Exploring the Economic Performance of Metropolitan Areas: Evidence from the Alteration of Spatial Structures in Central Cities

The economic performance of a metropolitan area is a crucial indicator of its economic health. Changes to the spatial organization of the central city will unavoidably affect the functioning of the metropolitan area's economy because it is the epicenter of the region's growth. However, only some empirical studies have examined the effect of changes in the physical layout of central cities on the economic growth of metropolitan areas. This study used the Hangzhou metropolitan area in China as its study area. The study measured changes in the central city's spatial structure using the city linkage measurement model's functional network analysis framework and used a fixed-effects model and discontinuous regression design to analyze the impact of these changes on the metropolitan area's economic performance. It was discovered that: (1) the metropolitan area's overall economic performance improves when the central city's spatial structure is altered; (2) spatial geographic distances, the size of the city's economy, and the stage of the development of the central city's spatial structure all play a moderating role in the process of the central city's spatial structure affecting the metropolitan area's economic performance; and (3) the formation of the central city's polycentric spatial structure promotes the transformation of the metropolitan area into a polycentric spatial structure. Therefore, we should concentrate on the coordinated development of morphological polycenters and functional polycenters in urban areas, strengthen the construction of transportation and other infrastructure, lower the cost of factor flow, and create multicenters with complementary functions as well as effective collaborative and spatial structure systems to realize the upgrading of urban areas more effectively.