ABSTRACT
The producer services in the building industry in China is a high-order industrial sector with an important impact on the national economy. Therefore, their urban distributions are carefully discussed in this paper through a case study employing the Construction Supervision Enterprises (CSEs) as the representative research object. Firstly, the information entropy models are established for time series detection of the M-distribution system which shows the spatial characteristics of CSEs on national metropolitan agglomerations, as well as for the detection of the R-distribution system which shows the hierarchical characteristics of CSEs in national city rankings of administration. Moreover, the empirical tests of these models are analyzed through the data of the top 100 CSEs from 2006 to 2014. The results of this study indicate that: (1) The top 100 CSEs were apt to cluster in cities with higher administrative rank but this hierarchical characteristic was also fluctuant during the studying period. (2) The spatial characteristics of the top 100 CSEs in each category of metropolitan agglomerations were relatively balanced and stable. (3)The relationship between spatial characteristics of urban distributions of top 100 CSEs and hierarchical ones was changed from antagonism to coordination in 2011.
