关键词: 城市功能, 产业发展, 失衡度, 长江经济带, 撤县设区

Abstract: As China enters the post-industrialization stage, exploring the synchronization and coordination of urbanization and industrialization is an essential research theme in urban development. As a reflection of the quality and connotation of urbanization, urban functions play an increasingly prominent role in industrial development. However, in the actual development process, it is easy to fall into the problem of incoordination between urban functions and industrial development. Whether industrialization precedes urbanization and urban functions are underdeveloped, or urbanization precedes industrialization and urban functions lack objects for value projection, neither can support the healthy development of a city in the long run. Under the dual effects of government orientation and market orientation, the central city-biased characteristics continue to become more prominent. The reasons mainly come from the government's strategic orientation, the pursuit of short-term interest of local governments, and the central city-biased effect of the market itself. Under the influence of central city-biased characteristics, will the government's biased strategy of giving priority to supporting the development of central cities exacerbate the imbalance between urban functions and industrial development? What is its specific mechanism of action? Will the administrative division adjustment represented by the removal of counties and the establishment of districts, as an important policy tool for China to vigorously promote urbanization, affect the imbalance between urban functions and industrial development?
Most of the existing literature studies the urban-rural income gap, resource flow, and public service allocation caused by urban-biased policies at the provincial level, and there is a lack of research on the coordinated development of urban functions and industries. In addition, the indicators for measuring urban bias mainly focus on the proportion of non-agricultural expenditures in fiscal expenditures, building an indicator system based on public service expenditures, and using the frequency of relevant words in government work reports, which can only partially reflect the changes in central city bias at the government level. This paper argues that the central city bias should reflect the common characteristics of market orientation and government orientation. Therefore, this paper uses the entropy method to measure the market functions, non-market functions and industrial development of 96 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2008 to 2019, constructs an index of the imbalance between urban functions and industrial development, proposes the market bias and government bias measurement method, and conducts an empirical analysis of the impact of the central city bias on the imbalance between urban functions and industrial development.
Empirical results of the study demonstrate that the market bias significantly reduces the imbalance between urban functions and industrial development, while the government bias intensifies the imbalance between urban functions and industrial development. The central city bias affects the imbalance between urban functions and industrial development through urban development and public service construction. There are obvious differences in the degree of imbalance between the central city bias affecting urban functions and industrial development in different regions, different degrees of marketization and cities of different sizes. By taking the quasi-natural experiment of removing counties and establishing districts as an exogenous impact test for the central city bias, further research finds that removing counties and establishing districts strengthens the imbalance between urban functions and industrial development.
Based on the above conclusions, this article draws the following inspirations. Firstly, the central city bias reflects China's special national conditions. It is difficult for neither the market behavior alone nor the government behavior alone to promote the improvement of urban functions and industrial development levels. Therefore, we must pay attention to the coordination of the “invisible hand” and the “visible hand”, giving full play to the joint role of the government and the market. Secondly, urban development and public service construction are important starting points for accelerating urbanization and economic development, and play an important role in coordinating urban functions and industrial development. During the development process, attention should be paid to assessing its possible negative impacts and rationally promoting urban development. Finally, cities in different regions, with different economic development levels and of different sizes should develop in a coordinated manner according to their local conditions, give full play to their own endowment advantages and make up for the shortages and weak points, so as to improve urban functions and industrial development levels.
The main contributions of this paper are as follows. Firstly, this paper divides the central city bias into the market bias and the government bias, examines the impact of the central city bias on the imbalance between urban functions and industrial development, and expands the analysis of the causes of the imbalance between urban functions and industrial development. Secondly, introducing intermediary variables of urban development and public service construction and testing their effects, this paper refines the analysis of the mechanism of the central city bias affecting the imbalance between urban functions and industrial development.

Key words: Urban Function, Industrial Development, Degree of Imbalance, Yangtze River Economic Belt, Remove Counties and Set Up Districts