Compared with other countries, China's urban agglomerations have obvious "late-mover advantages"
my country's urban agglomeration has obvious advantages in transportation capacity, and the container transportation volume of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area exceeds the sum of the three major bay areas in the world.
Over the years, urbanization and industrialization have been important driving forces for my country's economic development.
According to statistics, China's urbanization rate has risen from 19% in 1978 to 60.6% in early 2020 (an average annual growth rate of about 1%).
The "Key Tasks for New Urbanization Construction and Urban-Rural Integrated Development in 2020" proposes to enhance the comprehensive carrying capacity and optimal allocation of resources of central cities and urban agglomerations, and accelerate the development of key urban agglomerations.
The "14th Five-Year Plan" also pointed out that with the promotion of the development of urban agglomerations as the starting point, a strategic pattern of "two horizontal and three vertical" urbanization will be formed in an all-round way.
The three world-class urban agglomerations of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, as important growth poles of my country's regional economic development, shoulder the important mission of accelerating my country's innovation-driven development.
According to "Oriental Outlook Weekly" report, at present, there are five world-class urban agglomerations recognized abroad, namely, the Atlantic coast city group in the eastern United States, the Great Lakes city group in North America, the city group in northwestern Europe, the city group in the central and southern parts of the United Kingdom, and the Pacific coast in Japan. urban agglomeration.
Looking at the five world-class urban agglomerations, although the historical backgrounds and national conditions of each urban agglomeration are different, and the trajectories of their development and evolution are also different, the development of each urban agglomeration also has many common characteristics.
In this regard, the Beijing Think Tank conducted a comparative study of my country's three world-class urban agglomerations and foreign world-class urban agglomerations through data, and analyzed the current stage of my country's urban agglomerations, existing problems and the gap with world-class urban agglomerations.
my country's urban agglomeration has the advantage of late development
In terms of urban agglomeration area, the Great Lakes urban agglomeration in North America is the largest among the world's major urban agglomerations, reaching 245,000 square kilometers.
Among the three major urban agglomerations in my country, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration and the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration both have an area of more than 200,000 square kilometers, second only to the Great Lakes urban agglomeration in North America, ranking second and third respectively.
The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area urban agglomeration, although relatively small, has reached 56,000 square kilometers, surpassing Japan's Pacific coast urban agglomeration and the central and southern British urban agglomeration.
Overall, the three major urban agglomerations in my country have certain advantages over other foreign urban agglomerations in terms of area.
From the perspective of the total population of urban agglomerations, the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration in my country's three major urban agglomerations will have a population of over 100 million in 2020, of which the population of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration will reach 174 million, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration will have a population of 174 million. The population has reached 114 million, and the population of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area urban agglomeration is also 78.01 million.
From the perspective of the total economic volume of each urban agglomeration, according to the exchange rate of RMB to USD of 1:6.5 in that year, the economic scale of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration among the three major urban agglomerations in my country in 2020 is the largest, reaching 3.15 trillion US dollars.
The economic aggregates of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomerations are relatively small, at US$1.77 trillion and US$1.36 trillion respectively.
From a foreign perspective, among the other five urban agglomerations in terms of economic aggregates in 2017, the economic aggregates of urban agglomerations along the eastern Atlantic coast of the United States ranked first, reaching US$4,032 billion.
The Great Lakes urban agglomeration in North America and the Pacific Rim urban agglomeration in Japan followed closely behind.
From the perspective of per capita GDP, in 2020, based on the exchange rate of RMB to the US dollar of 1:6.5, the three major urban agglomerations in my country have the highest per capita GDP in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area urban agglomeration, with a per capita GDP of 22,700 US dollars, the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration and The per capita GDP of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration is US$18,000 and US$11,900, respectively.
From the perspective of GDP per unit area, among the three major urban agglomerations in my country in 2020, according to the exchange rate above, the average GDP level of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration is relatively low, at US$6 million per square kilometer.
The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area urban agglomeration has the highest GDP per unit area. The GDP per unit area of the urban agglomeration has reached US$31.38 million per square kilometer, and the urban agglomeration in the Yangtze River Delta has also reached US$14.88 million per square kilometer.
From a foreign perspective, in 2017, among the other five major urban agglomerations, due to the small urban agglomeration, the urban agglomeration on the Pacific coast of Japan had the highest GDP per unit area, reaching US$96.62 million per square kilometer.
The GDP per unit area of the urban agglomeration in the central and southern parts of the UK also reached 44.85 million US dollars per square kilometer.
According to the statistics of the 2021 Fortune Global 500 list released by the Beijing Think Tank, among the world's major urban agglomerations, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration has the most Fortune 500 companies, with 61.
Japan's Pacific Rim urban agglomeration and Northwestern Europe's urban agglomeration followed with 53 and 52, respectively.
In addition, there are 22 urban agglomerations in the Yangtze River Delta and 24 urban agglomerations in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Compared with foreign countries, in addition to the number of top 500 companies in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, there is a certain gap between the number of top 500 companies in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area urban agglomeration.
The strength of science and education is comparable
Judging from the World University Rankings released by the British company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the distribution of the top 200 universities shows that a total of 65 universities in the eight urban agglomerations are shortlisted in the top 200, accounting for 32.5% of the total number of the top 200.
The five major foreign urban agglomerations have obvious advantages in terms of quantity. The number of the top 200 urban agglomerations in the eastern Atlantic coast of the United States and the northwestern European urban agglomeration has reached 15.
The Great Lakes city group in North America also has 12 selected.
In contrast, the number of Chinese universities in the top 200 is relatively small.
The Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area urban agglomeration each have 5 universities shortlisted, which is the same number as Japan's Pacific Rim urban agglomeration and lower than the six in the central and southern UK urban agglomeration.
It is worth noting that there are only two finalists in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration.
This also shows that there is still a certain gap between the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration compared with other urban agglomerations in terms of the number of top universities in the world.
As part of the urban agglomeration, the Bay Area can be regarded as an upgraded version of the urban agglomeration. Almost all the world-renowned Bay Areas are distributed in the main world-class urban agglomerations.
From the perspective of the number of universities in the four major bay areas, comparing the 1,468 universities included in the Third-party University Ranking Indexes (TUI) in 2020, 134 universities belong to the four major bay areas, accounting for 9.13% of the total. .
The New York Bay Area is far ahead in numbers, and the San Francisco Bay Area schools are the underdog in numbers.
The strength of universities in the Tokyo Bay Area and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area are both relatively low, and the number of universities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is also relatively low.
Invention patents are one of the important indicators to measure the level of regional innovation.
The total number of invention patents in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has ranked first among the four major bay areas since 2015.
From 2015 to 2019, the total number of invention patents in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area reached 1.29 million, ranking first among the four major bay areas in the world and widening the gap with the other three major bay areas year by year.
my country's urban agglomerations have obvious advantages in transportation capacity
The domestic hub functions of urban agglomerations and their central cities are composed of railways, highways and aviation, while the international hub functions are mainly undertaken by airports (airports).
The proportion of inbound and outbound passengers from airport and port hubs can reflect the internationalization level of urban agglomerations and their central city hubs.
Overall, taking 2018 as an example, the airport clusters in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region are not far behind the airport clusters in the New York Bay Area, Greater London and Tokyo Bay Area in terms of passenger throughput.
Among them, the Greater London area ranked first with 177.05.
However, it should also be noted that in terms of the national share of total throughput, the airport clusters in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region only account for 11.47% of the national total, which is more than 60.58% of the airport clusters in Greater London and 39.3% of the airport clusters in the Tokyo Bay Area. There is a certain gap.
However, with the putting into use of Beijing Daxing Airport, the competitiveness of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei airport group in the national airport group is also expected to be further improved.
From the perspective of ports, taking 2015 as an example, the number of international ports in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is not far behind that of the New York Bay Area, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Tokyo Bay Area.
However, in terms of port container throughput, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has a clear advantage. The annual container throughput reached 65.2 million TEU, while none of the other bay areas exceeded 10 million TEU.
On the other hand, in terms of the number of airport cargo and air mail, among the four major bay areas, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area also has a clear advantage. The Greater Bay Area adds up to more.
This also reflects the relatively high economic vitality of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area urban agglomeration.
Beijing News reporter Zha Zhiyuan and intern Jin Sihan