Search

This paper develops a nuanced understanding of town-country relations in China. Inherent in the current literature is the serious problem of randomly indigenizing experiences and concepts from the ...

The city of Beijing has increasingly been re-integrated with the world since the 1980s, thereby entering into closer, but more complex relationships with the global system. To understand the implications for urban planning, it is important to appreciate that Beijing is handling these global–local relationships amid delicate 'local' relationships with the Chinese state, in ways that are obviously different from those of the West. The objective of this paper is to throw light on how new global and local forces have influenced planning in Beijing, first by understanding the nature of urban government in Beijing and then by examining master plans for the city. From a Foucauldian perspective, it tries to describe state practices, including urban planning, of the Chinese governmentality. It focuses on the effectiveness of government during this new era, taking into account non-state practices, including those adopted from the outside world. It argues that the state needs to invent new toolkits and conceive urba...

Most of the existing planning theories (theories in urban development, of planning practice and justifications for planning) and debates about their interrelationships are derived from the contexts of basically 'demand-constrained' (capitalist) economies. Some authors have attempted to theorise urban planning in transitional economies. However, theorisation based on concrete planning practices in a city in the transition from a 'resource-constrained' to a 'demand-constrained' economy is an uncharted terrain. This paper attempts to take up this challenge and through a detailed case study of Shenzhen, China's first Special Economic Zone (SEZ) explores the relationships between urban development and planning in a transitional economy. Shenzhen's experience proves that a perceptive understanding of urban development can provide us with important clues for understanding the nature of and theoretical justifications for changing urban planning practices. In return, the reformed planning practice helps sharpen ou...

This paper argues that before 1978, the Chinese state, a "police state" in the Foucauldian concept of governmentality, aimed at total administration of the economy and society. Central investments determined local spatial development. Economic reforms and administrative decentralization after 1978 allowed local authorities to pursue their own development, leading to many planning problems. To regain control over spatial development, the state now employs urban system planning to regulate development in city regions. The Pearl River Delta Urban System Plan (PRDUSP) is a case in point. To overcome myopic regional development and environmental issues, the PRDUSP lays out a development strategy in which cities are organized into hierarchies around three metropolitan areas, have different functions, and are connected by development and growth axes. Various measures and policies also are recommended. All these suggest that the Provincial Government of Guangdong is searching for a new way of regional governance....

This paper studies the political economy of urban governance and land‐use planning mechanisms in the ‘one country, two systems’ of mainland China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR). It is argued that the market economy of Hong Kong had, over the years as a British colony, established an efficiently‐run regulatory system of land‐use planning. The current land‐use planning mechanisms are biased toward economic growth as a result of its executive‐government‐led and business‐interests‐dominated political structure. The challenge for Hong Kong as a relatively autonomous SAR, therefore, is to incorporate the social and environmental dimensions in planning for territorial development within a wider regional context as a result of economic and political integration with China. In mainland China, the reforming socialist planned economy has now embraced privately and foreign‐owned enterprises though the Communist Party and the government have retained strong political control. A ‘dual’ l...