Urban Growth, Rescaling, and the Spatial Administrative Hierarchy

After thirty years of scholarship on transformations in China under reform, accumulated research capacity demonstrates potential for increased interdisciplinary research and research questions at the interstices of fields. This paper examines one such possibility by assessing urbanization in relation to the dynamics of financial policy and rescaling through the spatial administrative hierarchy. From the perspective of the administrative hierarchy, the discussion observes the conjunctures of de/recentralization in the economy with urbanization through the establishment of new cities. Based on the work of Victor Shih on inflationary cycles, the paper demonstrates coordination of monetary policy with designation of new cities, and ultimately argues that the central government has orchestrated decentralization of economic power in association with planned urbanization as a basis of domestic growth.