关键词: 城市化, 区划调整, 行政城市化, 地方政府, 中山市

Abstract:

China has experienced a rapid urbanization period since the adoption of the opening-up policy and the economic reform from the late 1970s. The urbanization rate of China has reached 52.57% in 2012. According to the statistics, urban population of China increased from 373 million in 1996 to 712 million in 2012. Urban area also expanded from 13000 km² to 45750.7 km², which represents a 252% increase. How China achieves this tremendous rate of urban population growth and how this process occurs in such a short period of time became important questions in urban transition research. To understand the process and mechanism of urban making and urbanization in China, the role of local governments needs to be examined. Previous studies show that the rapid functional change of land use brings about a series of urban problems, such as pseudo-urbanization and passive urbanization. This paper explores the change of administration division of Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, and found that the development of the South Area and the West Area of Zhongshan City has undergone a pseudo-urbanization to real urbanization process. The focus of the study is on the adjustment of administrative regions (AAR) implemented in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province. Using an ethnographic examination of the AAR process and the role played by various stakeholders, we investigate the effects of the AAR, specifically, does it create "passive" or "fake" urbanization? In the conclusion, we further discuss the theory of urbanization in China and link it to the concept of government-led administrative unit adjusting urbanization. We argue that government-led adjusting urbanization is characterized by a transformation from passive and fake urbanization at the beginning of the process to proactive and real urbanization at later stages. Accordingly, rural land, populations, industry, and lifestyles are all converted into city property. The study used participatory observation and questionnaire survey methods. The result shows that the local government indeed pushed the urbanization by adjusting different administration districts, that is, engaged in the "government-led adjusting urbanization". It suggests that a long term and more inclusive examination method of Chinese urbanization mechanism is required, which should be more suitable in China than the western definition of urbanization. The "government-led adjusting urbanization" might be a special phenomenon only occurred in China. Whether it serves the purpose of the government remains a question that needs to be answered by further case study and research.

Key words: urbanization, adjusting of administrative region(AAR), administrative urbanization, local government, Zhongshan City