| Small towns are key structural organizations that connect cities and villages,and they are also a unit of the huge grass-roots organizational system of China.The quality of their development is related to grass-roots stability,regional coordination and overall social development.In the late 20 th century,with the actual shift of national economic development focus to big cities,the continuous acceleration of urbanization process and the deepening of rural system reform,the central and local governments addressed the disadvantages of scattered layout and small scale and the problems of population loss and financial crisis through multiple rounds of large-scale withdrawal and merger.In this process,the withdrawal and merger of small towns,as a complex systematic project for institutional adjustment purpose,not only brought great changes in spatial zoning,but also caused great changes in the social and economic space of regional small towns,making a far-reaching impact on local economical,social,eco-environmental and spatial development.However,existing relevant studies have the problems of “one-dimensional evaluation”,hysteresis,and a bias towards the withdrawn and merged towns.What are the systematic impacts of withdrawal and merger on small towns and regional overall development? Are the spatial results of policy implementation in line with its original intention? Definite and systematic answers to these comprehensive and reflective questions are not yet given.For this problem,this paper follows the pathway of “pattern judgment-mechanism analysis-performance evaluation-optimization” to systematically comb the spatial-temporal evolution process of regional withdrawal and merger of small towns and deeply analyze the dialectical relationship between withdrawal and merger of small towns and spatial performance based on rescaling theory and SCP analytical method.On the basis of clarifying the representation areas,scale levels,complex attributes and other key points of the spatial performance of withdrawal and merger,a set of strategic,scientific and dynamic index system is constructed to carry out spatial performance evaluation of the small towns that retain organizational structure after withdrawal and merger at city,county and town levels,and measure the dynamic and comprehensive spatial effects in political,economic,social and ecological fields generated by withdrawal and merger,so as to propose targeted spatial optimization strategies.This paper takes small towns in Changsha City as an example and mainly conducts research from five aspects.(1)Identify and summarize the spatial-temporal pattern evolution characteristics and manifestations of "withdrawal and merger" of small towns.This paper first systematically sorts out the historical roadmap of withdrawal and merger of small towns in China and in Changsha respectively since the founding of New China,and summarizes the modes and types of “withdrawal and merger”.The spatial-temporal pattern characteristics in spatial distribution,structure,morphology and other aspects presented in the multiple rounds of withdrawal and merger of small towns in Changsha since 1995 are particularly explained.Seen from the results of spatial-temporal pattern analysis,the withdrawal and merger of small towns in Changsha has significantly expanded the scale and development space of individual small towns,strengthened the control ability of central towns,optimized the spatial development system with a central town as the core of a small region,and highly matched with the process and appeal of urbanization of central cities.However,the interactive correlation analysis results of the withdrawal and merger of small towns and the spatial evolution of the regional ecological environment also show that the development-oriented withdrawal and merger emphasized too much the development of small towns and ignored basic security issues such as due ecological security responsibility.(2)Explain the cognitive points of the withdrawal and merger of small towns in theory.With the help of theoretical tools of rescaling and SCP analytical method,the withdrawal and merger of small towns itself is both the embodiment of power and the one-body-and-two-sides property of spatial representation: The presentations in space and structure of the withdrawal and merger of small towns are exactly the environment where power acts,and also the spatial results of redistribution in response to power changes from the bottom to the top;the behavior of power restructuring space from the top to the bottom takes physical space and its structural modality as the environment,and is the action mechanism of space and structure redistribution.At the same time,a theoretical explanation of the connotation,representation fields,scale levels,attribute properties and other key points of the spatial performance of withdrawal and merger is offered from a structuralist perspective.(3)Build a spatial performance evaluation system for the withdrawal and merger of small towns.Based on the evaluation criteria of efficiency,equity and bottom line,KPI method is used to establish a four-level(goal-field-element-index)spatial performance evaluation framework for withdrawal and merger at regional and individual scales respectively.Two sets of index systems for regional small town groups and small town individuals respectively which are interconnected are established in the four fields of“system-policy”,“space-land”,“society-economy”,and “security-guarantee”.Furthermore,Delphi method,AHP method and entropy weight method are integrated to establish the combined weights of evaluation indexes and the algorithm of performance indexes.(4)Assess the spatial performance levels of withdrawal and merger with various samples in different scale units.The paper compares and judges the differences among small town samples of different counties and different types in the results of four-level(“key goals”,“key fields”,“key elements” and “key indexes”)spatial performance evaluation indexes on the basis of the overall performance level of the assessed area at the city scale,combining static spatial performance distribution and dynamic spatial performance evolution exploration.Based on this,the goal attainment degree of withdrawal and merger in the four assessed fields are analyzed according to the change trend and rate of each performance index.The main results and specific problems of the withdrawal and merger of small towns in Changsha are presented in an all-round way from scale,type,vertical scale and horizontal scale.(5)Propose space optimization strategies for small towns on the levels of rescaling and spatial restructuring.On the one hand,it puts forward the alternation between rigid and flexible properties of scale tools and compounded rotation of directional rescaling in accordance with the theory of rescaling.On the other hand,it presents four strategies from the perspective of spatial restructuring based on small towns and regions as per the comprehensive evaluation of spatial performance.The four strategies are as follows.Firstly,optimize the overall territorial spatial structure so that the development demands align with the minimum requirements;secondly,optimize the administrative space of small towns so that the adjustment of administrative division keeps pace with high-quality intensive growth;thirdly,optimize the hierarchical structure of small towns so that they are uniformly distributed in a unit-like manner;fourthly,optimize the functional space of small towns in such a way that the level progression takes place cooperatively along its network.The study believes that the withdrawal and merger of small towns is not only a public policy,but also a very important organizational strategy of central and local governments.So the performance evaluation should jump out of the micro complex situation of the withdrawal and merger of small towns,and instead pay more attention to the key areas that determine whether the objectives of organizational strategy can be successfully achieved.Through decomposing,an evaluation index system that is easy to operate and able to answer key questions is generated.At the same time,small towns are carriers for the implementation of withdrawal and merger policy,so taking spatial performance evaluation as a means of policy effect inspection can not only systematically and accurately identify the results and problems of withdrawal and merger,but also provide a scientific decision-making basis for further consolidating the positive results of the withdrawal and merger of small towns and dealing with possible negative problems.Based on rescaling theory and SCP analytical method,this study proposes a set of operable spatial performance evaluation system and methods for the withdrawal and merger of small towns.This is significant not only because it is a new exploration in the field of the space organization of regional small towns.More importantly,it provides a new idea and a practical technical model for the ex ante forecast,ex post evaluation and adjustment feedback about the formulation and implementation of small towns related policies,and provides practical theoretical and technical references for the adjustment of regional spatial development strategy and the policy guidance to guarantee the high-quality overall development of regions and individual development of small towns. |
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