School of Geographical Sciences, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China.
Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China.
PLoS One. 2020 Apr 13;15(4):e0231159. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231159. eCollection 2020.
Urban shrinkage is currently spreading at global level. At the same time, the scale of urban shrinkage is not limited to urban agglomerations, metropolitan areas, or big cities, but begins to expand to a vast number of small towns. Over the years, the characteristics, models, and mechanisms of shrinkage in large cities have attracted the attention of scholars; however, the problem of shrinkage in small towns has not been fully discussed. In China, small towns are located at the margins of cities and are the first part of the countryside; hence, they are the link and the bridge between urban and rural areas, and a space carrier to solve the diseases of big cities and for rural rejuvenation as a whole. However, in the process of rapid urbanization, some small towns have experienced urban shrinkage, mainly through a decline in township enterprises and the deterioration of the living environment, which has restricted their role in coordinating the spatial support of urban and rural development. Therefore, a correct understanding of the shrinkage of small towns has considerable theoretical and practical guiding significance. We focused on the towns of the Jilin Province as the research unit, and combined township population, economy, land use, and employment indices to establish an urban shrinkage index, identifying the status, spatial distribution, and influencing factors of small towns shrinkage in the Jilin Province. Moreover, we analyzed the similarities and differences of small towns shrinkage between the Jilin Province and developed countries. The results show that small towns shrinkage in the Jilin Province shares similar characteristics with developed countries, as well as important differences in aspects such as population migration, low-level industrial structure, and administrative division adjustments.
城市收缩目前在全球范围内蔓延。与此同时，城市收缩的规模不仅限于城市群、大都市区或大城市，而是开始扩展到大量的小城镇。多年来，大城市收缩的特征、模式和机制引起了学者们的关注；然而，小城镇收缩的问题尚未得到充分讨论。在中国，小城镇位于城市的边缘，是农村的第一部分；因此，它们是城乡之间的纽带和桥梁，是解决大城市病和实现农村振兴的整体的空间载体。然而，在快速城市化进程中，一些小城镇经历了城市收缩，主要表现为乡镇企业的衰落和生活环境的恶化，这限制了它们在协调城乡发展空间支撑方面的作用。因此，正确认识小城镇的收缩具有相当重要的理论和实践指导意义。我们以吉林省的城镇为研究对象，结合乡镇人口、经济、土地利用和就业指标，建立了一个城市收缩指数，以确定吉林省小城镇收缩的现状、空间分布和影响因素。此外，我们分析了吉林省和发达国家小城镇收缩的相似性和差异。研究结果表明，吉林省的小城镇收缩与发达国家具有相似的特征，在人口迁移、低水平产业结构和行政区划调整等方面存在重要差异。
