Research On Space Expansion Mechanism In Metropolitan Area From A Perspective Of Administrative Decentralization

Since 1980s,China has experienced rapid social and economic growth,and then created the so-called"Chinese growth miracle".At this stage,China's cities have experienced a unique rapid development,and a large number of metropolitan areas have sprung up.Metropolitan area is essentially the product of the expanding urban scale and the growing economic influence.And it is and would still be an important space carrier for the sustained development of China's economy.With the scale of urban areas expanding,the traditional governance model that is single-centeral has been unable to adapt to the complex development environment,so the governance of metropolitan areas has changed to a trend of multi-center.It is generally believed that the decentralization of the two levels of city and district has become a universal governance structure within the metropolitan area.After decades of development,the expansion of internal space in China's metropolitan area has been gradually showing the characteristics of diversity,the uneven development of internal space within the metropolitan area almost widely exists,which shows that in the same city-district decentralization structure,there are still certain elements functioning differently in the different area.In this paper,through theoretical deduction,the mechanism of how power influences urban spatial expansion is constructed,and an empirical analysis is made by studying the real power adjustment and spatial expansion process of three districts of Jiangxia,Xinzhou and Caidian in Wuhan city.This paper believes that decentralization is not shaping the urban spatial structure in a single path,while the whole process shows the distinctive characteristics of the temporal and spatial,namely the spatial expansion of the city is a comprehensive result of the external macro background and the internal decentralization pattern:with the development of the times,the changing national development strategy and macro control policy cause the evolution of urban power structure in certain new region generally containing two levels of city and district,which in the metropolitan area is expressed as a diffeerent decentralization pattern,and this pattern of decentralization would ultimately affect the urban spatial expansion mode,then the formation of the differences in the space environment and landscape of the urban areas.Specifically,the political and economic background of the past decades of growth has greatly affected the spatial expansion mechanism of urban areas in China,and power has become a fundamental force affecting the expansion of urban space.The growth pattern of factor accumulation will tie the space and the economic growth firmly.Therefore,the power at all levels will be under the impetus of the growth doctrine,and through the expansion of the urban space,the goal of economic growth will be guaranteed.On the macro level,the central level of the main power through the development of top-level development strategy and the implementation of corresponding policies and guide the local authority main body to implement the corresponding industrial development strategy,and the specific value of urban space.The expansion of the spatial domain layer will inevitably bring about the change of the administrative organizational domain.The micro level,the local power subjects in different stages by different ways for power control space,influence of space construction process;therefore decentralization microstructure will greatly influence the dynamic characteristics of the internal space and static phenomenon.In this paper,a case study in Wuhan is conducted to prove the theory study above.The case demonstrates that the macro development strategy in different periods put forward by central government has greatly affected the process of power game inside the metropolitan area,and then created their own unique decentralization pattern of city-district,and this pattern is finally projected in the different interior space environment and structure.In the first case,Caidian district in Wuhan city endured a rapid development in the early 1990s when the central government adopted the economic strategy of reforming and opening.The district accordingly adopted a decentralization strategy that fully stimulate the vitality of the development of every stakeholders,when the bottom-up demands of power adjustment inside the district has been fully released,forming a unique multi-subject decentralization pattern where different new subjects have sprung up to acquire opportunities.The decentralization pattern has profoundly influenced the landscape of Caidian District which shows a distinct characteristics of collage.In the second case,Jiangxia District embraces a new opportunity of development in the background of "the second-time undertaking" with the location advantage of adjacent to the East Lake high tech Zone.In the period the central government set the strictest land system which restrained the urgent need of spatial expansion of East Lake high tech Zone,as a result the Jiangxia District has become a vassal to the East Lake high tech Zone in order to meet its expansion demand.This power structure help shape the present layered space development pattern around the high-tech zone and result in the layered landscape.In the last case,Xinzhou District shows a decentralization pattern and spatial expansion pattern in the time of second heavy industrialization when the central government put emphasis on industries like steel,real estate and so on.In the circumstance Xinzhou District changes into a new administrative system of a top-down centralized power structure to re-utilize its original port resources.Therefore in the area a new power structure which the district government dominates the whole development has formed.Accordingly the Xinzhou area around the port has finally formed a single-center spatial expansion pattern which is internally unbalanced and the landscape also shows extremely polarized characteristics.From this process,it is easily to figure out that,from a static point of view,the macro spatial pattern of one city is actually the refraction of the macro development environment of this period;the internal pattern of space is the result of the interaction between power structure and macro policy at that time.Also from a dynamic point of view,the expansion process of a city can be witness of the changes of the national macro development strategy,as well as the role of power and the law of game in different stages.