Small cities and towns in global city-centred regionalism: Observations from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, China

Abstract

This paper examines the historical and recent efforts towards constructing an integrated Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei global city-region, arguably the most politically privileged urban agglomeration in China. It considers how a progressive national policy discourse concerning city-regional integrated development is substantially focused on the central city (Beijing), thereby privileging the competitiveness and interests of the larger global city at the expense of those of the surrounding smaller cities and towns. The study argues that future research and policy informing city-regionalism should pay closer attention to the uneven power dynamics and distributional politics operating within, and often in tension with, the geopolitical orchestration of global city-regions by nation states.