Urban administrative restructuring, changing scale relations and local economic development in China

China has significantly restructured its urban administrative/spatial system since the 1978 economic reforms to empower central cities to play a leading role in driving national and regional economic development. Through changes in the scale relations that are heavily conditioned by the administrative levels or ranks (dengji) of cities and counties, central cities have in fact been transformed into city-regions. In the reorganization of urban administrative space, many counties have acquired city status while others have been turned into city districts. Such changes have clearly benefited the central cities. Key to the understanding of the tensions among the spatial units constituting the urban administrative/spatial system is the administrative levels of the units in the system which can be seen as a special type of scale. Though restructured, China's space economy continues to be governed administratively. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.