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China's Emergent City-Region Governance

A New Form of State Spatial Selectivity through State-orchestrated Rescaling

Bibliographic Data

ID4382016
AuthorsFulong Wu (0000-0003-4938-6066, Fulong Wu, Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, Central House 14 Upper Woburn Place, London WC1H 0N UK, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume40
Issue6
Pages1134-1151
Publication date2016-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Urban and Regional Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0309-1317 • E-ISSN: 1468-2427
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1468-2427.12437
OpenAlexW2735975625
LanguageEN
Citations received181
References cited60

This article examines the emergence of city-region governance as a specific state spatial selectivity in post-reform China. The process has been driven by the state in response to the crisis of economic decentralization, and to vicious inter-city competition and uncoordinated development. As part of the recentralization of state power, the development of urban clusters (chengshiqun) as interconnected city-regions is now a salient feature of 'new urbanization' policy. I argue in this article that the Chinese city-region corresponds to specific logics of scale production. Economic globalization has led to the development of local economies and further created the need to foster 'regional competitiveness'. To cope with regulatory deficit at the regional level, three mechanisms have been orchestrated by the state: administrative annexation, spatial plan preparation and regional institution building, which reflect recent upscaling in post-reform governance

Annexation · China · Corporate governance · Decentralization · Economic geography · Economic growth · Economic system · Economics · Globalization · Market economy · Political science · Politics · Regional science · Sociology · Urbanization · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Local Government Finance and Decentralization

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Unique citing works181
Citations per year20,11
Citation span2017 - 2026 (10)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedYes
Citation typesNeutral: 175
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