The Morphology of Urban Agglomerations for Developing Countries: A Case Study with China

TL;DR

This paper investigates the distribution of urban populations in China, contrasting with developed countries, and proposes a model explaining urban morphology through job creation and SEZs, aligning well with empirical data.

Contribution

It introduces a model for urban agglomeration distribution in developing countries, incorporating job creation and SEZ effects, extending prior theories mainly focused on developed nations.

Findings

Chinese urban distribution differs from developed countries.

SEZs improve model-data agreement.

Job creation influences urban morphology.

Abstract

In this article, the relationship between two well-accepted empirical propositions regarding the distribution of population in cities, namely, Gibrat's law and Zipf's law, are rigorously examined using the Chinese census data. Our findings are quite in contrast with the most of the previous studies performed exclusively for developed countries. This motivates us to build a general environment to explain the morphology of urban agglomerations both in developed and developing countries. A dynamic process of job creation generates a particular distribution for the urban agglomerations and introduction of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in this abstract environment shows that the empirical observations are in good agreement with the proposed model.