Abstract: As the urban boundaries of metropolitan areas continue to expand, it is common for metropolitan fringe areas to evolve from agricultural suburbs into urban functional areas. However, the industrialized areas of the rural communities in the Pearl River Delta are locked in the current interest pattern, and the active participation of the fringe areas in the evolution of the metropolitan area requires the local government to play a key role. Taking the Nanhai District Government of Foshan at the boundary of Guangzhou as an empirical case, the analysis framework can be established from spatial planning, scale reorganization, and element organization by introducing and expanding the "embedding" theory. The action logic of the Nanhai District Government in the evolution of the Guangzhou-Foshan metropolitan area can be systematically explained by qualitative research and quantitative empirical evidence from multiple sources. Faced with the problems of a flat structure and fragmented space, the Nanhai District Government reconstructs the regional identity narrative by planning Functional Urban Regions (FURs) beyond its own hierarchical positioning in order to reach a consensus among multiple parties. In response to the problem of multiple governance bodies in the peripheral areas, the Nanhai District Government has restructured and integrated the power system by adjusting the administrative divisions and other scales. It has also strengthened the "organizational embedding" of government forces in the land development governance structure with flexible scales such as the "project system." To attract global and regional production enterprises, the Nanhai District Government has constructed "industrial factor clusters" with public resources to compensate and support specific markets by "interest embedding" in public services. It participates in regional and global competition through such spatial units. The strategic functional areas built by the Nanhai District have gradually become effective and have played an important role in the regional industrial division of labor, infrastructure layout, and other structural reorganization. The Guangzhou-Foshan boundary synergy has gradually obtained the top-bottom attention of the provincial and municipal governments from the bottom-top promotion of the Nanhai District and has further innovated a multi-level governmental synergistic governance mechanism with "functional areas" as the unit. The study concludes that local governments at the district (county) level can indeed embed strategies in metropolitan areas by focusing on the construction of "strategic functional areas" that play a structural role in the evolution of regional patterns and play a key role in the spatial organization and synergistic governance of the evolution of metropolitan areas. However, the analysis of the logic of government actions in the peripheral areas is based on the historical period of incremental domination and the regional development stage of factor spillover from the central area. Thus, the overall optimization ideas in the stock phase, the spatial equity under the differentiated allocation of resources, and the location, scale, and construction mode of strategic functional areas need to be further explored.

Key words: embeddedness, urban fringe area, strategic functional areas, scale reorganization, spatial reconstruction

摘要： 随着大都市区的城市边界不断扩张，大都市边缘区从农业郊区向城市功能地域演化是普遍规律。珠江三角洲农村社区工业化地区地方政府如何突破既有利益格局锁定的困境，主动参与大都市区演化？以佛山市南海区为实证案例地，引入并拓展了“嵌入”理论，从空间规划、尺度重组、要素组织三个角度构建分析框架，可以解释地方政府在大都市区演化中提升自身在区域中的竞争力的行为逻辑。南海区通过 “战略性功能区”嵌入大都市区，实现自身在大都市区分工等级的跃升，并自下而上地推动了广佛两市层面的尺度重组和空间重构。

关键词: 嵌入, 城市边缘区, 战略性功能区, 尺度重组, 空间重构