Scale, Agglomeration, and Regional Inequality in Provincial China

This study analyses regional development in provincial China through a case study of Jiangsu following the multi-scale and multi-mechanism framework. We have revealed a trend of increasing regional inequality and find it is mainly a result of the rapid development of Sunan (Southern Jiangsu), which also results in rising rural inter-county inequality. Subei (northern Jiangsu) faces more challenges due to the strong effects of self-reinforcing agglomeration and the constraints of geographical barriers. The spatial Markov chain analysis reveals that the development status of neighbouring counties has a strong influence on a county’s development dynamics; a poor county neighbouring relatively richer counties has a higher possibility to move upwards, and vice versa. The geographically weighted regression analysis reveals that development mechanisms have strong local characteristics and the same mechanism affects regional development differently. Finally, our study confirms that the multi-scale and multi-mechanism framework helps the understanding of regional development in Jiangsu.