1 Introduction

The National New Area (hereafter NNA) is a comprehensive functional area approved by the State Council of China, which undertakes major national development and reform tasks. As the highest-level strategic area in China, the NNA has strong characteristics of state’s consciousness projection and undertakes important strategic missions and reform tasks (Wu, 2016). At present, China has established 19 NNAs.Footnote 1 Except for Pudong New Area and Binhai New Area, which were established earlier, the other 17 NNAs were approved for establishment intensively after 2010. At the end of 2018, the 19 NNAs accounted for 0.26% of the country’s land area and 2.16% of its population, creating 4.40% of the country’s regional GDP,Footnote 2 showing good development trends and economic strength.

With the upgrading of NNA policy experiments and the diffusion of regional layout, the innovative management system and mechanisms for development and reform have received scholarly attention. At the theoretical level, the NNA is conceived as a new round of spatial restructuring where both central and local states have been actively involved (Li, 2015; Ngo et al., 2017). Recognizing that, the current research has highlighted the distinctive characteristics and specific contexts underpinning the spatial restructuring. For example, it argues that the strategic meaning of the NNA are very distinct from the earlier development zones in China as the State Council and its crucial constituent, the National Development and Reform Commission take a dominant role in envisioning the development pathways of the NNA (Wu, 2016; Yang et al., 2019). And in terms of the context of the NNA establishment, it shows that the NNA is a new form of spatial selection in response to the fierce global competition and international division of labor as well as the widening regional disparity in China (Lim, 2014; Lin, 2009). Accordingly, the functional positioning, governance model, regional coordination and spatial planning of NNA are expected to be much more innovative and pioneering (Long et al., 2014; Luo et al., 2018).

To reveal its unique management and operating mechanism in the geopolitical and economic conditions, the research on NNA is particularly focused on substantive description from the administrative entity perspective, which helps us understand the functional composition and power allocation of various administrative entities in the new area. There are still gaps, however. The current research pays less attention to the interaction between power and space. Many scholars often regard the NNA as a static and objective existence rather than a socially constructed process, simply taking it into account as a container for national policies, that is, a composite economic functional zone or an enlarged version of Special Economic Zone. Due to the lack of geographical perspective analysis, less research on the internal logic of its power structure construction and the systematic analysis of its political space formation and production have been conducted (Chao & Lin, 2020).

In fact, power construction and spatial strategy are an inseparable relationship. Space is not only a tool constructed by power operation, but also a condition for its operation (Branch, 2017). Therefore, it is particularly important to understand the spatial politics of the NNA. As a special zone, the NNA is not a fixed material entity embedded in spatial production practice. It is itself a spatial production strategy, which contains multiple and overlapping power relations between the central and local governments (Yang et al., 2019). In this sense, the theory of scale politics integrates the dual perspectives of spatial production and political construction. With the theoretical basis of scale politics, it is conducive to understanding the politico-economic effects of the NNA. As such, this paper aims to provide a new theoretical perspective and construct a systematic analytical framework for the study of spatial production in the NNA.

2 Theoretical basis and analytical framework

2.1 The theory of scale politics

Since the 1970s, a series of political and economic changes, including the gradual replacement of Fordism by post-Fordism and the transformation of governance modes with the rise of neoliberalism, have driven the progress of research on “scalar turn” in Western human geography (Agnew, 1997; Smith, 1992). The city has changed from a self-evident scalar entity in the past to a scalar space involving political elements such as power, institutions, and relations. The change in understanding the political effect of spatial scale from ontology has further enriched researches on cities and regions.

Initially, the concept of “scale” was applied to cartography and measurement in geography and was regarded as an objective concept such as “scale ratio” (Sheppard, 2008). Its essential connotation is objectivity, fixity, and instrumentality. After the 1970s, some scholars further proposed that “scale” as a spatial dimension also has humanistic meanings such as social construction and social production based on Lefebvre’s spatial production theory (Shen, 2007). Among them, Taylor (1982) creatively proposed the “political economy of scale” analytical framework with vertical nesting of “city-state-world” scales. In the 1980s, although some scholars had made preliminary explorations on the “scalar turn,” theoretical constructions related to scale politics, scale production and reproduction were still an understudied research field (Soja, 1989). Until the 1990s, critical cognition of traditional scale concepts triggered more extensive and concentrated discussions in multiple fields such as geography, political science, and sociology (Cox, 2010). And then, spatial scale is no longer viewed as objective material entities (Moore, 2008), but increasingly seen as historical products under the social construction context (Taylor, 1996).

By the twenty-first century, academia has basically formed a consensus on the connotation of scale which includes not only the meaning of absolute space but also specific social relations within it. Howitt (2002) further summarized the structural connotation of scale into three dimensions: scale as size, scale as level, and scale as relation: (1) Scale as size refers to the objective and absolute quantitative measurement of space using a unified “scale ratio”. It is the most primitive connotation of scale represented in a topographical way. (2) Scale as level refers to the hierarchical ordering of space in different spatial categories. It is an extension of the primitive connotation of scale, considering the broader complexity within spatial scales such as division of labor, administrative hierarchy, cultural diversity, etc. In urban geography, scales are usually divided into multiple hierarchical levels such as global, national, regional, and local. (3) Scale as relation refers to exploring the relationships between different scales based on the consideration of scale hierarchy. Cox (2017) pointed out that scale is a collection of power relations. Therefore, the relationality of scale is often used to analyze the interaction of power relations in political and economic processes. These relations include both horizontal and vertical interactions.

In summary, the “scalar turn” breaks through the traditional understanding of scale as a preset quasi-natural place, illustrates the reconstruction process of state space beyond the traditional hierarchical system, and re-embeds the new power order in the “global-local” spatial scale. In addition, it reveals the interpenetrating, overlapping, and mosaic dynamic attributes of power structures (Brenner, 2001). Although different categories of power actors have emerged in the process of dynamically changing scalar reconstruction, such as multinational corporations, urban growth alliances and other emerging politico-economic organizations, Brenner (2019) has always emphasized the important role of the state in spatial reconstruction and refuted the view that “the role of nation state in cities is weakening” held by theories such as Global City to some extent, which is of great reference to China’s contemporary urbanization practice. In this sense, scale politics provides an appropriate theoretical lens for us to put forward an analytical framework of the NNA based upon the multi-attributes of scale.

2.2 The analytical framework

The understanding of the multi-attributes of scale indicates that the importance of scale is not limited to the measurement attributes. Instead, it is argued that scale is produced and constructed by social processes. The continuous interaction between the social and material environment creates spatial scales such as places, regions, and the world (Marston, 2000). From this perspective, scale is no longer explained as an eternal, non-social container or platform, but more like the “structures” mentioned in Bourdieu (1977) and Giddens (1986) works - constantly produced and reset in social processes. Therefore, this paper combines the three dimensions of scale connotation with spatial elements such as territorial structure, administrative level, and power configuration of the NNA. This not only provides a systematic and reasonable explanatory perspective for the governance connotation of the NNA but also is a theoretical attempt under the context of national strategic governance. The analytical framework is constructed as follows (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
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The analytical framework of NNA state rescaling

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  1. (1).

    Scale as size and topographical structure. Firstly, retaining the basic attributes of quantitative measurement of scale, this paper further examines the metric characteristics of NNA regional layout and other aspects. The overall regional layout of NNA and its own spatial form dominated by “city-region” reflect the power mapping of national strategic intentions and local development goals. Therefore, the NNA development is a new round of regional coordination led by state rescaling (Li, 2015).

  2. (2).

    Scale as level and administrative structure. The hierarchy of scale is based on the hierarchical ordering of complex elements within space, among which spatial level, organizational status, and administrative functions can objectively reflect the scale hierarchy of administrative dimensions of the NNA. Due to the extraordinary administrative empowerment and preferential institutional are various at the national, provincial, and municipal levels, the scale reconstruction of the NNA has the characteristics of scaling up (Li & Wu, 2018).

  3. (3).

    Scale as relation and power structure. The relational perspective helps to examine the dynamic overlap of power during the process, that is, power actors at different scales are “embedded” into place-making in the NNA with horizontal or vertical operational dimensions. The adjustment and selection of scale relations have experimental and unstable characteristics (Allen, 2016). Therefore, the power relations in new areas may either promote flexible innovative scale reconstruction or cause chaotic and inefficient spatial production patterns.

3 The state rescaling of the National new Area

3.1 Scale as size from topographical dimension

From the perspective of spatial scope, the NNA has a larger construction scale than general development zones (Table 1). To elaborate, the average land planning area of the 19 NNAs in China reaches 1300 km2, with five new areas exceeding 2000 km2 and 14 new areas crossing single city boundaries. The large-scale and wide-ranging geographical spatial shaping indicates that cities and regions have evolved as important national strategic spaces and capital accumulation spaces. Also, the redistribution of power and capital led by the state at the city-regional scale can effectively respond to challenges from domestic and international development environments.

Table 1 The development state and construction scale of the NNA
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First, in terms of the international environment, in the mid-to-late twentieth century, with the development of information technology and transportation facilities, international capital, especially financial capital, had the material conditions of ultra-high liquidity and began to flow directly from national scale to urban scale. In the zero-sum game process of competing for capital elements, various regions gradually formed a territorial division of labor form called “urban entrepreneurialism” (Harvey, 1989). After China joined the WTO, with the accelerated expansion of capital, population, land and other elements, in order to better participate in global competition and international division of labor, the central state further guided spatial scale upward to city-regional scale (Li et al., 2014), making it an important means of state rescaling (Yang et al., 2021). Second, in terms of domestic environment, since the 1990s, China has implemented a series of decentralized systems that stimulate local rise, including the tax-sharing system in 1994, urban housing reform in 1998 and land system reform in 2002. Along with the expansion of “urban entrepreneurialism”, they jointly gave birth to a large number of growth-oriented governments that actively intervened in economic development for local interests (Chien & Wu, 2011; Wu, 2018). Due to the lack of systematic and formal regulatory constraints, this has exacerbated vicious competition between cities to some extent. Therefore, city-regions represented by the NNA have become specific spatial forms for easing inter-city competition and conflicts.

From the perspective of regional layout, the distribution of 8 NNAs in the east, 2 in the central, 6 in the west and 3 in the northeast reflects the spatial pattern of the NNA building with emphasis on a shift from unbalanced development to regional coordinated development (Fig. 2). The gradual advancement of the regional layout of the NNA and the differentiated design of location conditions are closely related to China’s strategic orientation in different periods.

Fig. 2
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The spatial layout of the NNA

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Specifically, it can be summarized into three stages: The first stage is the coastal opening-up stage, during which the spatial scale of the NNA was embedded in the global capital circulation network. In the early 1990s, with the establishment of the global trade system, China proposed a strategy of opening up to the outside world along the coast in response to the globalization. Pudong New Area took the lead in joining the global market and became a strategic attempt to participate directly in international competition at city-regional scale. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, driven by technological revolution, global modern manufacturing industry was restructured. Binhai New Area timely undertook the transfer of global equipment manufacturing industry in order to achieve a breakthrough in China’s strategic emerging industries. The second stage is to initiate domestic demand stage, during which the NNA is embedded in China’s economic transformation environment at the city-regional scale. After the outbreak of global financial crisis in 2008, China adopted a series of strategic measures to expand domestic demand and optimize domestic economic development structure in order to alleviate the huge impact brought by drastic changes in international market environment. During this period, Liangjiang New Area, Zhoushan Islands New Area, Lanzhou New Area and Nansha New Area were established at the city-regional scale, which became an important spatial production strategy for China’s domestic demand expansion under market-oriented background. Therefore, the NNA is also the result of integration between market and national administrative resources. The third stage goes to regional coordinated development, during which the NNA is mainly used to optimize China’s regional spatial pattern. With China’s reform and opening up deepening continuously, the spatial layout of the NNA has also gradually advanced from selective promotion to overall coordination. Therefore, establishment of the NNA is actually a microcosm of China’s spatial strategy evolution and further realizes strategic goal of driving regional coordinated development. Especially in 2014-2015, China rapidly added 10 NNAs, which set off a new wave of regional development boom and also marked the systematization of the NNA spatial pattern. Through reviewing development process of the NNAA, it is argued that as an important city-regional scale, the NNA is spatial choices for national strategic under globalization, marketization and regionalization background.

3.2 Scale as level from administrative dimension

The spatial production of the NNA has not only formed new geographical and economic spaces, but also created new administrative levels within China’s existing administrative division system. Firstly, the administrative level of all new areas is at or above the prefecture level, with three new areas located in the core areas of municipalities enjoying the treatment of sub-provincial cities. At the same time, the administrative organization types of the NNA present four different administrative entities (Table 2), including: (1) government type, that is, the management organization of new areas is the fully-established government. Currently, only Pudong New Area and Binhai New Area established earliest are fully-established governments which are equipped with formal administrative entities. (2) The type of area-division integration, that is, the coverage area of the new area is unified with the boundary of the administrative division where it is located. The new area retains two sets of management organizations: fully-established government and management committee. This type of new area includes Zhoushan Islands New Area in Zhejiang Province, Nansha New Area in Guangzhou and West Coast New Area in Qingdao. (3) Management committee type, that is, management is carried out in the form of institutions dispatched by higher-level governments. The management committee has certain self-organizing characteristics and can be regarded as an informal organization with ambiguous legal status, mainly responsible for economic functions such as investment promotion, planning and construction within the new area. Currently, 11 new areas in China implement a management committee system model. (4) Leadership group type, that is, neither the fully-established government nor the management committee has been established. Instead, a provincial (municipal) leadership group with more ambiguous administrative status is used to coordinate and plan the development of the new area. The new area is essentially a virtual area defined by policy, and each sub-area still develops independently. This type of new area includes Tianfu New Area in Sichuan and Ha’erbin New Area.

Table 2 The administrative organization of the NNA
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Secondly, due to the various development foundations, characteristics and strategic tasks at different stages of the NNA, the specific contents of administrative functions that are adapted to them are also different. Through the statistical analysis of the number and the scope of administrative functions of the NNA, this paper argues that all new areas currently enjoy relatively complete economic management functions, while the level of social management functions of the NNA varies depending on the development stage and can be divided into three categories (Fig. 3). The first category is complete social management functions. The government-type new area has established an administrative-district status through the administrative division adjustment and has therefore comprehensively set up administrative institutions in various aspects such as economy, society, culture, etc., as well as judicial agencies such as courts and procuratorates that correspond to its management functions. With the support of a complete institutional configuration, it guarantees the comprehensive development of the NNA. The second category is incomplete social management functions. Although the NNA of area-division integration type works in the same office building as the local government at the administrative-district level and has relatively complete social and economic management authority above the municipal level, it lacks a formal administrative district status. This type of the NNA has not established a complete procuratorate or court that corresponds to its management functions. Some administrative law enforcement, urban management and social affairs still need to be transferred to higher-level administrative districts for processing. In addition, with the development of some management-committee type new areas at present, social affairs have begun to increase. At this time, some administrative management departments related to social affairs will be added to the new area. For example, Liangjiang New Area, Lanzhou New Area and Shaanxi New Area established earlier not only have economic management authority above the municipal level but also undertake some social functions. Lanzhou New Area is the most typical example. The new area has established more than 20 administrative institutions and also set up public security.

Fig. 3
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The management functions of the NNA

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This paper argues that the scale elements of different administrative levels directly affect the governance efficiency and regional development quality of the NNA. On the one hand, the high-end level setting reflects the strategic intention of strengthening the radiation-driven role of regional growth poles by promoting the scale transition of new area governance levels. At the same time, except for two new areas of fully-established government type and three of area-division integration type, other new areas do not exist in the formal administrative organization sequence. This shows that under the regional strategic background, the functional positioning of the NNA is more inclined to “experimental organization”, which is a scaled experimental form in itself. It not only undertakes the mission of deepening reform and innovation but also differs from the institutional setting of traditional bureaucracies. On the other hand, looking at the development process of Pudong New Area and Binhai New Area, it is found that the administrative bodies of both have evolved from leadership group to management committee and finally gone to fully-established government. This reflects the development appeal of new area organizations for administrative status and administrative authority legalization. The local adoption of informal organizational forms such as management committees or leadership groups is usually an institutional choice for the transitional stage of new area development. Meanwhile, this also indicates that some new areas have sustainable adaptability in managing their own patterns in the future after completing phased tasks and will further transform into formal administrative organizations.

3.3 Scale as relation from power dimension

The NNA are characterized by large scale and mostly established across administrative divisions. Therefore, the degrees and levels of scale combinations are differentiated, of which the power relations can be divided into horizontal and vertical interactions.

The interaction of power relations in a horizontal aspect mainly involves cross-regional and cross-departmental relations, corresponding to the following two institutional forms: the establishment of provincial-level comprehensive coordination agencies and the establishment of direct management district and non-direct management district management models. In the early stage of the NNA construction, in order to accelerate the development of new areas, a leadership group headed by the provincial-level leaders is generally established to deploy and arrange key development tasks for the NNA. This comprehensive coordination organization formed by mobilizing high-level actors is conducive to coordinating the interests of various development subjects, reducing administrative barriers and institutional obstacles between regions and departments. Taking the example of a new area that implements the management-committee type and spans cities and counties, except for Xi’xian New Area, the other three new areas (Liangjiang New Area, Gui’an New Area, Jinpu New Area) are all equipped with leadership groups headed by provincial-level leader. This high-standard leadership setting is enough to show the degree of attention paid by official leaders to the development of new areas. In addition, by dividing direct/non-direct management districts and implementing administrative trusteeship for direct management districts, the management committee is fully responsible for economic and social management affairs within the direct management district, which is conducive to concentrating resources on key development of direct management districts and improving the efficiency of new area development and construction. At present, Liangjiang New Area, Lanzhou New Area, Xi’xian New Area, Gui’an New Area, Dianzhong New Area and Tianfu New Area are implementing the administrative trusteeship mode. Taking Gui’an New Area as an example, its direct management district covers Huchao Township and Danwu Township in Guiyang City, Hongfeng Lake Town in Qingzhen City, and Machang Town and Gaofeng Town in Anshun City. Each township retains its original administrative system while the management committee exercises county-level economic-social affairs management authority. In non-direct management districts, local governments are still responsible for the economic-social affairs management affairs, but the administrative process related to overall development of new areas such as land development utilization and major project landing need to be audited and filed in new areas.

The interaction of power relations in a vertical aspect mainly refers to adjusting the management hierarchy between governments, that is, changing the vertical management mode and promoting scale flattening. At present, the administrative level of the NNA is mainly divided into two-level management and three-level management. In the new areas where administrative trusteeship is implemented, Lanzhou New Area and Gui’an New Area are typical new areas that adopt the “new area-township” two-level management mode. These new areas cancel the county level and directly exercises the county-level economic and social management authority by townships through power delegation. The two-level management mode constructs a flat organizational system, reduces administrative costs through direct jurisdiction of new areas over townships, and forms a relatively fast and convenient management form. In addition, there are also new areas that retain the county level by means of area-division integration, forming a three-level management mode of “new area-secondary administrative district/functional area-township/street”. The administrative level setting of this model is usually acted as follows: the functional area management committee under the new area is at the bureau level, mainly exercising economic development functions; the street level is at the department level, mainly responsible for social affairs management. Such new areas include Pudong New Area, Binhai New Area, Liangjiang New Area, Zhoushan Island New Area, Qingdao West Coast New Area, Xi’an New Area, Jinpu New Area, etc. Taking Qingdao West Coast New Area as an example, the streets in each major functional area follow the principle of separating economic affairs from social affairs to promote coordinated development between functional areas and towns. In addition, for a few new areas implementing the administrative trusteeship model, they will adjust the scope of responsibilities of functional areas and streets. For example, Xi’an New Area has set up 5 groups of management committee to perform economic functions. Among them, Fengdong New City is responsible for trusteeship of 6 streets in its jurisdiction and performs administrative management and social affairs management functions within the new area. Overall, the three-level management model still has the institutional characteristics of “new area overall planning, functional area and street function separation, each performing its own duties”. In addition to two-level and three-level vertical power interaction, there are also special management systems of leadership-group type such as Tianfu New Area and Ha’erbin New Area. In cases where the participation of higher-level governments is relatively low, each region acts independently. For example, in Tianfu New Area whose planning scope involves Chengdu, Ziyang and Meishan cities respectively established management committees while Meishan city government directly leads it. Each region develops independently under a relatively loose joint mode. The establishment of new areas under this model has not led to the scale reconstruction from power dimension.

The interaction and coordination of power relations above reflects the scale as relation are closely related to the NNA, that is, localities will produce more flexible and innovative scale reconstruction models when responding to specific development issues in new areas. Conversely, as a spatial governance model of enhancing the institutional vitality of new areas, scale reconstruction has gradually become an important tool for new areas to drive regional economic development. However, it also should be acknowledged that in the interaction process of power relations at the meso level dominated by localities, problems of institutional operation caused by the failure of scale reconstruction will still occur. For example, although the measure of delineating direct management areas and non-direct management areas has reduced the coordination resistance between direct management areas and original administrative divisions to a certain extent, differentiated management of direct management areas and non-direct management areas will lead to inconsistent execution of two places under the same standard, mutual shirking, and blank supervision and law enforcement. In addition, the flat two-level management model might lead to issues of overlapping functions, reporting across levels, divorce between powers and responsibilities and duplicate law enforcement.

4 Conclusion and discussion

Theoretically, the paper analyzes the logic of the political construction of the NNA from three aspects of scale connotation. The following conclusions can be drawn: (1) From the perspective of scale as size in topographical dimension, the NNA is the product of the specific spatial selection from urban scale to city-regional scale, presenting geographical characteristics of large scale, cross-regional and coordinated layout. The average planning scope of new areas over 1000 km2 is actually a large-scale spatial production strategy dominated by the central state. On the one hand, this strategy helps to promote the re-territorialization and rational division of capital at the city-regional scale, and also helps to guide the regional redistribution of power. Through collaborative integration, it can alleviate the competitive situation of urban entrepreneurialism. (2) From the perspective of scale as level in administrative dimension, the NNA is the demand coupling between central strategic deployment and local development path, showing administrative scale characteristics of high configuration, experimental and tendency to formal state. For this scale of new area governance level, different stages of new area development will produce changes at different degrees due to various factors. However, because almost all new areas enjoy partial vice-provincial management authority and many development plans are approved by the central state, the overall performance is a spatial level leap. Moreover, from experimental organization to formal administrative organization, the NNA represents the tendency to bureaucratic normal settings in terms of territorial organizational attributes. (3) From the perspective of scale as relation in power dimension, the NNA realizes scale reconstruction through the interaction of power relations, showing the scalar characteristics of flexible, flat and dynamic overlapping power. Since the NNA is the special region delineated on the basis of original administrative divisions that mostly covers multiple functional areas and territorial organizations at multiple scales, it has been carried out practical explorations such as direct/non-direct management mode and two/three-level vertical management mode, to minimize institutional friction between different levels. It should be noted that these attempts help to reduce resistance to new area power operation to a certain extent but do not fundamentally change the competitive logic of urban entrepreneurialism. Instead, it moves it up to city-regional scale and therefore local cooperation based on self-interest remains unstable.

In terms of the realistic implications, this article argues that the institutional attributes, functional authorities and relationship coordination of the NNA should be differentiated according to the different development stages. Specifically, the establishment of the NNA is the start-up stage of development, and its primary task is to efficiently complete performance goals in the fields of land development, investment promotion, planning and construction, etc. Therefore, at this stage, a leading group with high-level officials should be set with economic management functions. When the NNA has been developing for 3-5 years, it will enter the expansion management stage. Along with the rapid development of the NNA, its functional scope begins to expand from the economic management to the social management, which also makes it more urgent to straighten out the relationship among various entities in the new district. To this end, administrative organizational relationships should be integrated by adjusting administrative divisions. For instance, the administrative areas of towns (subdistricts) could be adjusted to functional areas. Functional areas mainly perform economic development functions, and towns (subdistricts) are responsible for social management work, forming a three-level management structure of “new district-functional area-town (subdistrict)”. For some towns (subdistricts) that are not in functional areas and have strong economic strength, counties could be directly removed by townships (chexiancaiqu in Chinese) to exercise county-level economic and social management powers, further forming a two-level management structure of “new districts-strong towns (subdistricts)”. When the NNA develops for 7-10 years and has basically completed its construction and development mission, the new district may consider gradually incorporating complete social functions and further establishing a full government to upgrade the new district to the sub-provincial level.

Overall, the NNA is a scalar reconstruction process of power de-centralization and re-centralization. If the early Pudong New Area and Binhai New Area were still directly planned and established by the central government, aiming at the national spatial selection to cope with globalization challenges, then the new area production mode created by local initiative and central preferential approval in recent 10 years is a power interaction of dual selection between the central-local state. On the one hand, the central state retains control over key elements such as new area geographical size and administrative level, which can continue to play a macro-control role in major national strategies such as domestic demand growth and regional coordination, reflecting the characteristics of power re-centralization; on the other hand, local states have also gained greater institutional innovation space in micro-power interaction with the central state, thus promoting a new round of local capital accumulation and showing the characteristics of local de-centralization to some extent. Compared with the unidirectional “soft” governance strategies such as regional planning and organization, this top-down and bottom-up combined spatial production mechanism can more directly promote the rise of city-regions and promote the formation of a win-win national spatial pattern between the central and local states. Therefore, making good use of this “rigid” scalar tool of the NNA has very important practical significance for China’s social and economic transformation and regional governance innovation.