What does it mean? Jiangyin, Zhangjiagang and Jingjiang city groups are in trouble

Urban agglomerations, metropolitan areas and multi-city clusters are important spatial forms of integration and urbanization. In the process of integrated development in the Yangtze River Delta, various regions have proposed plans to seek unions between neighboring cities and build multi-city clusters. However, not all clusters develop as expected. The Chengzhangjing Cluster in Jiangsu once led the trend in cross-border park construction at the beginning of this century, but it unexpectedly fell into trouble when the integration process of the Yangtze River Delta region accelerated, which is worth retrospective reflection.

The Cheng-Zhang-Jing urban cluster is composed of three county-level cities, Jiangyin, Zhangjiagang and Jingjiang, across the Yangtze River. It is located in the core area of ​​the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, at the intersection of the Yangtze River Development Belt and the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou Metropolitan Circle, with a total area of ​​2,630 square kilometers, a permanent population of 3.89 million in 2022, and a total GDP of more than 900 billion yuan. Its development has gone through the stages of cooperation, promotion, and stagnation.

The initial stage of cooperation lasted from the end of the 20th century to 2003. In 1999, the Jiangyin Yangtze River Bridge connecting Jiangyin and Jingjiang was completed. Some scholars proposed to merge Jiangyin, Jingjiang and Zhangjiagang to form a prefecture-level city of Sanjiang, but later failed. In 2001, the Jiangyin-Jingjiang Riverside Development Promotion Association was established, which was upgraded from a private self-organization to a government-led one; Jingjiang's rich Yangtze River coastline resources were highly favored, and a "Riverside New Materials Industrial Park" covering an area of ​​10 square kilometers was planned along the Jingjiang coast. In April 2002, the two cities reached an agreement on public transportation and port cooperation. Jingjiang Port was included in the management scope of Jiangyin Port and shared the preferential policies and facilities of a first-class open port. Jiangyin has invested more than 300 million yuan in the Jingjiang Riverside area, and private capital has invested more than 30 million yuan in Jingjiang alone.

The cooperation promotion stage lasted from 2003 to 2012. A cross-regional joint meeting and a formed cooperation park were formed between Jiangyin and Jingjiang. In 2003, the Jingjiang Park of Jiangyin Economic Development Zone was established on the basis of Yanjiang New Materials Industrial Park. Jiangyin and Jingjiang jointly established a park investment company with a 9:1 investment ratio, and the profits within 10 years were retained in the park for rolling development. With the advancement of Jiangsu's Yanjiang development strategy, the total industrial output value of the park increased from 156 million yuan to 31.3 billion yuan from 2005 to 2012, with an average annual growth rate of 113%, and its contribution to Jingjiang's economic growth reached 28%.

The stagnant stage of cooperation lasted from around 2012 until recently. With the expiration of the ten-year cooperation agreement between Jiangyin and Jingjiang Industrial Park, issues such as management rights and profit distribution between the two parties remain unresolved, and development has slowed down. In 2012, Jingjiang Port was independently established as a national first-class open port, and its cooperative relationship with Jiangyin Port turned into a competitive relationship. Since 2013, the coordination meeting for the joint development of the two places has been interrupted. At the same time, due to external influences such as the financial crisis and the slow internal renewal of enterprises, some leading enterprises went bankrupt. In 2021, the GDP of Jiangyin-Jingjiang Industrial Park was 10.85 billion yuan, a decrease of 10% from 2013, and the proportion of Jingjiang's GDP fell from the peak of 21.4% in 2011 to 9.5%.

The core reason why multi-city groups have gone from development to stagnation is that the centripetal force of the close aggregation of the two sides has been weakening, while the weakening of the convergence of interests has brought about a more obvious centrifugal force. Factors such as resource relations, transaction costs, and consensus are important reasons that affect the conversion between centripetal and centrifugal forces.

First, resource complementarity. The Cheng-Zhang-Jing urban cluster is mainly based on the importance and cooperative use of the Yangtze River coastline resources. At the beginning of the cooperation at the beginning of this century, the south coast of the Yangtze River was basically fully utilized, while the north coast was relatively spacious. Jingjiang's 52.3-kilometer Yangtze River coastline and large areas of land along the river were almost undeveloped, with extremely high potential for cross-river joint development and land complementarity. However, after 2010, the available coastline resources in the north of the Yangtze River were basically exhausted, and both the north and south banks faced the problem of insufficient high-quality coastline resources and shortage of construction land. The basis for cooperation in resource complementarity has basically ceased to exist.

The second is transaction costs, including transportation costs and policy costs. The opening of the Jiangyin Bridge in 1999 changed the ferry crossing mode. When the Jiangyin Bridge was built, it was the only crossing channel below Nanjing in the Jiangsu section of the Yangtze River. The flow of people and logistics in the three cities could be quickly gathered with the help of the highway corridor, driving the vast hinterland connection between southern and northern Jiangsu, which became the direct driving force for the three cities of Cheng, Zhang and Jing to propose a group. However, with the continuous increase in cross-river exchanges, the parties found that the transportation cost of crossing the bridge was still high, and it was difficult to form a city-wide transportation connection across the river.

On the other hand, from the perspective of policy cost, as Jiangsu's regional development strategy encourages cross-river development, the Cheng-Zhang-Jing group has been included in the provincial plan. In order to build a pilot zone for cross-border cooperation, the provincial government has given the Jiangyin-Jingjiang Industrial Park many preferential policies in terms of land, finance, taxation, and management, and established the Jiangsu Province Yangtze River Linkage Development Pilot Zone Leading Group composed of provincial and municipal leaders to directly serve the park. Contradictions between the development and management of cross-border parks continue to emerge. People's livelihood work is under the jurisdiction of Jingjiang, while the overall management and economic operation are the responsibility of Jiangyin, which is prone to administrative barriers.

The third is consensus. The consensus among Cheng, Zhang and Jing mainly comes from the social culture with the same roots and origins, and has a continuous centripetal force for cooperation. Jiangyin, the northwest of Zhangjiagang and Jingjiang have long belonged to Jiangyin in history, and are all Wu cultural areas. Their customs and habits are different from the surrounding Jianghuai cultural areas. The same ethnic groups and language systems have laid the foundation for close cooperation and exchanges, making the three cities naturally inclined to unite. At the same time, in the initial stage, the economic development gap between Jingjiang and Jiangyin and Zhangjiagang was large, which was conducive to staggered development and division of labor and cooperation. Through the coordination and integration of Jingjiang, Chengzhang can reduce the cost of industrial relocation, obtain scarce resources such as land, and further enhance the city's status; Jingjiang can optimize the industrial structure and improve the urban environment through the pioneering drive of Jiangyin and the industrial iteration of Chengzhang.

As Jingjiang's development speeds up, the economic development gap has narrowed in the stagnant stage of cooperation, and the city cooperation has gradually transformed from strong-weak cooperation to strong-medium-strong cooperation paradigm. The development direction of industries within the group is similar, the primary and secondary relationships are unclear, the willingness to cooperate is not strong, the consensus is gradually weakened, and the force has changed from centripetal to centrifugal. The development level and growth rate of the Jingjiang Development Zone headquarters far exceed the cross-border parks developed by cooperation; due to similar development environments and free and decentralized industrial layouts, the industries of the three cities are concentrated in metallurgy, electromechanical, chemical and other industries, and all of them are developing in the direction of new energy, new materials and high-end equipment manufacturing, showing an internal competition pattern.

Overall, the key to the success of multi-city groups lies in grasping the changing trend of centripetal and centrifugal forces in cooperation, giving play to the role of effective markets and effective governments, strengthening the centripetal force of cooperation, and reducing centrifugal forces. The government coordinates multiple subjects to give full play to their initiative. First, it is necessary to handle resource relations well, explore the potential for resource complementarity from multiple angles such as land, talents, and technology, match the phased needs of development, and improve resource allocation and utilization efficiency; second, it is necessary to reduce transaction costs, actively connect with policy needs, establish unobstructed transportation corridors and information channels, and improve the cost-sharing and benefit-sharing cooperation framework and mechanism; third, it is necessary to create a good social and cultural environment, reasonably coordinate and stagger development, communicate in a timely manner, reduce differences, avoid cooperation difficulties caused by conflicts in development goals and cooperation barriers caused by subjective factors, and drive the cooperation process with common benefits. At the same time, it is also necessary to pay attention to balancing government and market forces, and guide market players to participate widely and even play a leading role.

With the changes in regional environment and development factors, Jiangyin and Jingjiang have proposed in recent years to build a "high-quality cross-river integration development pilot zone", initiated joint meetings of bilateral coordination committees, signed cooperation agreements, and optimized the organizational structure of the Jiangyin-Jingjiang Park, reformed the management system and mechanism, and newly established the Park Party Working Committee and Management Committee. These efforts have been effective and continuous in promoting cross-border cooperation, which is still worth waiting for.