Node status of the Yangtze River Delta urban network: Through the lens of three-level equity relationship

With industrialization and economic globalization, the network relationship of“timespace sharing”among cities is deepening, and“flow space”is gradually replacing“place space”. The strategic position of cities in the region and even the world affects the investment decisions of enterprises, thus affecting the spatial pattern of urban economy. Whether the status of city node presents a flat network feature or a hierarchical vertical feature has become one of the foci in urban network research. So how to more accurately describe the status of urban network nodes from the perspective of flow space is one of the focuses of urban network research. Taking the county-level spatial unit in the Yangtze River Delta as the research object, this paper uses the three-level equity relationship data of“parent-son-grandson”of the top 500 listed companies in the industry to construct a direct weighted network to describe the city investment network in the region. The network status of node cities is classified by alter-based centrality and alter-based power. Finally, the spatial econometric model is used to calculate and analyze the influencing factors of node status in the Yangtze River Delta urban network. The findings are as follows: (1) The node status of the urban network in the study area presents the characteristics of“rank + network”. The hierarchical characteristics of nodes are obvious. The network status of some small and medium-sized cities has been improved and the network structure has become flat. (2) The node status does not completely follow the“high-high”, “medium-medium”and“low-low”matching relationship, but there are“high-medium (low)”, “medium-high (low)” or “low-high (medium)” unmatching relationship. Non-matching relationship means that cities can obtain asymmetric urban network node status by virtue of natural, economic or political resource endowment. (3) The level of urban economic development, human capital, innovation vitality, industrial structure, urban operating environment and public service facilities have significant impacts on the status of the urban network. In other words, improving the level of urban economic development, ensuring the business environment of the city to attract investment, creating more employment opportunities and encouraging innovative and entrepreneurial projects to be rooted locally are some measures to enhance the node status of urban network.