New-type urbanisation and regional spatial structures—A case study

Abstract

This paper mainly used a qualitative approach, including the case studies and comparative study, to investigate the evolutions of the regional spatial structures that will appear in the context of new-type urbanisation practices in China (National New-type Urbanisation Plan, NNUP), based on the investigation of two well-known municipalities, Chongqing and Shenzhen. The term ‘regional spatial structures’, in this paper, refer to the higher-level urban systematic spatial structures, in other words, the structures of city system. A city system generally has various forms of sub-settlements appeared within it. In this essay, the regional spatial structure of the city system was studied in details in which emphasis is put upon the planning of the city system, (which includes the formation of developmental units, like the districts, city clusters and developmental corridors), the formation of management methods and the inter-associations between the different units of settlements. Moreover, the regional spatial structures also constitute of the local income and market structures. With the above concepts, the paper demonstrates the current situations of NNUP in Chongqing and Shenzhen in terms of the management as well as the spatial developmental framework, and their respective effects on the regional spatial structures in the locality, and in turn draw a final conclusion, through making discussions towards the similarities and differences in their NNUP practices, that both cities are emphasising on the urbanisation practices towards the counties, while still having differences in terms of the extent to which the harmonised city system has been formed. Therefore, in the general NNUP context, efforts should continue to be made for the revitalisations of potential settlements, especially those with the strategic locations proximate to the municipal- or urban cluster-level central areas.