Improvement and Application of the Sectoral Enterprises Geographic Clustering Model and Its Formed Urban Structure

AbstractInvestigating urban structures based on the intrametropolitan location of economic activities (e.g., industrial districts or industrial clusters) is an increasingly important theme in empirical metropolitan studies. However, the lack of an adequate research methodology and theoretical foundations has restricted the in-depth examination of underlying mechanisms that form metropolitan industrial clusters, especially when considering the differentiated roles played by two key processes: localization economies and interindustry linkages. This paper proposes an approach to systematically examining and detecting the clustering of economic activities within a metropolitan area using the city of Shenyang as a case study. The present study was based on census data, which enumerated the number of firms by economic sector at the city block level. Analytical results revealed that geographic clusters were formed by interindustry linkages. Results from applying the sectoral geographic clustering model suggested that water conservancy, environmental protection and public facilities management, healthcare and social welfare, and public management and organizations seemed to follow the formation of intracity industrial clusters at the city block level. The central business district in Shenyang offers many services to manufacturing sectors and thus plays an important role in the location of manufacturing activities. Manufacturing locations, in turn, strongly affected how the transportation, warehousing, and postal locations and networks were formulated. Overall, the spatial organization of economic activity in the Shenyang metropolitan area can be characterized as having the structure of a focal core and peripheral areas. The large-scale decentralization and polynucleation of economic activities are not apparent within the metropolitan area. The outcome of applying the presented model shows that it has great potential for understanding intracity urban forms.