Selection and Cultivation of Central Cities in Former Central Soviet Area of Southern Jiangxi

In some undeveloped regions of China,the relationship between central cities and their jurisdictional areas is usually described as pony drags a cart,and the radiation and promotion functions of the central cities for their jurisdictional areas are limited.Hence,the selection and cultivation of central cities are the key problem that the less developed regions must face and solve.Taking 2000,2005 and 2010 as three time sections,with the social-economic statistics and traffic data of Jiangxi Province,this paper analyzes the evolution of urban system in the former Central Soviet Area in the south of Jiangxi Province from three aspects,namely,urban scale,hierarchy and hinterland structures,by Kernel density of urban space and bottom-up urban level and hinterland division methods.On that basis,the central cities in the areas are identified and their cultivation paths are put forward.Firstly,simulate the evolution of spatial structure of cities' and towns' scale by using Kernel density of urban space method,and then identify the concentration areas in the former Central Soviet Area.Secondly,utilize accessibility analysis to acquire the shortest time distance between each two cities/towns in 39 county-level administrative regions,then measure the intercity space contact intensity with the help of gravity model which takes time distance as model parameter.Finally,mark out the levels and hinterlands of cities in the Area by using the bottom-up division method.The results show that:during 2000-2010,the population scale of cities in the Area was acceleratingly expanded,and its spatial structure presented a significant core-edge feature.Therefore,core areas of urban agglomeration concentrated in Ganzhou,Ji'an,Ruijin and Nancheng appeared and showed significant spatial agglomeration effects,and became the essential growth poles promoting the urbanization of the Area.The levels of cities and towns in the Area can be classified into three grades,that is,Ganzhou,Ji'an,Ruijin and Nancheng have always been the first-grade cities,and their high-grade statues in cities' and towns' system are relatively stable.When it comes to the evolution of urban hinterlands,the hinterlands of second-grade cities continue to change,but the hinterlands of the first-grade cities keep stable all the time which are consistent highly with the stability of the four cities' level.The study suggests that Ganzhou could be selected as the central city,while Ji'an,Ruijin and Nancheng as the secondary central cities,so lastly forms a 1+3 cities' group.Taking the practical situation into account,we should foster central cities from several aspects,such as expanding city industries and city districts,optimizing the division of city function and transportation network,strengthening the institutional innovation and so forth.