A study on inter-city cooperation in the Yangtze river delta region, China

Inter-city cooperation in the Yangtze River Delta region is a new phenomenon and has received much governmental and scholarly attention in recent years. This paper examines inter-city cooperation from partnership perspective. In this study, three typical cases of inter-city cooperation, Suzhou–Wuxi–Changzhou City-region Planning, the Forum for the Coordination of Urban Economy of Yangtze River Delta Region and Jiangyin Economic Development Zone in Jingjiang are selected to examine three types of partnership arrangements, namely, hierarchical partnership, spontaneous partnership and hybrid partnership. This research applies the partnership approach to regional scale based on Chinese experiences. The research focus of this paper is the effectiveness of three types of inter-city cooperation. Through tracing the process of partnership formation and investigating stakeholder interactions, this paper argues that the effectiveness of inter-city cooperation depends on cooperation mechanism, the nature and scope of the cooperation, and partner selection and the roles of actors in partnership formation.