Research on the City Network of Guangdong, Hongkong and Macao from the Perspective of Information Flow: Analysis based on Baidu Index

Journal Title: Journal of Regional and City Planning - Year 2018, Vol 29, Issue 3

Abstract

In the context of the rapid development of informatization and globalization, the theoretical methods of urban scholars have shifted from a ‘space of places’ appraoch, which looks at geographical areas, to a ‘space of flows’ approach, which is based on flows of people, goods, capital, and information between cities. The rapid development of the Internet makes the connections between cities more dynamic than ever before. The subject of this study are cities in three provincial administrative units in Southern China: Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. The development of the Internet provides an opportunity to analyse the relationships between the cities in this region from the viewpoint of information flow. Using the area distribution model in Baidu Index (a website of the Baidu company), this study recorded the web search volume, simulated the information flows, and analysed the network correlation degrees between the cities in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau. The conclusions are: (1) from the perspective of information flow, the city network in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao has a clear ‘core-periphery’ structure, which amplifies the difference in urban hierarchy between big and small cities; (2) the cities in the traditional Pearl River Delta core region have a stronger ability to aggregate information flows and geographical proximity reflects information flow; (3) information flows between the cities in Guangdong and Hong Kong and Macao are not smooth, and thus needs to be improved.

Authors and Affiliations

Qixuan Wang, Min Zhao

Keywords

Related Articles

Does a Pedestrian Environment Promote Walkability? Auditing a Pedestrian Environment Using the Pedestrian Environmental Data Scan Instrument

This study was aimed at evaluating the pedestrian environment walkability from a residential area to a commercial area in Amherst, New York. An audit tool to record data of physical built environment elements was develop...

Housing Resilience and the Informal City

Central to managing urban growth in the new millennium is understanding the role and nature of the resilience shown by residents and communities in growing towns and cities, and especially in what can be termed the infor...

Enhancing the Stability of the Improved-LEACH Routing Protocol for WSNs

Recently, increasing battery lifetime in wireless sensor networks has turned out to be one of the major challenges faced by researchers. The sensor nodes in wireless sensor networks use a battery as their power source, w...

Consideration of Tourism Riverfront Development Elements for Pekanbaru City Transformation

Pekanbaru is the capital of Riau which is well known as a business city with a strategic location between the trade routes of Sumatera. The city obviously has Siak River as its tourism potential. However, the river, whic...

Changing the Mindset to Encourage Innovation in Resolving Problems in the Built Environment: Exploring the Role of Online Gaming Platforms to Deliver Collaborative Learning and Teaching

As educators we seek to set up meaningful graduate attributes to encourage creativity and a drive for innovation among our graduates in order to produce professionals not content with learning how to do more of the same,...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP547956
  • DOI 10.5614/jrcp.2018.29.3.6
  • Views 185
  • Downloads 0

How To Cite

Qixuan Wang, Min Zhao (2018). Research on the City Network of Guangdong, Hongkong and Macao from the Perspective of Information Flow: Analysis based on Baidu Index. Journal of Regional and City Planning, 29(3), 281-293. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-547956