Urban spillover or rural industrialisation: Which drives the growth of Beijing Metropolitan Area

Two competing forces are traditionally considered to be responsible for the formation and expansion of metropolitan areas. One is urban spillover, which stresses the dispersion of residents from the city centre; the other is rural industrialisation, which focuses on in situ industrialisation in peripheries. The traditional idea that these two forces are geographically incompatible and temporarily unchangeable is challenged by this study. By analysing the development trajectories and growth drivers of Beijing Metropolitan Area (BMA), the study shows that the development of this area between 1995 and 2010 was driven jointly by both forces. For counties that were already part of BMA in 1995, the dominant growth driver in the following years has shifted from rural industrialisation to urban spillover. For counties joining BMA after 1995, much of their incorporation was first driven by rural industrialisation and later by urban spillover. For all the counties in 2010, those closer to the city core were generally dominated by urban spillover but those farther away were largely by rural industrialisation. These findings confirm that urban spillover and rural industrialisation are neither geographically incompatible nor temporarily unchangeable but can co-shape one metropolitan area. They also suggest that the two forces are actually contingent on local conditions that can vary both across space and over time.