Analysis of Development and Obstacle in Shandong Peninsular City Group Planning

摘要

Through city group planning, a higher-level government attempts to create a new tier of governance, upon which it can coordinate city region development and promote cooperation. But how to make the city group plan be implemented effectively, and how to make the city region become an integrated and promising regional entity with enhanced cooperation among member cities is still an important challenge in China. The paper reviews the theories of "growth machine" model and "urban regime" analysis and "political-economy or urban management paradigm" in city and city group development, and analyses the process of city group planning by a case of Shandong peninsular city group planning in China. It is found that the multifarious plans existence in the same period, the absence of effective coordinating mechanism among cities and the inter-cities competition leads to many disputes in the course of implementation.