Measuring and Analysis of Urban Competitiveness of Chinese Provincial Capitals in 2010 under the Constraints of Major Function-Oriented Zoning Utilizing Spatial Analysis

Urban competitiveness aids local development by encouraging the exploitation of opportunities for economic development and by enhancing overall performance. Previous studies have evaluated urban competitiveness primarily from an economic perspective and few studies have considered locational conditions as factors that might influence local industrialization and urbanization. In response to the publishing of a national plan for the development of major function-oriented zones (MFOZs) in 2010, the present essay employs MFOZs as constraints to enable a balanced and comprehensive study of urban competitiveness that includes four dimensions of competitiveness: Economic, social-cultural, environmental, and locational (accessibility and hypsography). A four-level hierarchical indicator system and an entropy weighting method were used to assess the urban competitiveness of 31 Chinese provincial capitals based on a spatial analysis of data acquired in 2010 using Geographic Information System technology. The results reveal the overall ranking of provincial capitals in terms of urban competitiveness and their performances with respect to the four dimensions of competitiveness. Unlike previous studies, this analysis was performed by overlaying the strategy of the national MFOZ with the urban competitiveness rankings. The development orientation of each provincial city is discussed according to its characteristics of urban competitiveness under the conditions of a MFOZ.