Exploration of Urban Network Spatial Structure Based on Traffic Flow, Migration Flow and Information Flow: A Case Study of Shanxi Province, China

Urban coordinated development is an important aspect of regional development. The high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin cannot be separated from the coordinated and sustainable development of its inner cities. However, the network connection and spatial structure of cities in the Yellow River Basin have not received sufficient attention. Therefore, this study considered 11 prefecture-level cities in Shanxi Province, an underdeveloped region in the Yellow River Basin, as case areas and selected data on traffic, migration, and information flow that can better represent the urban spatial network structure and depict the spatial connection between cities. Based on the flow intensity calculation, flow direction judgment, spatial structure index, and social network analysis, the spatial structural characteristics of Shanxi Province were comprehensively analyzed from the perspective of flow space. The results showed the following: (1) Cities in Shanxi Province present a development trend of “one core and multiple centers.” The strong connection concerns mostly Taiyuan and radiates outward and presents a Chinese character “大”—shaped spatial connection pattern. (2) Taiyuan is the first connecting city of most cities in Shanxi Province, and the element flows particularly towards the central city and geographical proximity. (3) The urban spatial pattern of Shanxi Province presents an obvious unipolar development trend, where the network structure is an “absence-type pyramid.” The imbalance of the urban network connection strength is prominent in Shanxi Province, which is strong and numerous in the south but opposite in the north. (4) The overall network element flow density is low, the network connection is weak, Taiyuan agglomeration and radiation are the strongest, and Changzhi centrality ranks second, but the gap between Changzhi and Taiyuan is wide, and the polarization phenomenon is serious. Future research should focus on the rapidly developing provincial capital city of Taiyuan, coordinating the steady development of the central Shanxi city cluster, and driving the common development of neighboring cities.