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Urban transition in China: the emergence of city-region governance

Urban transition in China: the emergence of city-region governance. Fulong Wu School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University. Presented in Conference of Regional Economies in a Globalising World: Enhancing Intellectual Capacity and Innovation. 21 st November 2008, Cardiff, Wales, UK.

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Urban transition in China: the emergence of city-region governance

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  1. Urban transition in China: the emergence of city-region governance Fulong Wu School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University Presented in Conference of Regional Economies in a Globalising World: Enhancing Intellectual Capacity and Innovation. 21st November 2008, Cardiff, Wales, UK

  2. Urban transition at the regional economy scale • The China story: • Demise of (socialist) redistributive regional policy • The rise of entrepreneurial cities • The crisis of urban entrepreneurialism • Rescaling towards city-region governance

  3. In response to globalization • A Chinese model? • Export-oriented development following East Asian (the flying goose model), but does not pay attention to Chinese specificity • ‘Neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics’ (Harvey 2005) • A world factory regime – turning the socialist legacy into competition instruments: rural migrants + regional economies + urban entrepreneurialism

  4. Changing regional governance in China: a conceptual framework

  5. Entrepreneurial urban governance • Shift from ideological purity and class struggle to the pragmatism of ‘growth first’ of Deng Xiaoping • Institutional foundation: hardening the ‘soft budget’ (Walder 1995), local corporatism in rural China (Oi 1997), and de facto federalism (Yinyi Qian’s work) • A proliferated literature on China’s central and local relation, e.g. the fiscal relation (Wong 1991, Zhang 1999) • Pro-growth coalition (Zhu 1999; Zhang 2002), based on landed revenue

  6. A story beyond Shanghai: the emerging world factor in the Yangtze River Delta The case of Kunshan: A county-level city under Suzhou municipality The ‘little sixth’ Self-funded development zone, gained state recognition Rapid growth in IT industry Now aspirating to become Shanghai’s “edge city” The location of Kunshan

  7. WTO, world factory Opening of Shanghai’s pudong 100 million Phenomenal growth of Kunshan, the county-level city at the margin of Shanghai’s cit-region

  8. 1,100 ICT companies, invested 14 billion USD Notebooks account for 40% of the world total production Major ICT production base

  9. Figure 4 layout of Huangqiao Business Park

  10. 中城集团总部 现代物流基地 延伸保税叠加 功能吸引展览 展示、国际采 购等高端部分 业务 建滔集团总部 区域总部基地 吸引跨国公司地区总部、研发 中心、服务中心、营销中心、 培训中心和咨询公司等 服务外包基地 发展信息技术、数字内容、 生物医药、物流、金融 等领域服务外包 苏豪国际广场 Construction of headquarter economy

  11. The entrepreneurial city in crisis • Fierce inter-city competition • Redundant construction • Pursuing similar economic sector => over-supply, low-value added • Ecological crisis

  12. The fight between Kunshan and Shanghai: • “173 Project”: releasing 173 km2 ‘free land’ to draw investors back from Jiangsu province • Jiangsu province: fighting back with 1730 km2 of an industrial belt surrounding Shanghai

  13. The expansion of the built-up area in the Taihu area Source: Qiu Baoxing presentation in 2007

  14. Water pollution Dian Lake in Kunmin Pollution of the River Huai

  15. City-region governance as the management of the crisis of entrepreneurial cities • The need for regional governance • The return of ‘public policy’? (replaced with the notion of ‘sustainability’) • The subtle yet profound change of political ethos: from Deng Xiaoping: “growth is hard truth”, to Hu Jintao: the “scientific approach to growth”. • (A) Strategic spatial plans • (B) Soft regional institutions

  16. (A) Spatial strategic plans • The emergence of ‘conceptual plans’, resulted from entrepreneurial thrusts • These ‘conceptual plans’ are non-statutory plans • China’s planning system: two-tiers: urban master plan – detailed construction plan • Using ‘consultants’ to justify the local vision

  17. One of the earliest conceptual plans: Guangzhou conceptual plan

  18. “City doctor” Technocratic planner CPLAN PhD student (foreign experience) Self-made ‘neoliberal’ economist Celebrity planning consultant Municipal planning bureau director How ‘entrepreneurial’ is the Chinese state?

  19. Turning the ‘conceptual plan’ into ‘spatial strategies’ and coordination plans • National urban system plan • The Jin-Jin-Ji regional plan (Beijing, Tianji and Hubei) • The Pearl River Delta Coordination Plan • The Urban System Plan of the Yangtze River Delta • The Yangtze River Delta Regional Plan

  20. National urban system plan prepared by the Chinese Academy of Urban Planning and Design

  21. The Pearl River delta 1995 2000 2002 2000

  22. “one core area, three belts and five axes” spatial structure of the coordination plan of the Pearl River Delta

  23. The Yangtze River Delta

  24. Involvement of the national state level departments: The Ministry of Construction, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) • NDRC rejuvenated the Five-Year Economic Plan into a ‘territorial strategic plan’

  25. NDRC: “Main Functional Area Plan” (zhuti gongnengqu guihua) • Authorized by the State Council, to cover 9600,000 km2 (national territory) • Four major types: • The prioritized development area • Optimization area • Restricted area • Forbidden area • The basic units for the first three types are counties (basic administrative unit), and for the last type is natural boundary or designated area

  26. What is the “plan of main function area”? • Recognition of de facto devolution at the county / city level • An attempt to link governance and regulation with decision making units • ‘Recentralization’ to restore some sort of coordination by assessing performance accordingly (not just GDPnism) • The central state’s effort to consolidate its governance over entrepreneurial local agents

  27. “The importance of urban and town clusters has transcended a pure academic concept and becomes a real issue of government. The national Eleventh Five-Year Plan uses urban and town clusters as the key form to promote urbanization; the Seventeenth CCP Congress adopts the concept of urban and town clusters”. • “Academic and business communities regard urban and town clusters as the growth pole for enhancing competitiveness and regional capacities; the central government recognizes the need to intervene the development of urban and town clusters and set up the necessary coordination mechanism” (Li 2008: 5). • Mr. Li Xiaojiang, the Director of Chinese Academy of Urban Planning and Design

  28. (B) Building soft regional institution • Fierce inter-city competition • Spontaneous bottom-up coordination • Pan-PRD • The regionalization of the Yangtze River Delta

  29. The Pan-PRD boundary Source: Yeh and Xu (2008)

  30. Pan-PRD: known as 9+2 (Hong Kong and Macao) • Initiation under Mr. Zhang Dejiang, then Party Secretary of Guangdong province • Coordination or expansion of hinterland? • “To understand and promote Pan-PRD cooperation, we need to adopt a global perspective and strategic thinking, from the height of promoting the national-scale region cooperation and regional collaborative development; from the strategic consideration of stabilizing and promoting the economies of Hong Kong and Macao”

  31. Regionalization of the Yangtze River Delta • Failure of Shanghai Economic Region in the 1980s • 1996: the Coordination Association of Urban Economies • 2000: the Forum of Economic Collaboration • Different “membership”: 15+1 model or 2+1 model • Since 2005, focused on comprehensive transport system, science and technology, and environmental protection

  32. No regional development agency to coordinate regional development • Even the province cannot coordinate development within its territory • Pearl River Delta: Guangdong province • Yangtze River Delta: Shanghai + Jiangsu + Zhejiang • Strong influence from the central government: Development and Reform Commission system (‘planning commission’) • Adhere to soft institution

  33. Conclusion • “the emergence of city-regions [is] as the product of a particular set of economic, cultural, environmental and political projects, each with their own logics” (Jonas and Ward 2007: 176) • In the Chinese context, regional development in response to globalization has seen two interrelated forces: • 1) ‘regional competitiveness’: devolution, and then regionalization by entrepreneurial thrust, the Yangtze River Delta became the core of China’s world factory production

  34. 2) ‘regional governance’: a reaction towards the crisis of the entrepreneurial city, • a. Turning ‘entrepreneurial plan’ into regulatory device (‘spatial plan’) • b. Building soft regional institution

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