Empirical Study on the Mechanism of Industrial Park Construction Promoting Urban Scale Expansion- Taking Xining City as An Example

Taking Xining City as an example, this article analyzes the mechanism by which industrial park construction promotes the expansion of urban population and built-up areas based on the process of industrial park construction and urban population expansion. Using this as a theoretical basis, it predicts the future changes in urban population size and reveals the trend of urban development towards high-quality direction. Research has found that: (1) In the process of urban development, the construction of industrial parks is often the initial factor for the cumulative and circular development of cities. The construction of industrial parks drives economic growth, absorbs labor, drives population agglomeration, and provides impetus for the construction of new urban areas. It is the first wave of industrial parks driving urban development; ( 2) With the improvement of development level, the extensive development mode that solely pursues economic growth rate is transforming into a higher quality development mode. Industrial parks are adjusted, the direction of industrial development is repositioned, and the employment elasticity coefficient that drives economic growth rate and economic growth is reduced. On this basis, the changes in labor force coupling coefficient caused by population structure are superimposed, resulting in a decrease in urban population growth and expansion of urban construction land scale, entering the stage of optimizing and adjusting urban land use. With the improvement of urban infrastructure and the gradual increase of per capita road area and per capita green space area, cities have entered the second wave of intensive development. (3) According to predictions, the future urban population will enter a stage of steady growth, shifting from scale expansion to high-quality intensive development. The initial factors of growth or the dominant factors leading to development changes may vary in different cities, but understanding the process and mechanism, and recognizing the development laws of the studied city, should be a prerequisite for predicting the size of the city.