Christopher Heurlin
Department of Government and Asian Studies
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME USA
cheurlin@bowdoin.edu

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The past two decades have seen a rapid increase in the number of counties and county-level cities converted to districts through administrative division adjustments. This article argues that fiscal decentralization has led to administrative urbanization—the “upgrading” of rural counties and county-level cities into urban districts. It does so through an examination of the Province Administers County reforms, which remove counties from the jurisdiction of prefectural cities and place them directly under provinces. Survival analysis of an original county-level dataset of conversions to urban districts in 2000–2019 reveals three core findings. First, in the early 2000s, fiscal stress in prefectural cities drove conversions as counties with higher fiscal capacity were more likely to be converted. Second, inclusion of a county in Province Administers County reforms (which became widespread in the 2010s) has no impact on the likelihood of conversion to a district. Third, initiation of Province Administers County reforms within a province made “weak counties” with low fiscal capacity more likely to be converted, while “strong counties” with high fiscal capacity were less likely to be converted. The results suggest that fiscal decentralization has accelerated administrative urbanization but has also enhanced the bargaining power of counties with high fiscal resources to resist administrative urbanization.

Keywords: Administrative division adjustment; fiscal relations; urbanization; province administers county