Research On The Coordinated Development Of Urban Agglomeration

Urban agglomeration refers to,within a certain geographic area,taking one or more national-level or regional central cities as the core,consisting of a certain number of large cities or metropolitan areas,a sort of urban intensive area which form by relying on an infrastructure network with a high degree of interconnectivity,characterized by clear functional positioning of various cities,a complete industrial division of labor and collaboration system,and a high degree of regional integration.Since the beginning of China's reform and opening up,with the rapid advancement of urbanization,urban agglomeration have been developing rapidly in the country.The urban agglomeration,represented by the Yangtze River Delta,Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei,and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area,have become the significant platform supporting the economic growth and promoting coordinated regional development and participation in international competition and cooperation.At present,urban agglomeration are gradually becoming China's main space form for carrying development factors.They,leading the development of urban agglomeration by central cities and driving regional development with urban agglomeration,have become new models of regional development in China.However,while noticing the rapid development of urban agglomeration in China,we must also note that someproblems still exists in the coordinated development of urban agglomeration.The development gap between urban agglomeration in different regions is rather significant.The problem of imbalanced development of various regions within the cluster becomes more prominent.The problem of unreasonable industrial layout of urban agglomeration and low-level homogeneous competition among regions has also become increasingly prominent,and the institutional mechanism to promote the coordinated development of urban agglomeration is not pefect yet.Intergovernmental relations are important factors affecting the level of coordinated development of urban agglomeration,the essence of intergovernmental relations is the relationship of power allocation and benefit distribution between governments.The power allocation structure and the division of financial power between central and local governments profoundly impact the decision-making authority,decision-making motivation and behavioral strategies of local governments,and thus shape the specific pattern of relations between local governments,which in turn affects the level of coordinated development of urban agglomeration.The dilemma of coordinated development of China's urban agglomeration is closely related to the following factors: the profound transformation in the pattern of local government relations caused by the administrative decentralization and fiscal decentralization reforms led by the central government since the 1990 s,the unevenness of basic public services in urban agglomeration,and the inadequate overall planning efforts of the superior government of the urban agglomeration to promote the coordinated development of urban agglomeration,etc.A urban agglomeration is an economic zone that includes multiple administrative regions.The following two factors are the basic premises and important guarantees to realize the coordinated development of urban agglomerationrational: the reasonable flow and balanced allocationflow of population and production factors within the space of the urban agglomeration,the system construction of industrial labor division and collaboration among regions.The inter-regional policy barriers triggered by administrative decentralization reforms have hindered the reasonable flow of population and production factors in the urban agglomeration space.Fiscaldecentralization reforms have provided local governments with the ability and strong motivation to conduct disorderly competition,which is is harmful to the construction of the system among of inter-regional industries division and collaboration.At the same time,the unequal distribution of basic public services in urban agglomeration,caused by the the low-level basic public service supply system and the spatial allocation of public service resources within urban agglomeration,has lead to a certain spatial distribution of the pattern of population and production factors in urban agglomeration.Degree of imbalance,In addition,the inadequacy of overall planning efforts of the superior government of the urban agglomeration to promote the coordinated development of the urban agglomeration has also hindered the continuous improvement of the level of coordinated development of the urban agglomeration.With the transformation of China's economic development pattern from the economy of administrative region to the economy of urban agglomeration,the following aspects form an important task for the governance of urban agglomeration in China : how to choose an effective governance model to break down policy barriers between regions and weaken the ability and motivation of local governments to carry out vicious competition,and continuously improve the level of equalization of basic public services in urban agglomeration,then construct a pattern of local government affairs and financial power that is conducive to the coordinated development of urban agglomeration.The formation of the coordinated development pattern of urban agglomeration requires the joint promotion of local government of urban agglomeration and higher-level governments of urban agglomeration.At present,the inter-governmental collaborative governance of urban agglomeration with the local government of the urban agglomeration as the core governance body is the main mode adopted in China's urban agglomeration governance,and relatively few studies and applications have been made on the governance model of the higher-level governments of the urban agglomeration.Due to the inconsistent willingness and motivation of local governments in inter-government collaboration governance and the opportunistic behavior strategies adopted by some local governments in inter-government collaboration,inter-government collaborative governance haspromoted the coordinated development of urban agglomeration.There is a certain degree of uncertainty in the effectiveness.To this end,while continuously improving the level of inter-government collaboration and governance in urban agglomeration,we must also focus on exploring and applying the governance model with the higher-level government of the urban agglomeration as the core governance body to promote the coordinated development of the urban agglomeration.Integration is an important means of governance.The resolution of regional governance problems and the improvement of regional coordinated development require not only rely on the collaboration between local governments within the region,but also need higher-level regional governments deal with some of the local government's rights in the region.The financial power must be integrated to change the decision-making motives and behavior strategies of local governments in the region to a certain extent,and then promote the realization of regional governance goals.Based on the existing research results of integrated governance in this field,this paper attempts to put forward the concept of vertical inter-government integrated governance,and attempts to use vertical inter-government integrated governance to promote the realization of the coordinated development of urban agglomeration.Vertical inter-government integration governance is a moderate integration by regional superior governments of regional affairs and financial powers that are closely related to regional governance and regional development,and continuously strengthen regional superior governments in regional governance and regional development.Strengthen the ability to coordinate and coordinate in order to change the decision-making motivations and behavioral strategies of local governments within the region,and continuously improve the synergy between decision-making and behavior among local governments in the regionand between higher-level governments in the region and local governments in the region,form a regional governance model that achieves specific governance goals.As a regional governance model led by regional higher-level governments,vertical intergovernmental integrated governance can help cities in China,especially cities with less mature market mechanisms,weaker willingness and motivation of local governments to participatein intergovernmental collaborative governance.The coordinated development of clusters provides a more feasible governance path.The vertical inter-government integrated governance model is applied to the governance of urban agglomeration.The superior government of the urban agglomeration moderately integrates some of the powers and financial powers of the local government within the urban agglomeration that are closely related to the coordinated development of the urban agglomeration,and continuously strengthen the superiors of the urban agglomeration The coordinating and coordinating ability of the government in promoting the coordinated development of urban agglomeration will help to weaken the ability and motivation of local governments to create policy barriers and carry out disorderly competition,and continue to improve the level of equalization of basic public services in urban agglomeration as a guide.The reasonable flow and balanced allocation of population and production factors in the space of the urban agglomeration will continuously improve the level of industrial division of labor and collaboration between regions,thereby achieving the goal of coordinated development of the urban agglomeration.The integration of local government powers in urban agglomeration and financial power integration of local agglomerations in urban agglomeration are the two basic paths to promote the coordinated development of urban agglomeration by using the vertical inter-government integration governance model.Among them,the integration of local government authority in urban agglomeration is a modest integration that are closely related to the coordinated development of urban agglomeration conducted by the higher-level government of urban agglomeration on some local government authorities.Continuously strengthen the authority of the upper level government of urban agglomeration in promoting the coordinated development of the urban agglomeration,in order to restrain the ability of local governments to create policy barriers and carry out vicious competition,and continuously improve the level of equalization of basic public services in urban agglomeration,and then build an integrated governance of the local government's administrative power structure that is conducive to the coordinated development of urban agglomeration.Means ofintegration of local government authority in urban agglomeration include: integration of planning authority of local government in urban agglomeration,integration of administrative authority in inter-provincial or inter-city borders within urban agglomeration,integration of regional public affairs governance authority in urban agglomeration,and integration of basic public service supply in urban agglomeration.The integration of financial rights of local governments in urban agglomeration is a moderate integration,conducted by the higher-level governments of urban agglomeration,of certain fiscal and tax policy formulation and fiscal and tax revenue distribution authority owned by local governments within the urban agglomeration,in order to weaken the local government's motivation to present policy barriers and launch vicious competition,continuously reduce the financial gap among regions,and then build integrated governance measures of local government financial rights that are conducive to the coordinated development of urban agglomeration.The means of fiscal consolidation of the local government in the urban agglomeration include the integration of the authority for the formulation of fiscal and tax policies of the local government in the urban agglomeration and the fiscal and tax revenue distribution authority in the urban agglomeration.Since vertical inter-governmental integrated governance of urban agglomeration is promoted by the higher-level governments of urban agglomeration under the existing pattern of vertical inter-governmental responsibilities division in China,the pattern of division of responsibilities between vertical governments will have a certain impact on the operational effectiveness of vertical inter-government integrated governance of urban agglomeration.At the same time,the operation of vertical inter-government integration governance will inevitably have a certain impact on the existing distribution of interests between local governments,and the emergence of inter-governmental disputes is unavoidable.To this end,it is necessary to promote the continuous improvement of integrated governance capabilities of vertical government of urban agglomeration by the following means: continuously reforming and improving the division of responsibilities between vertical governments in our country,building a standardized inter-government dispute resolution mechanism in urban agglomeration,and usingurban agglomeration as the basic units for evaluating some types of performance of local governments.