Understanding spatial structures and organizational patterns of city networks in China: A highway passenger flow perspective

Abstract

The use of multi-perspective and multi-scalar city networks has gradually developed into a range of critical approaches to understand spatial interactions and linkages. In particular, road linkages represent key characteristics of spatial dependence and distance decay, and are of great significance in depicting spatial relationships at the regional scale. Therefore, based on highway passenger flow data between prefecture-level administrative units, this paper attempted to identify the functional structures and regional impacts of city networks in China, and to further explore the spatial organization patterns of the existing functional regions, aiming to deepen our understanding of city network structures and to provide new cognitive perspectives for ongoing research. The research results lead to four key conclusions. First, city networks that are based on highway flows exhibit strong spatial dependence and hierarchical characteristics, to a large extent spatially coupled with the distributions of major megaregions in China. These phenomena are a reflection of spatial relationships at regional scales as well as core-periphery structure. Second, 19 communities that belong to an important type of spatial configuration are identified through community detection algorithm, and we suggest they are correspondingly urban economic regions within urban China. Their spatial metaphors include the administrative region economy, spatial spillover effects of megaregions, and core-periphery structure. Third, each community possesses a specific city network system and exhibits strong spatial dependence and various spatial organization patterns. Regional patterns have emerged as the result of multi-level, dynamic, and networked characteristics. Fourth, adopting a morphology-based perspective, the regional city network systems can be basically divided into monocentric, dual-nuclei, polycentric, and low-level equilibration spatial structures, while most are developing monocentrically.

Uncovering Spatial Structures of Regional City Networks from Expressway Traffic Flow Data: A Case Study from Jiangsu Province, China

“…According to the city-dyads connection axle, their hierarchy and geographical distance have clear spatial interactions and superposition; the close connection within a short distance is a clear "localization", or could describe the functional connection inside a relatively complete regional system. (3) Using community detection to explore city or urban network structures is a new method in city-region analysis [24,38,39]. Six spatially connected and clearly defined "city communities" are identified and four spatial metaphors are found in Jiangsu by using the Walktrap algorithm of community detection in our study, which is similar to Chen's study by using the Infomap algorithm of community detection for extracting spatial structure and organization patterns of China's city networks based on the highway passenger flows [39].…”

“…(3) Using community detection to explore city or urban network structures is a new method in city-region analysis [24,38,39]. Six spatially connected and clearly defined "city communities" are identified and four spatial metaphors are found in Jiangsu by using the Walktrap algorithm of community detection in our study, which is similar to Chen's study by using the Infomap algorithm of community detection for extracting spatial structure and organization patterns of China's city networks based on the highway passenger flows [39]. From the results, our study suggests that the community detection method would be a powerful analytical tool in the quantitative analysis of multi-scale city networks' spatial structure.…”

Spatial Pattern and Regional Relevance Analysis of the Maritime Silk Road Shipping Network

“…The mode of spatial arrangement was analyzed in terms of road passenger flow [46], railway passenger flow [47], and corporate contacts [48]. In order to portray the geographical spatial distribution of traffic flow in a port, this paper analyzes the characteristic by the mode of spatial arrangement.…”

Exploring Spatial and Temporal Connection Patterns among the Districts in Chongqing Based on Highway Passenger Flow

“…Data on passenger air and railway flow are easy to obtain and have great advantages in large-scale network research, but there are considerable limitations on urban connection research in smaller areas. To better study urban linkages at a smaller scale, highway passenger flow has become widely used as an alternative to air and rail flow [10,11]. The related research enriches the empirical cases of different traffic flows for urban network systems of different scales to some extent and analyzes the basic characteristics of the spatial structure, network association and hierarchical structure of regional connections.…”