Response Path Adapted to the Unbalanced Shrinkage of Small Towns in Metropolitan Areas

Along with the global wave of urbanization, urban agglomerations with megacities as the core have become the main form of urbanization in various countries. The polarization effect around the metropolis leads to the centripetal flow of capital, labour, land and other resource elements in the surrounding small towns, which causes the shrinkage of small towns in the metropolis, such as population reduction, economic recession, idle housing and dilapidated space. The shrinkage of small towns in the metropolis has become a global issue. However, as an important spatial unit in the spectrum of urbanization that serves, connects and couples urban and rural areas, the shrinking phenomenon faced by small towns has an important influence on the healthy development of urbanization. Exploring the development path of adaptive shrinkage for small towns has become an important part of the healthy urbanization of metropolises. Based on the public data of population, land and economy in Wuhan, China from 2004 to 2014, this paper uses GIS and other spatial analysis technologies to comprehensively measure the relevant characteristics of the shrinkage of small towns. The results showed that the small towns in Wuhan are in the form of "unbalanced shrinkage" under a local growth. And the towns present a spatial pattern of "circle increasing shrinkage" around the boundary of main downtown. With a further exploration of the formation mechanism of "unbalanced shrinkage", it is found that this shrinkage pattern is caused by a combination function of various factors, such as downtown deprivation in the policies supply, centripetal delivery of social capital and reconstruction of regional division of labour network. Based on this, this paper tries to propose some response paths for small towns in metropolitan areas to adapt to the "unbalanced shrinkage". First of all, the small towns should integrate into the regional differential development pattern and strive for the institutional dividend. Secondly, the small towns should promote an industrial transformation, and then attract the market release of social capital. Thirdly, the small towns should improve the living environment and promote intensive use of land. Through these paths, we can stabilize the three-level structure system of “urban-township-village”, and ensure the healthy urbanization of metropolitan areas.