Central Business District (Central Business District, referred to as CBD), the original meaning is "the place where business gathers", which refers to the main concentration area of business activities in a country or city. The gathering area of service industries such as exhibition services and cultural services is generally the economic center of a region and city. From the perspective of structural theory, the central business district is an organizational form that connects various production factors, and this organizational form can realize efficient allocation of resources. The concept of CBD can be traced back to 1923. The American urban sociologist Ernest Burges (Ernest Burgess) proposed the concentric circle model in the process of urban development. This theory first divided the spatial structure of urban land use. It also thinks that urban land use can be divided into five concentric ring zones, the core of which is the central business district, which mainly gathers service industries and retail industries. The land use pattern generally expands from the central business district from the inside to the outside.
With the advent of the era of service economy, CBD has become an important indicator of the degree of economic development and modernization of a country or city. Murphy and Vance (1954) defined the CBD as the "heart" of the city, the area with the largest urban land value, and also a highly concentrated area of urban service and retail industries, as well as an area of office buildings. From the perspective of space, CBD can be part of a city or a city. Judging from the development history of CBD in Western developed countries such as Manhattan in New York, the Financial City of London, and Tokyo Central Business District, the development of CBD is closely related to technological innovation and the shift of the global economic center of gravity. The value of CBD has been widely concerned by various countries. CBD It has become an important area where countries and regions gather high-end elements and wealth, and is an important contribution area for regional economic growth and taxation. In recent years, CBD has gradually become an important window for the country's modernization and external display.
Regional Spatial Structure refers to the spatial agglomeration form and degree of agglomeration formed among various subjects in the economy and society, as well as the morphological characteristics and degree of correlation presented by the spatial agglomeration and dispersion of various elements. Regional spatial structure was first proposed by Dunn and Isard. Different disciplines have different emphases on the concept of regional spatial structure. Architecture and planning emphasize the space and physics between entities such as buildings. Relationships, geography and sociology emphasize the use of land, the social relationship space between people and social class structure, and economics emphasizes the spatial distribution of economic activities and the economic relationships formed. The content of regional spatial structure is very rich, including inter-regional population distribution, urban circle structure, land use and functional composition, traffic network structure, regional internal spatial organization form, regional spatial development differences, urban scale and urban system, Spatial interaction, regional division of labor and cooperation, etc., and with the deepening of the integration of different disciplines, the content of regional spatial structure is also constantly enriched. space".
As the spatial carrier of human production and life, regional spatial structure is the projection and reflection of human economic activities in space. Regional spatial structure has attracted more and more attention from scholars in the fields of economics, geography, sociology, urban planning, public management, etc., as well as regional decision makers. Many relationships such as resources and environment have a great impact on the development of regions and cities. For example, a reasonable regional spatial structure is conducive to energy conservation and emission reduction, shortening commuting distances and relieving traffic pressure, realizing the coordinated development of population, resources and environment, and promoting regional innovation. It can even affect the social relationship of community residents and the mental health of residents. From an empirical point of view, it is easier to capture the impact of central business districts on regional spatial structure with cities as research samples, because cities are the most intensive and active areas of regional economic activities, and are also places where various elements gather and disperse, such as Population and enterprises are highly concentrated, so changes in the spatial structure of cities are easier to observe than changes in the spatial structure of non-urban areas. Therefore, the basic logic of the influence of the central business district on the regional spatial structure is as follows: the central business district affects the internal spatial structure of the city, and the change of the internal structure of the urban space causes the overall change of the regional spatial structure.
Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China's urbanization rate has developed rapidly at an average annual growth rate of 1 percentage point. In 2022, my country's urbanization rate has historically reached 65.22%. At the same time, China's urban agglomeration economic phenomenon is becoming more and more obvious. At present, more than 20 urban agglomerations have been formed, including the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration. Obviously, China's economic activities present a high concentration trend, and the spatial layout of economic activities also presents an unbalanced spatial structure. China's regional economic spatial distribution presents an overall pattern of "high in the east, middle in the middle, and low in the west". The rapid development of China's high-speed railway, air transport, and high-speed road network has further shortened the economic distance between cities, and urban development has also changed from the original The single center gradually transforms into a multi-center structure and forms an urban network structure.
During the rapid development of Chinese cities, the industrial structure shows a trend of continuous upgrading, and new business forms are constantly emerging, especially the modern service industry and producer service industry have become important features of regional economic development and industrial structure optimization. At the same time, land urbanization is the basic driving force of China's urbanization. A wave of construction of new cities and various development zones has emerged across the country. Inspired by various preferential regional development policies, more than 180 cities across the country have proposed the construction of "international Under the goal of "metropolis" construction, central business districts (CBD) have sprung up in various places. The CBD, represented by Shanghai Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone, Beijing Central Business District, Guangzhou Tianhe Central Business District, Chongqing Jiefangbei Business District, Tianjin Binhai Business District, etc., has become a highly concentrated area of urban commerce, finance, information, and technology. The growth pole of economic development is also an important window for the image of the city. At present, all 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China have regional central business districts, and even many county-level cities have CBDs or are planning to build CBDs.
It can be expected that with the improvement of China's national comprehensive competitiveness, the eastward shift of the global economic center, the continuous development of urbanization and urban agglomeration economy, China's CBDs at different regional levels and with different functions and radiation will continue to emerge, and China's CBD It will also transform from global radiation capabilities to global influence. The Central Business District (CBD) is a product of the background of the service economy era, and the development of the CBD is closely related to the regional development strategy. Under the background of the new era, China's regional and urban development is moving towards the stage of scientific planning and refined management. The development of CBD has the dual functions of industry and space management. On the one hand, CBD is an important thrust for regional industrial structure adjustment. High value-added industries represented by industries such as commerce, retail, convention and exhibition, technology, information, and artificial intelligence are one of the basic characteristics of CBD. , smart city, green and low-carbon city construction pilot area, CBD plays a very important role in promoting the process of upgrading the industrial structure, so the CBD also acts as a regional industrial management function. On the other hand, along with China's large-scale urbanization process, the city scale is constantly expanding, and CBD has become an important carrier of urban expansion and urban planning. The construction of the new CBD will be the next growth pole of the city and the sub-center of the city. It will play a very important role in population introduction, industrial planning and evacuation of some functions of the central urban area. The CBD has also become an important carrier of space management in the process of urban planning. .
Since the reform and opening up, China's economy has experienced more than 40 years of rapid development. Regional spatial development has shown various imbalance characteristics. Facing the increasingly tense contradictions between economic development and population, ecological environment, and land, the traditional extensional growth mode has been replaced by connotative development. Instead, technological innovation has become a sustainable driving force for economic growth. Green intensification has become a new spatial structure goal for regional development. On the one hand, this spatial structure needs to carry population and economic activities to the maximum, satisfy basic living and production space, guide the regional spatial structure to become more efficient, and have the ability to concentrate regional elements. The ability to configure; on the other hand, it should also become a bearing area for high value-added industries and an important carrier for the agglomeration economy to play a sharing, matching and learning mechanism. Therefore, CBD construction is a way for China to improve the efficiency of spatial development and optimize the spatial pattern of land in the future, and it is also an important way to reshape China's regional spatial structure. It can be expected that there will be more CBDs in China in the future. China’s urbanization process has a real demand for building CBDs. Therefore, how to make full use of the construction of CBDs to optimize China’s regional spatial structure and improve the spatial efficiency of economic development is a key issue. It is not only a practical problem for China to optimize the regional spatial structure and improve the efficiency of land development and utilization in the future, but also a concern of the academic research institutes of regional economy, spatial economics and economic geography.
Theoretically, the central business district is an important node in the urban spatial structure, and the regional spatial structure reflects the distribution of economic activities and the degree of economic correlation between different regions. From a micro perspective, the central business district is an agglomeration of various micro enterprises and elements, from a medium perspective, it is an agglomeration of various industries, and from a macro perspective, it is a specific space and area. Obviously, CBD is an important carrier of agglomeration externalities. The impact of CBD on regional spatial structure is essentially to explore the influence of the core area in the region on other sub-regions and the layout of economic activities in the whole region, and it is also to explore the spatial influence difference of agglomeration externalities. Practical and policy aspects:
First, CBD is the growth pole of urban development, has strong regional development radiation, and is an important driving force for the reconstruction of spatial structure. As the core area in the regional economic spatial structure, the CBD brings together the best local factor resources. It is not only a growth pole for local economic development, but also an important contributor to fiscal revenue. It also forms a certain regional radiation to the outside world, such as the large-scale commercial complex built by the CBD, which is an important place to attract tourists from other places and forms an important commercial radiation to the outside world. The growth pole effect of CBD will change the relative economic relationship between regions to a certain extent, and form a certain regional development gradient or center-periphery structural relationship. Studying the impact of CBD on regional spatial structure will help decision makers to make economic decisions in line with local development, such as CBD site selection planning.
Second, CBD is an important way to upgrade regional industrial structure and transform regional functions. All regions expect to achieve leapfrog development through upgrading industrial structure and transforming regional functions, thus occupying an important position in the regional spatial structure. Under the background of the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure and the improvement of the quality of economic development, CBD, as an agglomeration of modern service industry and producer service industry in the region, can lead the upgrading of regional industrial structure and the transformation of regional functions to a certain extent, thereby improving the overall spatial structure of the region , to enhance the overall competitiveness of the region. For different regions, the impact of the co-agglomeration of different industries on the regional industrial system is different. As a co-aggregation of different industries in CBD, which industries are more conducive to the upgrading of regional industrial structure and the transformation of regional functions, and to what extent will it affect the spatial structure, these are the practical problems faced by the development of CBD and regional spatial development planning.
Third, from the perspective of China's comprehensive national power improvement and global influence, China needs to build a number of central business districts with global influence that match the rise of China's great powers, and improve the ability to gather high-end elements and External influence, participation in global city network governance and standard formulation. At the same time, the construction of the CBD is also an important window for displaying the achievements of China's reform and opening up and for foreign exchanges. Continuously optimize the spatial structure of China's regions and cities through the construction of CBD. For example, in today's global urban network, how to promote the optimization of regional spatial structure through the development of CBD is a major practical problem facing China's new urbanization. Regional spatial structure is closely related to regional industrial structure upgrading, regional innovation, energy consumption and ecological environment, and regional spatial structure is also an important manifestation of regional sustainable development and regional competitiveness. At present, there are large differences in regional development in China. How to use the adjustment of land space development to narrow regional development differences, promote the coordinated development of eastern, central and western regions, promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas, and promote the coordinated development of large and medium-sized cities and small towns is also a challenge China is currently facing. major practical issues.
Fourth, from the perspective of China's regional development policies and space management policies, CBD construction has become an important means of regional development planning and space management. Discussing and summarizing the achievements and deficiencies of China's CBD development has important implications for future regional planning and space management policies. For example, the urban agglomeration economy, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integrated development strategy that China is currently vigorously promoting are essentially pursuing various externalities of the agglomeration economy and improving economic efficiency through an intensive spatial structure. At present, there are many problems in the development of CBD in China, such as low business service function, weak radiation ability, lack of characteristics, etc. These problems not only limit the long-term development of CBD, but also have a negative impact on the optimization and efficiency of regional spatial structure. Therefore, standardizing the development of CBD and clarifying the relationship between CBD development and regional spatial structure in advance will help decision makers formulate more effective regional development and spatial management policies.
The micro-motivation for changes in regional spatial structure is caused by economic behaviors such as location selection and consumption of enterprises and residents. As a cluster of modern service industries, the central business district is an important engine to attract various elements. As an important part of the urban spatial structure, the central business district not only provides the city with basic services such as retail, commerce, finance, consulting, law, exhibitions, information technology, and cultural exchanges, but also forms a premium effect on the city's land and real estate prices , which in turn affects residents' choice of residence. The central business district is an important place for residents to shop, shop and work. It is also the area with the highest price of urban land and real estate. It generally has the best public service resources and the most convenient transportation in the city. Land prices (rents) and property prices are important reference factors for residents to choose where to live. Residents choose a suitable place to live after weighing the distance between commuting and land rent (or property prices), and the spatial distribution of residents’ places of residence and consumption. Essentially form a certain spatial structure. The determination of the residence of residents will directly affect the commuting distance of the city, forming a demand for the city's transportation infrastructure, and thus changing the structure of the city's transportation network. The central business district itself is also a high degree of agglomeration and central market. In the central business district, you can fully enjoy various externalities of the agglomeration economy, such as sharing, matching and learning mechanisms, and economies of scale. Site selection has a major impact. From several aspects such as market potential, local market effect, relative price effect, and crowding effect, we can discuss the influence of agglomeration economic externalities in the central business district on the location selection of enterprises. The development of the central business district can also directly affect the spatial form of the city. The central business district itself can be regarded as a small functional area. polycentric city. At the same time, the development of the central business district has a strong diffusion effect, which also accelerates the speed of urbanization to a certain extent, which in turn leads to the expansion of the overall urban space. From the perspective of urban network structure, the central business district is a hub node, and the development of the central business district will have an impact on the density, centrality and balance of the entire urban network structure. From an industrial perspective, the central business district is a highly concentrated modern service industry and an important window leading to the upgrading of regional and urban industrial structures and the transformation of regional functions. Therefore, the development of central business districts will also affect the upgrading of regional industrial structures and urban functions. It has an important impact, while industrial structure and regional function are important manifestations of urban spatial structure.
At present, the academic circle has not yet formed a unified standard for the specific definition of the central business district. According to the "Report on the Development of Central Business Districts in China" by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the definition of central business districts includes: first, it has strong resource allocation and economic control capabilities; second, it has obvious economic leadership and radiation driving capabilities; It is a high-end business and service industry, and has a high level of industrial agglomeration; fourth, the technological innovation capability is relatively prominent, and the industry and innovation vitality are strong. As of January 2019, a total of 289 mature central business districts have been built in 31 provinces and cities in China, and 206 are under planning. On average, each prefecture-level city has about one CBD. It can be expected that with the rapid advancement of urbanization in various parts of China, driven by the development goal of building an international metropolis, China's future planning and the number of CBDs to be built are still increasing. In terms of quantity, the number of built and planned CBDs in the eastern coastal provinces is higher than that in the western region, and the number of built and planned CBDs in the central region is also significantly higher than that in the western region. At the same time, in terms of the degree of development, the development level of the CBD in the eastern coastal areas represented by Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang is much higher than that in the central and western regions.
Since the reform and opening up, the CBD has played an important role in promoting the adjustment of China's economic structure and the transformation of the development mode. After China's economy has entered a new era, while leading the rapid development of China's economy, CBD is also facing a change in its own development model. These changes are mainly reflected in the following aspects:
1. Transformation from single CBD in one city to multiple CBDs. Looking at the development experience of CBDs in western developed countries, we can see that the development of urban CBDs generally undergoes a single-to-multi-CBD development trend, which is mainly accompanied by the evolution of regional diversification. With the rapid development of China's urbanization, China's CBD has changed from the model of one city and one center to the coexistence of multiple CBDs in one city. For example, Shanghai has many commercial centers such as Lujiazui CBD, Jing'an CBD, and Hongqiao CBD. Obviously, the development of CBD in China has entered the second stage of development. In the most economically developed Yangtze River Delta region, with the further high-quality development of the integration of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, the CBD in this region will show a multi-center network trend in the future. The CBD of secondary central cities will be centered on the CBD of the central city, and industries will form a high degree of correlation in space. Resources such as transportation, employment, public services, education, and medical care will continue to show a trend of equalization. It acts as a node in the CBD associated network system. At the same time, due to the rising development cost of the CBD in the central city, part of the CBD functions will be shared by the secondary CBD. The central CBD and the secondary CBD have formed a highly coordinated and complementary development state, and the network structure of the CBD will tend to be balanced. Ultimately, it will promote the regional CBD to an advanced stage, and the comprehensive competitiveness will be significantly improved.
2. The industry is shifting from business integration to technological innovation integration. The biggest feature of the CBD is its high-density human capital and various high-end innovation elements. It gathers the best talents and technological resources in the region, and the industry has a high degree of specialization. A large number of multinational companies and industry leaders are brought together, with the latest industry information and technology, business management experience, efficient public administrative service resources, and a transparent market environment, especially in capital control, transaction rule formulation, transaction channels and transactions Absolute advantages in terms of cost and so on. Therefore, CBD is also the center of innovation output. The traditional CBD is mainly dominated by business and retail industries, and integrates other service industry agglomerations with business. With the rapid development of e-commerce, most of China's CBDs integrate "finance, Internet, culture, technology" and other elements into one, forming a powerful innovation integration complex, which greatly improves the regional output efficiency and extends the industrial value chain. The industrial development model of the CBD has changed from the original single business integration to the integration of scientific and technological innovation. At the same time, the CBD has been in the process of innovation and exploration in terms of system innovation. For example, the Beijing CBD adopts the strategy of "competitive plan, competitive strength and current price" in land bidding , greatly improving the efficiency of state-owned land use. Shanghai Lujiazui CBD took the lead in setting up a financial council jointly led by the government and enterprises to promote the facilitation and efficiency of the system and mechanism of the financial industry.
3. The development model is shifting from high-end integration to smart green integration. In the era of informatization and artificial intelligence, efficient, timely, long-distance, no-delay, accurate and safe information transmission is very important to modern business activities. As a business center, CBD must have an information infrastructure that matches the requirements of modern business . At the same time, as the interests of environmental pollution issues become prominent, low-carbon and green sustainable development models have become the current mainstream concepts. The demonstration role of the CBD development model is becoming more and more prominent, and China's CBD planning and development concepts are also moving from high-end industry integration to a smart and green road. In addition to building a green central park and road greening in the core area of the central business district, the CBDs of many cities in China have formulated the development concept of green smart technology, such as using advanced smart technology to realize the informatization of the traffic road network and bus stops. Intelligentization of parking lot, intelligent service, delivery of goods by robots and drones, etc. For example, the design of Shanghai Hongqiao Business District incorporates the whole process of green energy-saving and environmental protection technology. The whole area uses natural gas as the primary energy source. Green. In terms of intelligence, Hongqiao Business District has established a central data collection system, which fully realizes the collection, transmission, synthesis analysis and comprehensive utilization of basic data, and provides diagnosis and evaluation feedback for information analysis.
4. From competition to coordination among CBDs. China's CBD has been in a state of competition and competition for various resources for a long period of time. Driven by the performance of local governments’ economic growth, CBDs often become an important way for officials to promote their performances. This has triggered competition among CBDs in various parts of China for multinational corporate headquarters, central enterprises, major national projects, and national preferential policies. Inter-regional industry convergence and a large number of repetitive investments have intensified inter-regional competition and weakened inter-regional cooperation incentives. With the deepening of China's opening to the outside world and the continuous improvement of domestic regional economic integration, the cooperation between CBDs in various regions of China has gradually become the mainstream direction. Under the background of marketization, the flow of factors between regions is smoother. As a high degree of agglomeration of regional elements, the degree of competition and cooperation between regional CBDs often becomes an important manifestation of the level of inter-regional integration. For example, after the implementation of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integrated development strategy, the division of labor in the CBDs of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei has gradually become clear, with Beijing mainly serving as an international financial business and a national financial decision-making management center. Tianjin, on the other hand, has favorable conditions for international trade, focusing on cross-border trade and innovative financial services. The CBD in Hebei mainly focuses on financial background services. Therefore, the CBDs of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei have formed a situation of cooperation and mutual benefit with a clear division of labor.
The central business district can be used as an important way to regulate the location of residents and enterprises, adjust the urban spatial structure and enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of the city. At the same time, it can also be used as an important means to strengthen the development of urban spatial network and optimize the spatial structure, as well as one of the ways to optimize the regional industrial structure and enhance regional specialization and optimize the spatial structure of the urban traffic network. The construction and development of the central business district should have the overall awareness and the concept of cooperation and win-win. The development and spatial structure of cities have the basic characteristics of "all prosperity and one loss". Therefore, the development of cities in the future should establish regional and industrial planning, policy An all-round docking and integration mechanism in terms of regulation and regulation.
About the author: (Han Feng, postdoctoral fellow in management, master tutor at Fudan University, associate professor)
Remarks: Some pictures are from the Internet, and will be deleted immediately if the copyright is violated