Zhu QIAN, University of Waterloo, Canada
Spatial strategies of lower-tier cities in China have been overlooked by extant research. Lower-tier cities must face challenges in spatial planning such as limited political and economic resources, low positions in the administrative hierarchical structure, and subordinate roles in regional development agendas. From the conceptual perspective of state spatial selectivity, this study investigates how China’s lower-tier cities devise and realize their spatial strategies by diligently exploring their internal resources and assets and building connections to available external opportunities. Two abutting prefecture-level third-tier cities Bengbu and Chuzhou in economically less developed Anhui Province are examined to understand how they intervene in spatial reconfiguration through territorial categorization, spatial relational adjustment, and administrative boundary realignment to reterritorialize local state power and restructure local economic priorities. The two cities endeavor to achieve spatial restructuring and economic diversification by undertaking spatial selectivity and advocating new spatial and economic territories. While their spatial strategies enhance urban-rural integration, facilitate suburban territorial governance, and adjust core-peripheral relation, the strategiesencounter adverse effects when the mismatch between their targeted places and proposed functions occurs.The creation of new governmental scale and the establishment of a network of multi-level and cross-regional governance for place-specific policies and privileges are yet to be seen functioning well in China’s lower-tier cities.
Mots clés : spatial strategy|spatial planning|spatial selectivity|lower-tier cities|China
A102754ZQ