Spatial Connection Analysis and Coordinated Development Policy Mechanism Optimization in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from the Perspective of Policy

Abstract

Public policy is an important support for the coordinated development of urban agglomeration. Since the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has become a national strategy, a series of policies aimed at deepening regional cooperation and promoting regional coordinated development have been introduced. The quantitative measurement of policy can finely reflect the internal relationship structure of urban agglomeration governance. This study collected 428 regional coordinated development policies from the websites of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Leading Group Office and the relevant municipal governments. It topologized the relationship between policy subjects, measured the supply intensity of coordinated development policies, and analyzed the spatial connection based on policy relevance. The study found that: 1) The policy measures of one-way benefiting Hong Kong and Macao are the main policy supply direction at present, and in most cases, the policy feedback from Hong Kong and Macao is less than expected. 2) Policy supply is highly concentrated in the field of public services and industrial development, aiming to narrow the service gap between Hong Kong, Macao and the Mainland and attract high quality talents. 3) Districts and counties and local professional departments have not yet fully entered the coordinated development policy network of the Greater Bay Area, due to the lack of consultation platforms matching with their administrative levels. 4) The four central cities of Hong Kong, Macao, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have different policy relations and spatial connections with other subjects in the Greater Bay Area. It is worth noting that although Zhuhai is not regarded as one of the central cities in the Greater Bay Area, it takes the initiative to establish close policy cooperation with Macao and actively seeks to establish partnerships with Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong. And these initiatives have enhanced Zhuhai's embeddedness and influence in the regional relationship network. 5) The policy linkages between cities in the Greater Bay Area are frequently interacted within the metropolitan area, and the policy linkages across metropolitan areas are relatively loose. Therefore, this paper suggests that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area can further strengthen the two-way policy linkage between neighboring cities, neighboring districts and counties, professional departments and the two central cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, coordinate the policies towards Hong Kong and Macao, and make the policy supply further adapt to the governance structure of the Greater Bay Area. In short, this paper explores a method to measure and study the spatial connection of urban agglomeration based on coordinated development policies, which provides a research path for quantitatively indicating the correlation strength of coordinated development policies and the internal relationship structure of regional governance of urban agglomeration, provides technical support for policy formulation and optimization, and supports the fine governance of urban agglomeration.

Keywords

• guangdong-hong kong-macao greater bay area
• urban agglomeration
• quantitative policy analysis
• coordinated development
• spatial connection