Against the tasks and requirements outlined in the Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Promoting High-Quality Urban Development regarding the optimization of a modern urban system, China's urban system still faces several shortcomings, manifested as follows: excessive scale and insufficient radiation-driven capacity of megacities and large cities; small scale of small cities and significant "siphon effect" from large citiesi; substantial room for improvement in specialized division of labor and collaboration among cities; long way to go in integrated public service provision and environmental governance; lack of inter-city governance coordination as a bottleneck in building a modern urban system; incomplete spatial organization of the urban system. The optimization direction of the urban system should focus on promoting scale coordination, functional complementarity, governance synergy, and efficient spatial organization among cities. Scale coordination serves as the foundation, underpinned by functional complementarity, and both rely on synergistic governance mechanisms as a prerequisite. The efficient operation of the urban system also requires orderly spatial organization as a support. In terms of optimization measures, a multi-pronged approach should be adopted:enhance the carrying capacity of megacities and large cities through comprehensive policies; boost the radiation-driven capacity of large cities through innovation-driven development;develop small and medium-sized cities in a tailored manner based on local conditions; deepen functional specialization and promote inter-city division of labor and collaboration; innovate governance systems to provide institutional safeguards for modern urban system development; improve the governance scale to enhance spatial efficiency of resource allocation.
SUN Bin-dong
. Optimizing China's urban system to promote High-Quality Urban Development[J]. Urban Problems, 2025
, 361(8)
: 4
-11
.
DOI: 10.13239/j.bjsshkxy.cswt.250801
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