| Within one country, the administrative division places a hard constraint on the development of a city, so a large scale administrative division adjustment has a profund impact on the city’s development. In 1958, the State Council classified ten counties, including Shanghai County, Jiading County, Songjiang County, Jinshan County, Baoshan County, Qingpu County, Fengxian County, Nanhui County, Chuansha County and Chongming County, from Jiangsu Province to Shanghai Municipality, which was a critical administrative division adjustment in Shanghai’s history. On one side, this adjustment had laid a basic foundation for Shanghai’s current territory; on the other side, this adjustment had largely promoted the restructure of Shanghai’s urban space, and the rebuild of Shanghai’s functional orientation after 1949. Therefore, it is quite necessary to reexamine this adjustment carefully, in order to understand the development of Shanghai in contemporary China.At first, this administrative division adjustment happened in the context of the shift of the national policy in middle 1950s. At that time, the international situation was turning good, and the domestic situation had been improved fundamentally at the same time, so the central government took actions to adjust the national policy. The importance of advancing science and technology and promoting the development of coastal area received great attention from the central leaders. As to Shanghai, the central leaders gave up the previous policy, restricting Shanghai’s development, and turned to require and encourage Shanghai to explore and make use of its full potential in science, technology and industry to promote the development of science and technology, especially to implement the industrialization strategy in a better way. According to instructions from the central government, the Shanghai municipal government adopted the policy, which was to make full use of Shanghai’s industry potential and to develop Shanghai’s industry rationally, as the leading policy of its future development, and announced to build Shanghai to be an important industrial base and a science and technology base. In order to realize the goal of building two bases, the Shanghia municipal government launched a very agreesive plan to develop heavy industry and science and technology. However, the crowded and narrow territory of Shanghai municipality had restricted its development severely for there was no extra space to hold large plants and research institutions, colleges. In the mean time, the overcrowed population and the inadequancy of nonstaple food supply also posed threats for Shanghai’s future development. All in all, Shanghai was in need of a large space supplement from outside.Secondly, the process of this administrative division adjustment was quite tortuous. After a long negotiation between Shanghai municipal government and Jiangsu provincial government, this adjustment was finally nailed down in 1958. In the late period of the First Five Year Plan, the central government took actions to promote Shanghai’s development, and Shanghai’s industry benefited from the new policies increased rapidly. In order to meet space requirement from the boom of Shanghai’s industry, the Shanghai Bureau suggested classifying the ten counties into Shanghai municipality in 1956, but failed to realize it. With the continus expansion of population and the deteritoration of nonstaple food supply, Shanghai municipal government speeded up the negotiation with Jiangsu provinicial government proactively, and finally Jiangsu provincial government agreed to transfer ten counties to Shanghai municipality.Thirdly, this administrative division adjustment had already influenced the restructure of Shanghai’s urban space and the rebuild of Shanghai’s functional orientation in a very short time. After calssifying the ten counties from Jiangsu province, the terroitory of Shanghai municipality had expanded largely, which changed its original space structure, "big urban area and narrow rural area", into a combination of urban area and rural area, which had an extensive rural area. What’s more important was that the updated space structure had promoted the rebuild of Shanghai’s functional orientation. After the Liberation in 1949, the functional orientation of Shanghai was to transform its "nature", and by exploiting its production potential to support industrial development in hinterland.In the middle of 1950s, the central government adjusted Shanghai’s functional orientation, and designated Shanghai as the important indutrial base and science and technology base, which meant the building of two bases had been the most important core functions of Shanghai from then on. With the vast extra space of the ten counties, the Shanghai municipality began to adjust its industrial distribution in a larger territory, and it was able to build new plants and to enlarge factories. From the late 1950s to 1960s, Shanghai had built many industrial zones and satelliate towns outside its urban area to hold a great number of large industry plants, which had improved the industrial distribution a lot, and contributed to build the industrial base. At the same time, with the vast new area, the Shanghai municipal government launched policies to move the oversized urban population to live in the suburban area, and to build nonstaple food supply base in those counties, both of which had contributed to solve those challenges that Shanghai used to face with, and were also beneficial to the building of two bases.The classification of ten counties from Jiangsu province to Shanghai municipality was the consequence of the central government to readjust its relation with Shanghai municipality in the middle 1950s, and this administrative division adjustment had a very clear functional orientation,to promote the industrial production function of Shanghai. Besides, this adjustment was the critical factor, faciliating Shanghai to achieve a lot in restructuring its space structure and rebuilding its functional orientation in 1960s. Eventhough the administrative division adjustment in 1958 did great help in Shanghai’s development both in the short and in the long run. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that employing administrative division adjustment to break the bottleneck which restricts its further development actually has brought Shanghai some negative influences. For example, overemphasizing the construction of productive function and neglecting the importance of nonproductive function has impeded the comprehensive capacity of satelliate towns in attracting population to live and work there in 1960s. What needs special attention is that the path-dependence that city development and regional cooperation rely on the administrative division adjustment is really hard to get ride of even in today, in the context of promoting reform and opening up, and promoting the socialist marketization. And this path-dependence has restricted the development of Yangtze River Delta intergration largely. |
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