The transnationalization of urban systems: The BESETO ecumenopolis

One of the most frustrating problems in a comparative study of urban systems is the definition of urban area. Therefore, for this chapter, the extended urban area from Beijing via Seoul to Tokyo (BESETO) includes only cities of over 200,000 inhabitants, which will minimize definitional errors because urban areas above this size are undeniably urban in character.

In the inverted S-shaped corridor from Beijing to Tokyo via Pyong yang and Seoul there are about 98 million urban inhabitants, and 112 cities with a population of over 200,000 are almost contiguous along a 1,500 km strip of densely populated land (table 14.7 and fig. 14.2), becoming a so-called "ecumenopolis", to use Greek urban ologist Doxiadis's term, or a borderless urban corridor (Whebell, 1969). An ecumenopolis is defined as a unified settlement system spanning the entire habitable area on a global or continental scale (Papaioannou, 1970). An urban corridor from the Tokaido megalopolis to Fukuoka in Japan is extending across the Korea Strait, via stepping stones of islands such as Tsushima and Iki, to Korea's southeastern region centred on Pusan, which covers the most industrialized part including Pohang, Ulsan, and Masan. The intensity of commodity and tourist flows is already very high and it is likely to become another Singapore-Johore Bahru in the Malay Peninsula or Hong Kong-Shenzhen-Guangzhou in the Zhujiang Delta of China. This borderless urban corridor further extends from Pusan to Taegu and Seoul in South Korea and to Pyongyang and Shinuiju in North Korea. It then continues to China's Bohai rim cities. This region can be traversed in only one and a half hours by air and would be within 10 hours' commuting distance if a high-speed train is introduced and the Korea Strait between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago is connected by an under-sea tunnel. The region covers the most developed parts of the respective countries, with bundled lines of railroads and highways. Also, the region is connected by four distinctive megalopolises in each country.

Table 14.7 Urban population and number of cities in the Beijing-Pyongyang-Seoul-Tokyo corridor

	Population ('000)	No. of cities over 200,000
Bohai rim corridor, China	31,556	36
Shinuiju-Kaesong corridor, North Korea	4,997	9
Seoul-Pusan corridor, South Korea	22,642	15
Fukuoka-Tokyo corridor, Japan	39,269	52
Total	98,464	112

Sources: China Urban Statistical Yearbook, 1988; Eberstadt and Banister (1991); Korea Manicipal Yearbook, 1990; Japan Municipal Yearbook, 1989, 1990.

China

Thanks largely to the city of Beijing being the imperial capital since the Ming Dynasty, China's north-east region enjoyed the status of the largest city in the empire for a period of almost 600 years from the late thirteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century. The opening of Tianjin as a treaty port in 1861 and the development of Dalian and Qingdao as leased port cities with foreign capital and technology in the early years of the twentieth century greatly reinforced the region's traditional urban hierarchy based on a vertical structure of administrative cities. The opening of smaller port cities in the late nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century, such as Dandong and Yantai on the Yellow Sea, was mainly for the export of Chinese goods. These cities were developed with few linkages with their rural hinterland, further accentuating urban growth in the region.

Fig. 14.2 The BESETO ecumenopolis

As dozens of mining and industrial cities in the province of Liaoning, such as Fushun, Anshan, Benxi, and Shenyang, were developed under the Japanese occupation in the 1930s, Liaoning province has been the most urbanized province in China. After the founding of the People's Republic, raw material and fossil fuel-oriented industrial centres such as Tangshan, Zibo, Xingtai, and Handan grew rapidly. In the 1960s, with the economic development policy of regional self-sufficiency, provincial capitals such as Shijiazuang and Jinan became diversified manufacturing centres with a complex industrial mix. Since the economic reforms initiated in the late 1970s, China has experienced an unprecedented rate of labour transfer from agriculture to non-agriculture as well as the most rapid rate of urbanization in modern Chinese history.

China's Bohai rim, situated in a most favourable coastal region facing the Korean peninsula, and endowed with rich resources of energy, minerals, and labour, has witnessed a much higher degree of urbanization than the nation has as a whole. Of the five provinces in China with more than 40 per cent of their population engaged in nonagricultural activities in 1988, three were located in the region: Beijing, Tianjin, and Liaoning (Chang, 1991). While Beijing and Tianjin are independent municipalities, Liaoning province has the highest percentage of urban population among all provinces. The provinces of Hebei and Shandong are also characterized by a much higher than average rate of urbanization. The Bohai Major Economic Zone, with a population of 200 million and more than 100 large and small cities, forms a C-shaped circular zone often reputed to be "the golden necklace of the Bohai Sea." It has been described as the "windows and forward positions of North China towards the outside world" (Cheng, 1991:35). It has 32 cities of over 200,000 inhabitants and its total urban population approached 32 million in 1988, as shown in figure 14.3.

Fig. 14.3 Population of cities over 200,000 in the Bohai rim corridor, China, 1988 (Source. China Urban Statistical Yearbook, 1988)

Cities	Population (1,000)
Beijing	5,487
Tianjin	4,320
Shijiazhuang	987
Tangshan	778
Qinhuangdao	283
Handan	467
Xingtai	511
Baoding	239
Zhangjiakou	980
Chengde	333
Cangzhou	219
Shenyang	3,412
Dalian	1,619
Anshan	1,148
Fushun	1,151
Benxi	726
Dandong	491
Jinzhou	641
Yingkou	392
Fuxin	608
Liaoyang	461
Panjin	308
Tieling	229
Chaoyang	202
Wafangdian	237
Haicheng	201
Jinxi	234
Jinan	1,257
Qingdao	1,191
Zibo	801
Zaozhuang	297
Dongying	217
Yantai	369
Weifang	332
Jining	229
Tai'an	219
Total	219

Japan

Beyond the pre-eminence of Tokyo as a mega-city, it is estimated that one-third of Japan's wealth is generated in the Tokyo metropolitan area. There are three major, contiguous metropolitan areas with heavy concentrations of population and industry known collectively as the Tokaido megalopolis: the National Capital region based on Tokyo, the Chubu region based on Nagoya, and the Kinki region based on Osaka. A further concentration of population and employment has been taking place in specially designated cities such as Hiroshima, Kitakyushu, and Fukuoka and their metropolitan areas, so that there will eventually be a great urban corridor from Tokyo to Fukuoka. This has been reinforced by the construction of the Shinkansen (bullet train) railway system and other trunk transportation networks along the corridor. The construction of the Shinkansen railway system linking Tokyo and Osaka in 1964 and of the national motorway system has probably done more to consolidate Tokaido than any other public investment. The extension of the Shinkansen to Fukuoka in 1975 merely extended the existing intensely developed urban crescent. Of 11 Japanese cities over 1 million, 10 are now located in the region stretching from Tokyo to Fukuoka along the Shinkansen (Tokyo, Kawasaki, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima, Kitakyushu, and Fukuoka As shown in figure 14.4, there are also medium-sized cities, and the total urban population of the region as a whole was about 39 million in 1990.

During the past 40 years, there have been a series of plans and other measures both to prevent the further concentration of population and employment and to restructure the growth of those metropolitan areas. The Japanese government announced its Fourth Comprehensive National Development Plan in 1987. The basic thrust of the plan was to create a multi-polar nation in which various poles featuring characteristic functions were to be developed. Japan is becoming a highly motorized and sophisticated high-tech economy. Its economy is internationalized and is experiencing relative decline in its manufacturing sectors. There are many indications that these trends may lead to another upsurge of metropolitan growth in Tokaido and in the urban corridor along the Shinkansen.

South Korea

South Korea is already a highly urbanized country: four out of five Koreans lived in urban areas in 1988. South Korea started to experience rapid economic growth and urbanization during the period beginning in 1961. The resultant benefits, however, are largely concentrated in Seoul. Consequently, people from all over the country headed for Seoul and a few large cities in the Seoul-Pusan corridor. Five out of the six largest cities with populations over 1 million(Seoul, Inchon, Taejon, Taegu, and Pusan) are located in this corridor, although Seoul and its metropolitan area dominate urbanization in Korea. More than 42 per cent of the nation's population and 48 per cent of the nation's manufacturing employment are concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area.

Fig. 14.4 Population of cities over 200,000 in the Tokyo-Fukuoka corridor, Japan, 1990 (Source: Japan Municipal Yearbook, 1989 and 1990)

Cities	Population (1,000)
Kumamoto	566
Oita	402
Kurume	225
Kitakyusyu	1,031
Fukuoka	1,186
Sasebo	248
Nagasaki	446
Simonoseki	259
Hirosima	1,058
Kure	220
Hukuyama	365
Kurasiki	417
Okayama	584
Kokogawa	236
Himezi	451
Akasi	265
Kobe	1,439
Amagasaki	495
Wakayama	450
Sakai	807
Osaka	2,536
Nara	345
Kyoto	1,402
Otu	251
Itinomiya	261
Nagoya	2,111
Simizu	242
Toyota	321
Toyohasi	331
Okazaki	299
Numazu	212
Hamamatu	528
Maebasi	284
Takasaki	236
Hatiozi	446
Sizuoka	471
Hiratuka	241
Yokosuka	436
Yokohama	3,176
Kawasaki	1,140
Kawagoe	296
Omiya	394
Urawa	407
Tokyo	8,111
Itikawa	422
Tiba	816
Hunabasi	526
Utunomiya	422
PNGu	407
Matayama	442
Takamatu	329
Tokusima	260
Total	39,269

Table 14.8 Share of population in the Seoul-Pusan urban corridor, 1960-1988 ('000 persons)

	1960	1970	1980	1988
National total (A)	24,989	31,435	37,449	42,800
Urban population (B)	9,526	15,810	26,891	34,558
Urbanization rate (%)	38.1	50.3	71.8	80.7
Seoul-Pusan population (C)	5,950	11,297	19,493	26,027
(C)/(A)	23.8	35.9	52.1	60.8
(C)/(B)	62.5	71.5	72.5	75.3

Source: Korea Municipal Yearbook, 1990.

As shown in table 14.8, about 61 per cent of the nation's population or 75 per cent of the urban population lived in the Seoul-Pusan megalopolis in 1988 (only 24 per cent of Koreans lived in this corridor in 1960). There is a consistent trend of concentration of population and employment in this urban corridor. There are 15 cities with over 200,000 inhabitants and also more than 30 smaller cities located in the inland urban corridor of 250 miles, creating a contiguous urban area of 26 million, as shown in figure 14.5.

Since the early 1970s the vulnerable national security situation, the high primacy rate of Seoul, increased regional disparities between the Seoul-Pusan urban corridor and other regions, especially the southwestern region, and the worsening of rural areas in terms of income and the heavy outflow of the productive younger population have led the government to implement various measures to curb population concentration in the Seoul metropolitan area. An overall evaluation of the effectiveness of those measures is known not to be very encouraging. Contrarily, the government encouraged further growth of the Seoul-Pusan megalopolis by the construction of the Seoul-Pusan expressway in the late 1970s and development of new industrial estates along the expressway. The government is now considering building a Korean Shinkansen from Seoul to Pusan by the end of this century. This will reinforce the ongoing trend of growth of the Seoul-Pusan megalopolis.

Fig. 14.5 Population of cities over 200,000 in the Kaesong-Shinuiju corridor, North Korea, and the Seoul-Pusan corridor, South Korea, 1988 (Sources: North Korea - Eberstadt and Banister, 1991; South Korea - Korea Municipal Yearbook 1990)

Kaesong - Shinuju Corridor

Cities	Population (1,000)
Pyongyang	2,355
Nampo	715
Kaesong	331
Sonchon	356
Shinuju	289
Pyongsong	239
Sariwon	221
Tukcheon	217
Songlim	274
Total	4,997

Seoul - Pusan Corridor

Cities	Population (1,000)
Seoul	10,287
Pusan	3,769
Taegu	2,239
Inchon	1,644
Taejon	1,021
Suwon	543
Sungnam	515
Anyang	433
Uijonbu	200
Kwangmyong	253
Chongju	417
Chonan	201
Kumi	200
Pohang	302
Ulsan	618
Total	22,642

North Korea

North Korea is one of the least known countries with respect to population dynamics in general and especially the urban system itself. Available fragmentary information indicates that, in general, cities are not excessively large in their urban jurisdiction, and that urban population is defined according to conservative criteria (Eberstadt and Banister, 1991). However, North Korea does have a relatively high rate of urbanization. In addition to its initial condition of strong manufacturing industries and a high proportion of non-agricultural population, North Korea has continued to give priority to industrial development. As a consequence, the level of urbanization increased from 40 per cent in 1960 to about 64 per cent in 1985. There is only one city over 1 million and eight small and medium-sized cities are located in the corridor from Kaesong to Shinuiju. The urban corridor is the most developed and densely populated area in North Korea, as shown in figure 14.5.

In addition to the existing Asia-Pacific urban system, which has been briefly outlined, the emergence of extended metropolitan regions crossing national boundaries in North-East Asia, the globalization of economic activity, and the transnationalization of capital and labour markets will make a great impact on the urban system in the region. China's open policy, Korea's Nordpolitik, Japan's Japan Sea Movement, and Russia's Eastward Movement will be important forces shaping the urban future in the twenty-first century. These evolving forces necessarily lead to the need for the spatial and structural adjustment of mega-cities in North-East Asia because mega-cities have never in the past not acted as locomotives for change to shape a new order.