By Zhuo Xian, Department of Development Strategy and Regional Economy, DRC & Chen Aoyun, Beijing Jiaotong University

Research Report No. 80, 2017 (Total. 5155) 2017-7-24

Abstract: This paper gives a comparison between population density of four metropolitan areas with the "center-radius" as the standardized statistical benchmark for metropolitan areas. The study results show that the resident population density in downtown areas of Beijing and Shanghai is higher than that of Tokyo and New York, whereas the population density in the fringes of the two cities is quite low, showing an imbalanced population distribution. At the same time, during the daytime, population distribution in Beijing and Shanghai is more imbalanced, as population density in downtown areas at daytime is much higher than that of the resident population density, mainly due to the separation between job and residential locations. The mismatch of public resources is an important reason leading to monocentric population aggregation in Beijing and Shanghai, industrial enterprises taking possession of residential and service industry areas, and the excessive agglomeration of education, health care and other public service resources which have strengthened the adsorption effect of the downtown areas. Therefore, it is necessary to balance the distribution of public service resources in the urban areas, adjust the inter-regional urban management system, implement the public transport-oriented development mode and optimize the spatial structure of land use.

Key words: metropolitan areas, population density, population in the nighttime, population in the daytime