State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, China.
Department of Geography, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium.
PLoS One. 2017 Dec 4;12(12):e0188868. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188868. eCollection 2017.
"The Belt and Road" initiative has been expected to facilitate interactions among numerous city centers. This initiative would generate a number of centers, both economic and political, which would facilitate greater interaction. To explore how information flows are merged and the specific opportunities that may be offered, Chinese cities along "the Belt and Road" are selected for a case study. Furthermore, urban networks in cyberspace have been characterized by their infrastructure orientation, which implies that there is a relative dearth of studies focusing on the investigation of urban hierarchies by capturing information flows between Chinese cities along "the Belt and Road". This paper employs Baidu, the main web search engine in China, to examine urban hierarchies. The results show that urban networks become more balanced, shifting from a polycentric to a homogenized pattern. Furthermore, cities in networks tend to have both a hierarchical system and a spatial concentration primarily in regions such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta region. Urban hierarchy based on web search activity does not follow the existing hierarchical system based on geospatial and economic development in all cases. Moreover, urban networks, under the framework of "the Belt and Road", show several significant corridors and more opportunities for more cities, particularly western cities. Furthermore, factors that may influence web search activity are explored. The results show that web search activity is significantly influenced by the economic gap, geographical proximity and administrative rank of the city.
“一带一路”倡议有望促进众多城市中心之间的互动。这一倡议将产生许多经济和政治中心，这将促进更多的互动。为了探索信息流是如何融合的，以及可能提供的具体机会，选择了“一带一路”沿线的中国城市进行案例研究。此外，网络空间中的城市网络具有基础设施导向的特点，这意味着很少有研究关注通过捕捉“一带一路”沿线中国城市之间的信息流来调查城市等级结构。本文利用中国主要的网络搜索引擎百度来考察城市等级结构。结果表明，城市网络变得更加平衡，从多中心化模式向同质化模式转变。此外，网络中的城市往往既有等级制度，又有空间集中，主要集中在北京-天津-河北、长江三角洲和珠江三角洲地区。基于网络搜索活动的城市等级结构并不总是遵循基于地理空间和经济发展的现有等级系统。此外，在“一带一路”框架下，城市网络显示出几条重要的走廊和更多的机会，特别是西部城市。此外，还探讨了可能影响网络搜索活动的因素。结果表明，网络搜索活动受到城市经济差距、地理位置和行政等级的显著影响。
