关键词: 中国新城, 城市网络, 网络功能

Abstract: New cities should be defined as those cities that are newly built, beginning from a low base line and having reached an obvious size. In this paper, they are defined as those that have been built from virgin land or settlements below the level of county capital since the industrialization drive of the early 1950s and that have been formally recognized as cities by the state. In 1994, China had 89 new cities in all. In terms of distribution, the western part of the nation has more new cities than the eastern part, the north more than the south, and the frontier areas more than the coastal regions. With the help of graph theory, the paper presents separate maps on China’s urban networks for three time periods: the early 1950s, the late 1970s, and the early 1990s. An analysis of the network maps suggests that the new cities have performed four functions affecting the urban networks. They have facilitated the maturity of the networks, stimulated the networks’ spatial expansion, accelerated their internal differentiation, and enhanced their linkage potential. By analyzing the new cities’ connection rate, accessibility, centripetal tendency and locational sensibility, the ability of the new cities to dictate the networks is discussed. Using the locational quotients of centripetal tendency and locational sensibility, W_H and W_M , a dualistic classification of the new towns’ functions with four types of positions are put forward: Type 1: Centripetal dominance, W_M>1, W_H>1; Type 2: Marginal dominance, W_M>1, W_H<1; Type 3: Centripetal extremity, W_M<1, W_H>1; Type 4: Marginal extremity, W_M<1, W_H<1. The study reveals that the stronger a new city’s location can dominate its urban network, the better is its accessibility, and the more beneficial it is to the city’s economic development. Three types of new city locations——centers, midpoints and extreme points——affect the differences of the new cities’ positions in the networks. When new cities are established before the emergence of their network, they lead to the spatial expansion of the urban network; if an urban network exists earlier than the new cities, the establishment of new cities leads to the network’s internal differentiation.

Key words: new cities China, urban network, network function