REI) Model to measure geographical diversification of human capital attributes.

Methodologically, we use pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Year Fixed Effect (FE) models. Preliminary results reveal significant correlations between entropy of human capital attributes and average wage in destination municipalities. In II-tier towns and III-tier rural areas, attributes like age, wage, and occupation entropy show positive correlations with average wage, suggesting diversification. Conversely, education entropy exhibits a negative correlation, indicating segmented education attributes.

This paper contributes to understanding migration's economic impact in Denmark and offers insights for policymakers and researchers interested in the relationship between human capital, migration, and regional economic development. Particularly valuable for practitioners in II-tier and III-tier towns, it challenges conventional views on human capital measurement, introducing the Regional Entropy model for studying local economies outside major cities.