Study On City Federation System Of Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan

State structure includes single system and federal system and China is a typical nation of single system. Local government can be divided into autonomous government, administrative government and mixture of them. China is a country with such mixture as the main body together with autonomy. Municipal system in China is singe with nature of mixture. With development of urban clusters, the relationship among administrative areas of the cluster become more and more difficult to handle with, troubling the healthy development of city clusters. The political structure of city cluster is apt to change and city-federation is the trend to come.The political structure of society refers to combination of political relationships, political system and political mechanism. The basis function of political structure is to regulate and standardize the social relationships and intercourses. Political structure mainly consists of political body structure, political power structure and political culture structure. The trend of political structure is from mixture to segmentation. Besides international political structure, there also exist political structures of state, administrative area and city cluster, etc.The political fact based on geographic environment is geopolitics and city cluster is an outstanding geopolitical area producing geopolitics of city cluster. City component in the cluster differs with each other in benefit, substance, objectives and strategy, resulting in city geopolitics.The social structure is the complex combination of economic structure, political structure and cultural structure. Economic development interrelates and interacts with political evolution naturally. The political structure is based on the economic structure and has effect on the economic one. Change of the social structure as a whole influence the political structure and the latter should adapt itself to such change. The enormous power of culture has extensive impact.City clusters vary greatly in China. Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan city cluster is unique among them since integration based on geography has brought about economic integration and now evolves toward city cluster in political sense.Viewing the future from the past, the political structure of CZT region is to witness five phases. First, singe system dominated, which was Changsha city in history. Later it became divided into Changsha and Xiangtan and then Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan cities. Then followed integration, which may be called city union. In the end, it will be city federation. In contrary to combine incorporate three cities into one municipality with single system, city federation will come forth based on the phase of city union. Now the demand for such transition is strong in CZT, making transformation in the political structure of CZT city cluster reasonable, necessary and feasible. In the opinion of the author, at the driving side stands the negative effect of administrative area economy, great transformation in the political ecology of CZT region and the challenge of social arrangement modernization and approval of the state pilot zone for resources conserving and environment friendly society development. As to the foundation, CZT is a organism with long history of integration and the regionalism of this area provided the basic condition for the political structure change under discussion. The top-heavy pattern of geopolitical power is favorable for such change and approval of the state pilot zone brought about new opportunity since one of the experiments is to take the lead in forming a new model for development of city cluster.The city cluster of CZT is one with distinctive self-organization features. The political structure change in CZT is transformation with self-organization features.Combination of the administrative areas of CZT into one will cause new problem. By drawing experiences from USA's federal government system in the category of extended metropolitan area (EMA), the analysis result is that city federation will be the best solution of CZT self-organization political transformation.As the foundation, city union will have to be development first. At start, it will be one set by the upper-level governmental level. Then came one political organization based on coordination of three cities under instruction of the upper level government. The advanced form will be one initiated by the three cities, which is the city union in the true sense. The newly established CZT pilot zone coordination committee office based on CZT economic integration office is such an organization at the elementary stage of city union.City federation should be developed when city cluster further matures. Such federation will consists of three members of Changsha City, Xiangtan City and Zhuzhou City. Three cities and the city federation share powers by law. They are not administratively subordinative to each other and differ in functions. The city federation is a body with power yet subject to many restrictions. Such structure is totally new neither like the present situation nor incorporation of three cities under single system.Under city federations, member cities have only municipalities, with no county levels in jurisdiction. City member rule neighborhood instead and such neighborhoods are autonomous. The establishment of city federation should parallel the neighborhood autonomy. As a experimental model for city cluster development, city federation will be sub-provincial level.It is pointed that such city federation will have no harm to political rule of CZT because relationships won't change between province and the central government, no risk will rise from disruption of autonomous neighborhood and no localism will occur due to cultural contrast.Reforms should be carried out for the current system to form adaptable mechanisms politically, economically and administratively. The political one stress power sharing, restriction and balance between the federation and the member cities, which is optimization of power structure. As to economic adaptable mechanism, the point is the four-level taxation and financial system involving the central government, the provincial, the federation and the member cities. Administratively, the government itself should be reformed, with equalization of basic public service as the focus.The function of the new political structure requires certain environment. As result, the socialist market economic system is to be improved in many ways, and democratic politics with Chinese feature should be developed. Political culture participated by various parties will form soon represented by democratic election, democratic coordination and supervision, democracy in Party and democracy at the grass-root level as well as budget democracy.