关键词: 多中心, 城市网络, 区域经济协调发展, 长江经济带

Abstract: From the perspective of agglomeration externality and network externality, this paper explores the driving effect and mechanism of polycentric urban network on the coordinated economic development of regions, and takes the Yangtze River Economic Belt spanning the three major regions of China as a typical area for empirical test. The research shows that there is a significant positive correlation between the polycentric degree of urban network and the level of coordinated regional economic development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. While controlling the influence of input factors such as human capital and physical capital, the improvement of relative nodal centrality of non-central cities in polycentric urban network can directly promote the increase of their per capita income level and produce positive spatial spillover effects. And on the whole,the effects are mainly achieved by the agglomeration growth effect of small and medium-sized cities, the positive spillover effect of medium-sized cities, and the long-wave radiation from nodal central cities. Further tests show that accelerating regional factor flow, re-optimizing allocation and promoting cooperation and competition in regional industries are the main paths to deepen economic linkages and enhance the level of coordinated economic development among large regional plates driven by the polycentric urban network, while the excessive competition among geographically proximate cities in manufacturing due to the promotion of nodal centrality is not conducive to the integration and improvement of regional functions and the coordinated regional economic development. Therefore, in a large area like the Yangtze River Economic Belt, we should coordinate the construction of central cities and urban networks, foster a polycentric network development pattern, so as to promote the coordinated regional economic development more effectively.

Key words: Polycentric, Urban Network, Coordinated Regional Economic Development, Yangtze River Economic Belt