- Study on spatial Distribution of Industries in Chinese Cities during the transitional Period: A Case Study on the City of Nanning    911 kb by    NIU, Xiong & BI, Xiongyang | nx@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn    Short Outline This paper studies the distribution features of industries in Nanning (a provincial capital) by adopting quantitative research methods, so as to test the application of Spatial Economics Theory. Abstract Take the city of Nanning, a provincial capital in Southwest China, as the example, this paper studied on the distribution features of industries and industrial output value in Nanning by adopting the method of quantitative research, so as to inspect the application of Spatial Economics Theory in China. The paper try to demonstrate that in Chinese cities like Nanning that are transforming from planned economy to market economy, the historical inertia has great influence on the spatial distribution of industries, and path dependence is the major factor that affects the spatial distribution of industries and industrial output value, which is in accordance with the theoretical explanation of Spatial Economics. Through the case study on Nanning, an ordinary provincial capital city in West China, it can be concluded that although the market mechanism has been introduced here since the 1990s, the layout formed during the planned economy still have a great influence on the current industrial distribution in the city. Along with the introduction of market mechanism, the development speeds of the industrial zones have shown different features. The industrial and economic growth is still concentrated in the traditional industrial zones, where the economic efficiency is also high. As a contrast, the economic efficiency of the newly-built development zones is relatively low. According to the theories of Spatial Economics, the location of enterprises is amplified due to ¡°path dependence¡±, resulting in the ¡°lock-in¡± effect, which is enhanced by the circulatory accumulation. As a result, both the concentrated industries and the concentration location have the nature of ¡°historical dependence¡±. Although there are policy and land advantages in the newly-built development zones, the concentration scale merit is not obvious. This demonstrates that the traditional theory of comparative advantages has played a secondary role. The concentration of some industrial in a certain area is not caused by the intrinsic advantages of the factors in this area. It is the close economic relationship rather than comparative advantages that leads to the concentration. The technological outflow is a secondary factor for concentration, and low-technology industry can also form concentration. Based on the above analysis, this paper concludes that like Nanning, the typical Chinese cities which are transforming from planned economy to market economy, the spatial distribution of enterprises is greatly influenced by the historical inertia, and path dependence is the major factor that affects the spatial distribution of enterprises and their output values, which demonstrates that the theories of Spatial Economics have important practical values in the developing countries like China. Keywords Spatial Economics; quantitative research; spatial distribution of industries; path dependence Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2008: Urban Growth without Sprawl   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper