Did Industrial Centralization Strategy in Shanghai’s Suburbs Lead to Economic Growth?

Abstract

Industrial centralization is an important policy choice in the industrial economy era. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the overall performance and the influential effects of the industrial centralization strategy in the suburbs of Shanghai. The results show that (1) the strategy of industrial concentration in the suburbs of Shanghai effectively promoted economic growth; (2) on different spatial scales, there are visible differences in the impact of industrial concentration on the performance of industrial land; (3) industrial concentration has significantly improved industrial energy utilization efficiency; and (4) industrial concentration has narrowed the gap of economic development among the suburbs, but it has not resulted in a corresponding narrowing of the urban-rural gap. The main recommendations are to pay more attention to the high-end and centralization of urban industries in the central city, promote the interactive development of manufacturing and service industries as well as the integrated development of industry and city, moderately control the scale and speed of industrial suburbanization and residential suburbanization, promote the transformation of the traditional industrial land into “industry + R&D + business and office + exhibition” and further narrow the income gap between and within regions.