Compiled by Cloud River Urban Research Institute, a high-level think tank, the China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index 2019 was recently released. In the comprehensive ranking, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen occupy the top three positions, followed by Guangzhou, Tianjin, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing and Nanjing.
Compiled by Cloud River Urban Research Institute, a high-level think tank, the China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index 2019 was recently released. In the comprehensive ranking, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen occupy the top three positions, followed by Guangzhou, Tianjin, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing and Nanjing.
All the top nine cities for the 2019 ranking are the same as the year before, while the 10th, formerly Wuhan, have been replaced by a non-core city Suzhou. Several cities like Ningbo, Zhengzhou, Jinan, Fuzhou, Guiyang, Shijiazhuang, Nanning, and Yinchuan have all climbed higher in the ranking.
Shenyang, Changchun, and Harbin, the three provincial capitals in northeastern China, have moved down in the 2019 ranking by two, one and three places to the 21st, 26th and 29th, respectively. Due to the economic slowdown, these once-booming heavy industry bases are now in an awkward position in competition with other Chinese core cities.
A key feature of the China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index is that it is an analysis of 36 core cities, including four municipalities, 22 provincial capitals, five capitals of autonomous regions, and five cities with independent planning status, against the evaluation of growth performance of 297 cities at prefecture level or above across the country. According to the analysis, the 36 core cities account for 40.5% of China’s total GDP, 51.3% of the export of goods, 48.6% of the total number of authorized patents, 24% of the permanent resident population, 42% of the DID (Densely Inhabited Districts) population, 67.5% of the total number of listed companies on the main board, 94.8% of the prestigious universities under the Project 985 and Project 211, 57.8% of the five-star hotels, and 48.1% of the top hospitals.
The China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index 2019 mainly measures 10 major items, namely the city status, metropolitan area power, radiation ability, wide-area hub, opening and communications, business environment, innovation and entrepreneurship, ecological resources and environment, life quality, as well as culture and education. It is also supported by 30 sub-items and 114 sets of index data to comprehensively evaluate the high-quality development of core cities in a science-based, systematic and detailed manner.
The China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index is supported by a selection of 438 data sets closely related with its theme, including statistical data, satellite remote sensing data and internet data, from the 878 data sets which support the China Integrated City Index. Therefore, the China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index is a Multimodal Index that uses the “five senses” to analyze and measure a city’s development through statistical resources of different fields. For example, through satellite remote sensing data, we can analyse the relationship of population scale, distribution and density in DIDs with other factors like economic development, infrastructures, social development and ecological and environmental protection, elevating the research of metropolitan areas to a higher level.
It is worth noting that CO2 emissions data is included in the China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index 2019. Through years of efforts, Cloud River Urban Research Institute has finally been able to calculate CO2 emissions of each city through satellite data analysis and GIS analysis, which increased the accuracy and depth of its evaluations on the cities’ performance.
1.City status
Beijing and Shanghai top the city status ranking with overwhelming leads. Following them, Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chengdu and Wuhan round out the top 10. Compared with the 2018 index, Beijing and Shanghai have maintained their top two positions, while Tianjin, Chongqing and Shenzhen have climbed higher in the ranking. It is worth noting that Shenzhen has moved from ninth to sixth in the 2019 ranking.
The city status dimension not only looks at a city’s administrative levels, but also evaluates its status and performance in some key indexes like the Belt and Road initiative, and some National Strategies like the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Integrated Development.
Therefore, we have established three sub-dimensions including administrative function, megalopolis & metropolitan area, and the Belt and Road, which are supported by eight major indicating data sets namely administrative level, embassy & consulate, international organizations, megalopolis levels, core cities levels, metropolitan area levels, geological indexes under the Belt and Road, and historical status.
(1) Administrative function
The top 10 cities in this sub-dimension are Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu and Wuhan, demonstrating the advantage of national capital, municipalities, and provincial cities in this ranking.
(2) Megalopolis & metropolitan area
The top 10 cities in this sub-dimension are Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, Chongqing, and Hefei, illustrating the advantage of major megalopolises like the Yangtze River Delta Megalopolis, the Pearl River Delta Megalopolis, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Megalopolis, and Chengdu-Chongqing Megalopolis.
(3) The Belt and Road
The top 10 cities in this sub-dimension are Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Urumqi, Kunming, Nanjing, Lhasa, Xi’an and Tianjin. Compared with the 2018 figures, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Nanjing have remained their places, while Guangzhou, Urumqi, Kunming, Lhasa and Xi’an have climbed higher in the ranking. Cities along the Belt and Road and those with frequent trade and investment and people’s movement tend to score higher in this sub-dimension.
2.Metropolitan area power
The top three cities in this dimension are Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen with overwhelming leads. Following them, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Chengdu and Wuhan round out the top 10. Compared with the 2018 figures, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou have secured their places, while Chongqing and Hangzhou have moved up by one and two places in the 2019 ranking. Other cities that fare well in the new ranking are Ningbo, Zhengzhou, Fuzhou, Jinan, Kunming, Guiyang, Shijiazhuang, Xining, Yinchuan, Hohhot and Lhasa.
The metropolitan area power is a basic indicator for the growth performance of a core city. This dimension not only focuses on a city’s economic and population scales, but also the population density, demographic structures and its capacity as an economic hub.
Therefore, we have established three sub-dimensions, namely the economic scale, metropolitan area quality and enterprise agglomeration, which are supported by 14 major indicators including the GDP, taxation, fixed assets investment, power consumption, permanent resident population, DID population, growth index of the permanent resident population, people’s movement, DID area index, population density of metropolitan area, structures of the metropolitan area, Fortune Global 500, Fortune China 500, and listed companies on the main board.
(1) Economic scale
Shanghai, Beijing, and Chongqing top the economic scale ranking with overwhelming leads. Following them, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Chengdu, Wuhan, and Hangzhou round out the top 10. Shenzhen and Guangzhou have overtaken Tianjin in terms of economic scale with even better performance than the municipality. The top 10 cities in the 2019 ranking remain the same with the 2018 ranking. Cities including Zhengzhou, Ningbo, Changsha, Xi’an, Hefei, Fuzhou, Jinan, Kunming, Taiyuan, Urumqi, Lanzhou, Hohhot, Yinchuan, Xining and Lhasa all fair well compared to their ranking in the previous year.
(2) Metropolitan area quality
The top 10 core cities in this sub-dimension are Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Wuhan, Chengdu and Hangzhou. Among the 297 cities at prefecture level or above, Chongqing has moved from 43rd to 31st in terms of metropolitan area quality, which contributes to its higher ranking in terms of metropolitan area power. Similarly, Hangzhou also moves from 13th to the 10th in terms of metropolitan area quality, contributing to its higher position in the metropolitan area power ranking.
(3) Enterprise agglomeration
Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen top the ranking with overwhelming leads with a huge concentration of business headquarters. Following them, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Chongqing, and Fuzhou round out the top 10. Among the 36 core cities, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Jinan, Qingdao, Zhengzhou, Yinchuan and Hohhot have moved higher in the ranking compared with the previous year.
3.Radiation ability
Beijing tops the radiation ability ranking with an overwhelming lead, and occupies the first place in all the sub-dimensions. It is followed by Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Xi’an in the top 10 ranking. Compared with the 2018 ranking, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Nanjing have secured their places, Guangzhou and Wuhan have moved higher, Chengdu and Xi’an have slightly moved down, and Tianjin dropped out of the top 10 list.
What makes core cities unique is their radiation ability on their neighboring regions. Therefore, radiation ability is key to the definition of a core city, and an indicator for a city’s influence on its neighboring regions and even the whole country. This dimension evaluates a city’s radiation ability in terms of industry, technology, higher education, as well as life services.
So we have established three sub-dimensions, namely industry radiation, sci-tech and higher education radiation, as well as life services radiation, which are supported by 9 major indicators including manufacturing radiation, IT industry radiation, finance radiation, sci-tech radiation, higher education radiation, culture, sports and entertainment radiation, healthcare radiation, wholesale and retail service radiation, and catering and hotel radiation.
(1) Industry radiation
The top 10 cities in this ranking are Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Xiamen. Among the 36 core cities, Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Xiamen, Fuzhou, and Ningbo have secured their places in 2018, while Guangzhou, Chongqing, Wuhan, Hefei, Haikou, Shenyang, Taiyuan, Shijiazhuang, Xining, Urumqi, Nanning and Hohhot have moved higher in the ranking compared with the previous year.
(2) Sci-tech and higher education radiation
Beijing tops this ranking with a huge lead, and is followed by Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Xi’an. Compared with 2018, Beijing, Shanghai, Changsha, Dalian, Hefei, Shenyang, and Taiyuan have maintained their places, while Shenzhen, Nanjing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Jinan, Qingdao, Ningbo, Changchun, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Shijiazhuang and Yinchuan have moved higher.
(3) Life services radiation
Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu top this ranking, with Beijing having an overwhelming lead. Following them, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Tianjin, and Xi’an round out the top 10. The top 6 cities in the 2018 ranking have secured their places in the new ranking. Nanjing moves from 10th to 7th, while Shenzhen drops from 7th to 8th.
4. Wide-area hub
Shanghai, which has advantages in waterway, air and road transportation, ranks first in the wide-area hub category with a much higher deviation than other cities. The cities ranking second to 10th are Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Ningbo, Xiamen, Chongqing, and Nanjing. Compared with 2018, the top five cities remain unchanged. The rankings of Qingdao and Xiamen have climbed slightly. The ranking of Chongqing has increased from 11th in 2018 to ninth in 2019, with land transportation contributing a lot.
The transportation hub is an extremely important function of a core city, and it is also the basis for strengthening and amplifying other core functions. The wide-area hub is a major item that measures the conditions and transportation volumes of waterway, air and road transportation facilities.
Thus, this major item includes three sub-items, waterway transportation, air transportation, and road transportation. They are gauged by 10 sets of indexes and data, including convenience at container ports, container throughput of ports, waterway transportation volume, convenience at airports, air transportation volume, convenience of railways, railway density, highway density, national and provincial highway density, and highway transportation volume.
(1) Waterway transportation
Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Ningbo are the top three in this sub-item, and the other top 10 core cities include Guangzhou, Qingdao, Tianjin, Xiamen, and Dalian. Those ranking high in this sub-item are mostly coastal cities.
(2) Air transportation
Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou, which are China’s largest air transportation hub cities, are the top three in this sub-item. They have significant advantages in this regard as shown by their deviation values. The cities ranking fourth to 10th are Shenzhen, Chengdu, Kunming, Chongqing, Xi’an, Hangzhou, and Zhengzhou. The dependence on air transportation in China’s southwest and northwest regions has made Chengdu, Kunming, Chongqing, and Xi’an air transportation hubs.
(3) Land transportation
Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Guiyang are the top three in this sub-item, and the other top 10 core cities include Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Chongqing, and Wuhan. Guiyang stands out in this sub-item.
5. Opening and communications
The top 10 core cities in opening and communications are Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Tianjin, Chengdu, Ningbo, and Hangzhou. Among them, compared with 2018, Shanghai has maintained its top position, while the rankings of Shenzhen, Chongqing, Chengdu, and Ningbo have increased.
Opening and communications is a major item that measures the degree of exchanges and transaction involving people, finance, and goods in cities in the context of globalization. It includes three sub-items, international trade, international investment, and communications performance. They are gauged by 11 sets of indexes and data, including exports of goods, imports of goods, actual use of foreign capital, foreign direct investment, inbound tourists, domestic tourists, foreign exchange earnings from international tourism, revenue of domestic tourism, world tourism cities, international conferences, and exhibition industry development.
(1) International trade
Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Ningbo, Tianjin and Xiamen. Compared with 2018, the rankings of Ningbo, Chengdu, Hefei, Changsha, Jinan, Kunming, Nanning, and Haikou have increased.
(2) International investment
Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing are the top three in this sub-item. The cities ranking fourth to 10th are Tianjin, Chongqing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Chengdu, Dalian, and Wuhan. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shanghai, Shenzhen, Ningbo, Chengdu, Dalian, and Wuhan have increased.
(3) Communications performance
Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou are the top three in this sub-item. Their deviation values score much higher than those of other cities. The cities ranking fourth to 10th are Shenzhen, Chongqing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Xi’an, and Xiamen. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Hangzhou, Wuhan, Xi’an, and Xiamen have increased.
6. Business environment
The top three cities in the business environment category are Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The cities ranking fourth to 10th are Shenzhen, Chengdu, Nanjing, Tianjin, Wuhan, Hangzhou, and Chongqing. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Beijing, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Hangzhou have increased.
The business environment is a major item that measures a city’s capability in supporting communication economy and transaction economy. It evaluates not only business support, but also a city’s policy support. It is particularly worth mentioning that the major item also takes into consideration urban transportation as an important part of it.
Thus, this major item includes three sub-items, industrial park support, business support, and urban transportation. They are gauged by 10 sets of index data, including national industrial parks, free trade areas, average salary of employees, the number of employees in company-oriented service sector, starred hotels, top international restaurants, passenger transport volume per 10,000 people, mileage of urban rail transit, urban sidewalk and bicycle path density, and urban public transit.
(1) Industrial park support
Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Xiamen are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Haikou, Tianjin, Chongqing, and Xi’an. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Haikou, and Tianjin have increased.
(2) Business support
Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Nanjing, and Chongqing. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen and Nanjing have increased.
(3) Urban transportation
Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou are the top three in this sub-item. The cities ranking fourth to 10th also include Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chengdu, Nanjing, Lanzhou, Hangzhou, and Urumqi. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, Beijing has replaced Shanghai in the top spot, and the rankings of Chengdu, Lanzhou, and Hangzhou have increased.
7. Innovation and entrepreneurship
In this major item, Shenzhen has replaced Beijing in the top spot. Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou claim the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Tianjin, and Wuhan. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Chengdu have increased.
Innovation and entrepreneurship, as a platform for communication economy and transaction economy to integrate, reorganize, and boom, serves as the main driving force for a core city to develop. Therefore, this major item values not only the resources and investment in research and development (R&D), but also the results and especially achievements. It also evaluates the policy support in this field.
Thus, this major item includes three sub-items, R&D agglomeration, innovation and entrepreneurship vitality, and policy support. They are gauged by 10 sets of index data, including internal R&D expenditures, local government expenditures for science and technology, R&D personnel, index of academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, companies listed on Growth Enterprise Market and National Equities Exchange and Quotations, patent application and authorization volume, national reform pilot zones, national innovation demonstration zones, information and knowledge industries, and national key laboratories and engineering research centers.
(1) R&D agglomeration
Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai are the top three in this sub-item. Their deviation values are much higher than those of other cities, indicating that they lead other cities by a large margin in terms of R&D expenditures and R&D personnel reserves. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Chengdu. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Chengdu have increased.
(2) Innovation and entrepreneurship vitality
Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai are the top three in this sub-item. The deviation values of Shenzhen and Beijing are much higher than those of other cities. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Nanjing. Compared with 2018, none of the top 10 core cities has moved up in rankings.
(3) Policy support
Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing are the top three cities in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Tianjin, Chengdu, Wuhan, Qingdao, Xi’an, and Shenzhen. Municipalities directly under the central government stand out in this aspect. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Chengdu, Wuhan, Xi’an, and Shenzhen have increased.
8. Ecological resources and environment
Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing are the top three in the ecological resources and environment category. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xiamen, and Wuhan. Compared with 2018, among the 36 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Nanjing, Changsha, Guiyang, Kunming, Lhasa, and Xining have more or less increased.
Ecology and environment quality as well as resource efficiency become increasingly more important for urban development. This major item, ecological resources and environment, pays attention to environmental quality and resource efficiency, and also takes into account the evaluation of environmental efforts. It is particularly worth emphasizing that it also introduces the evaluation of CO2 emissions this year.
Thus, this major item includes three sub-items, resource and environment qualities, environmental efforts, and resource efficiency. They are gauged by 15 sets of index data, including comfortable degree of weather, air quality, water resources per 10,000 people, forest area, direct losses caused by natural disasters, direct losses caused by geological disasters, disaster warnings, area of green space in parks, environmental efforts, projects of designing, evaluating, and identifying environment-friendly buildings, national environmental protection city, population in densely inhabited districts, CO2 emissions per unit of GDP, per capita CO2emissions, and urban land output rate.
(1) Resource and environment qualities
Among the 36 core cities, only Haikou, Lhasa, and Kunming rank among the top 30 in the country in this sub-item, ranking 15th, 17th and 27th, respectively. Environment quality seems to be common shortcomings of core cities. Compared with 2018, among the 36 core cities, the rankings of Chongqing, Ningbo, Nanning, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Lanzhou, Xining, Hefei, Changsha, and Wuhan have risen significantly.
(2) Environmental efforts
Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Chongqing, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, and Chengdu. Compared with 2018, among the 36 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, Xiamen, Jinan, Ningbo, Xi’an, Guiyang, Changchun, Yinchuan, Taiyuan, Urumqi, Hohhot, Haikou, and Xining have increased.
(3) Resource efficiency
Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Changsha, and Nanjing. Compared with 2018, among the 36 core cities, the rankings of Changsha, Chongqing, Guiyang, and Lhasa have increased.
9. Life quality
In the ranking of life quality, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou take the first three spots, followed by Hangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Nanjing, Wuhan, Tianjin and Shenzhen. Compared with the 2018 ranking, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have remained the top three, while Hangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing and Wuhan have moved up slightly.
The quality of life is one of a city’s attractions for high-end professionals, and the service industry for sustaining the quality of life is a pillar of a city’s development. The major item of life quality puts safety and livability first, and also assesses living consumption level, as well availability of medical resources.
Therefore, the major item is divided into three indexes, namely safety and livability, living consumption, and medical welfare. The sub-indexes are made up of 14 data sets, including livable cities, clean cities, safe cities, happy cities, transportation safety, retail sales of social consumer goods per 10,000 people, international top brands, revenue of accommodation and catering per 10,000 people, telecommunication consumption per 10,000 people, water consumption per 10,000 residents, average life expectancy, the number of licensed (assistant) doctors, top hospitals, and the number of nursing homes at the end of the year.
(1) Safety and livability.
Shanghai top the ranking and Chengdu come in at No. 2. Other cities in the top 10 are Hangzhou, Beijing, Ningbo, Nanjing, Xi’an, and Changsha. Compared with the 2018 ranking, the top four cities have remained the same, while many cities among the 36 core cities have improved their rankings, especially Xi’an, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, Kunming, Jinan, Fuzhou, Lhasa, Guiyang, Harbin, Nanchang, Hohhot, Lanzhou, Taiyuan, and Xining.
(2) Living consumption
Beijing and Shanghai take the top two spots, followed by Guangzhou, Haikou, Lhasa, Xiamen, Shenzhen and Nanjing. Compared with 2018, Beijing and Shanghai have remained their places, while Haikou, Lhasa and Xiamen have moved up slightly.
(3) Medical welfare
Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing rank top three, followed by Guangzhou, Chengdu, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Jinan and Nanjing. Compared with 2018, Chongqing, Chengdu and Jinan have better performance.
10. Culture and education
Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou top the ranking of culture and education, as the top two cities’ deviation values are well above other cities, showing the two cities’ leading positions in culture and education. Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Chongqing and Shenzhen rank fourth to 10th. Compared with 2018, the top six cities retain their positions, while Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Hefei, Fuzhou, Kunming, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan and Lhasa climb up slightly in the ranking.
Culture and education reflect the spiritual side of the city. Culture and education not only focus on venues and consumption of culture and entertainment in the city, but also measure cultural performance at the national and international levels, and pay extra attention to the input of education and fostering of talents.
Thus, the major item includes three sub-items—culture and entertainment, culture and humanity, and talent training. They are gauged by 13 sets of index data, including theater consumption, museums and galleries, stadiums, zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums, collection of public libraries, top universities, cultural leaders, Olympic medalists, local fiscal spending on education, the number of kids admitted to kindergartens per 10,000 kids, international schools, higher education, and training of outstanding professionals.
(1) Culture and entertainment
Beijing and Shanghai rank first and second in the ranking, as they score much higher deviation values than other cities, showing their dominance in the culture and entertainment sector. Cities ranking second to 10th are Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Tianjin. Compared with 2018, Beijing and Shanghai retain their positions, while Chongqing, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Jinan, Ningbo, Fuzhou, and Lhasa move up in the ranking.
(2) Culture and humanity
Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing take the first three spots, with Beijing scoring a higher deviation value than other cities, demonstrating Beijing’s dominance in the sub-index. Guangzhou, Wuhan, Xi’an, Changsha, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Chengdu take the fourth to 10th places. Compared with 2018, some cities among the 36 central cities, such as Shenzhen, Taiyuan, Kunming, and Ningbo, have improved their rankings remarkably.
(3) Talent training
Beijing and Shanghai rank first and second, respectively, with their deviation values much higher than other cities, showing that China’s education resources concentrate in those two cities. Guangzhou, Tianjin, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Shenzhen round out the top 10. Compared with 2018, the top five cities maintain their positions, while Hangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Hefei, Shijiazhuang, Lhasa, Changchun, Dalian and Taiyuan, all among 36 core cities, fare better in the ranking.
The National Development and Reform Commission issued the “Guiding Opinions on Fostering the Development of Modern Metropolitan Areas” on Feb. 19, 2019, kick starting policies to promote metropolitan areas revolving around core cities.
“In the new phase of China’s urbanization, it is urgent to put an emphasis on quality high-density population and the promotion of DID, which should come to the fore in formulating policies regarding metropolitan areas. The other focal point is to promote the interaction-based development of core cities and neighboring medium and small cities. The third focus should be placed on fostering and strengthening radiation of core functions,” said Zhou Muzhi, head of Cloud River Research Institute.
He added, what is worth noting is the core functions of core cities as international exchange platforms. In the age of globalization, international competitiveness and international exchanges are key to the future of a country. Thus the country’s international competitiveness and international exchanges should be reflected by the internationalism of metropolitan areas.
China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index draws on the thinking of the above issues, as well as observation and assessment of the development of core cities, and thus provide academic backing for the development of metropolitan areas.
The article was published on China SCIO Online on Jan 21, 2021, and was republished by foreign media, including China Daily, Guangming Daily, as well as today’s headlines and other platforms.