Symbiosis Theory and Regional Economic Integration: Evidence from Zhangzhou

Under the logic of symbiosis Theory, urban development needs to consider integrating internal and external development to allocate scarce resources effectively. Therefore, this paper quantitatively analyses the districts and counties in Zhangzhou from the perspective of symbiosis theory, using the "gravity model" and social network analysis. We find that the economic network within Zhangzhou’s districts and counties remains weak. The central district acts as the sole dominant node, attracting resources from surrounding areas while offering limited outward spillovers, and symbiotic linkages among peripheral units are still low. On the one hand, Zhangzhou needs to play the role of the core area of the city as a link to build a platform for inter-district and county collaboration and to strengthen internal integration and development; on the other hand, Zhangzhou is in a relatively secondary position in the Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou metropolitan area, and needs to give full play to its industrial strengths in the process of integration and development, and to avoid the problem of the central city attracting too much of all kinds of resources.