Abstract
New towns are a major form of urban growth in China. In recent years, increasing numbers of large new town projects have been planned and built in and around existing cities. These new town projects have frequently been employed by city governments as central elements of pro-growth strategies, based on ideas of urban entrepreneurialism, which seek to promote economic growth, project a dynamic city image, and increase urban competitiveness. This article studies how the pro-growth, urban entrepreneurial approach affects the planning and development of Chinese megacities. A conceptual framework focusing on land-leasing revenue and new town development strategies is employed to explore the linkages between urban growth mechanisms and urban outcomes. Empirical material from four cities in the Pearl River Delta—Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, and Zhuhai—is presented. The analysis indicates that new town developments in these cities have different levels of dependency on spatial expansion and land revenue, and emphasize different issues of sustainable development in their plans. Cities with a lower dependency on physical and economic growth are be more likely to emphasize the quality of the built environment and address issues of sustainable urban development more closely when planning and implementing new town projects.
Highlights
China has undergone high levels of urbanization and economic growth for several decades since major economic reform in 1978, during which its urban population grew from 172 million to 831 million by the end of 2018 [1]
From the perspective of neo-liberalism and entrepreneurialism, post-socialist reforms have led to the creation of new local governments in China that are more ‘entrepreneurial’ in nature [17,33,34], but lacking in financial discipline and public accountability, which promote urban growth for political and economic objectives [21]
We only look at new town projects initiated by municipalities to see how local governments shape urban outcomes from a political economy perspective
Summary
China has undergone high levels of urbanization and economic growth for several decades since major economic reform in 1978, during which its urban population grew from 172 million to 831 million by the end of 2018 [1]. There are several defining characteristics of China’s ‘entrepreneurial local state’, such as the 1994 tax-sharing system reform [19], land property and market reform [4], and cadre appointment system [20] Each of these characteristics encourage local governments to adopt pro-growth urban development strategies to increase extra budgetary revenue, and enhance local economic and political performance. Through the transition from rural industrialism to new urbanism, new town development generally embraces a regime of accumulation and legitimation from land value [4], turning suburbs into spaces of capital accumulation [30] These observations suggest that new town developments are often a feature of local governments’ pro-growth strategies, which can lead to overspending and unnecessary investments, and potentially hamper the implementation of its sustainable and innovative urban objectives in the long run.
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