Cross-Border Governance Mechanism in the City Integration Areas of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from the Perspective of Rescaling: A Case Study of Guangzhou-Foshan City Integration Area

Under global economic competition, rescaling has become an important cross-border governance means to control the development of domestic space to attract capital flows and foster regional economic development momentum. City integration is a kind of urban regional scale, and its mechanism of cross-border governance has gradually become an important regional integration issue. At present, research on cross-border governance from the perspective of rescaling focuses on urban areas represented by urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas and new functional areas represented by state-level new areas, with limited research on the scale of city integration at the meso level. The discussion on the role and status of corresponding governance subjects, construction mechanisms, and incentive mechanisms needs to be enriched. In this paper, the evolution of cross-border governance is discussed from the perspective of rescaling, taking Guangfo city integration, which is relatively mature in the process of domestic city integration, as an example. The study finds that, taking the introduction of the outline of the reform and development plan for the Pearl River Delta region in 2008 and the outline of the development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in 2019 as the target, the city integration process of Guangfo has experienced two stages of rescaling: from the governance scale of an "administrative area" to that of a "functional area" represented by the pilot zone for the high-quality development integration of Guangfo. By comparing and analyzing the cross-border governance mechanisms of city integration across different scales, this study finds that the city integration governance stage of the "functional area" scale, first, enriches the participation of multiple governance subjects, extending from "city-district-town" multi-level government to the functional platform management committee and platform joint venture company. Second, on the basis of the project implementation mechanism led by municipal departments, the construction mechanism strengthens the planning, construction, and operation mechanisms guided by functional areas and, taking the whole cycle as the concept, increases emphasis on integrated planning, construction, and operation. Third, the incentive mechanism has shifted from the driving of political instructions and economic benefits to the striving for policy and the sharing of institutional dividend. Both "administrative area" and "functional area" are the positive scales restructuring strategy of Guangfo to deal with the global competitive environment and respond to the requirements of national strategy. The two-stage cross-border governance mechanism is neither beneficial nor harmful, but is a choice to adapt to the different development stages of city integration. The governance mechanism of the "functional area" scale can be regarded as the experience retention and gradual reform of Guangfo's original governance mechanism, to improve the governance efficiency of the city integration and competitiveness. Guangfo's practice of using rescaling to promote cross-border governance reform and deepening in the last ten years can provide a certain reference for cross-border governance in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and other metropolitan areas in China. However, it should be pointed out that at present, the rescaling of the pilot area is more reflected in spatial planning and cooperation agreements, and has failed to produce a spatial governance subject that is fully integrated with the new scale. In addition, the deeper benefit sharing and risk responsibility sharing mechanism still needs to be strengthened.