City Network Evolution Characteristics of Smart Industry: Evidence from Yangtze River Delta, China

The dual-path model of industrial evolution and spatial progression has been widely acknowledged and incorporated into the strategic planning to promote the development of urban industries and regional collaborations. However, current research on inter-enterprise city networks mainly focuses on the single sector of flows on all enterprise branches, such as product value chains and production factors, but neglects that of particular industry department. Built upon the new economic geography and city networks theory, this paper develops a methodological framework that focuses on the analysis of city network evolution characteristics of smart industry. Particularly, a conceptual model of smart industry enterprise-industry-city is proposed and then applied to a case study of smart industry in the Yangtze River Delta Region, China. Using enterprise supplier-customer data, a city network of smart industry is constructed and subsequently analyzed with the proposed model. Findings indicate that the smart industry network in Yangtze River Delta Region exhibits a hierarchical structure and the expansion of the network presents a small-world network characteristic. The study not only makes a methodological contribution for revealing the industrial and spatial evolution path of the current smart industry, but also provides empirical support for the formulation of new economic development policies focused on smart industries, demonstrating the role of city clusters as carriers of regional synergistic development.