Recentralization, reconfiguration, and re-marketization in China’s city-region-building: Multi-relational rescaling in Jiangbei state-level new area
研究了国家级新区如何通过多重关系尺度重组，为多层级政府间提供畅通治理路径，并以江北新区为例，展示了再集权、重构与再市场化作为综合治理手段，解决城市区域治理中长期存在的行政干预失效、区域战略脱离实际和城市间无序竞争等困境。
This paper unravels the new multi-relational rescaling of state-level new areas (SNAs) in China’s up-to-date city-region-building. These nationwide SNAs have created an unimpeded governance pathway among multi-level governments and multi-scalar localities. As proofed by our empirical study on the establishment history of Jiangbei SNA, this new pathway has consolidated the re-centralization, reconfiguration, and re-marketization tools that can be adopted as comprehensive governance approaches by the state to resolve the long-term dilemma in city-regional governance since the incremental development in the 1990s characterized by frequent failure on administrative intervention, ungrounded regional strategies, and disordered inter-city competitions. Furthermore, the successful practice at Jiangbei SNA can function as a positive reference for developing China’s city-regions towards a region-in-becoming so that national initiatives in city-region-building can be dynamically adjusted accordingly.