Abstract
China’s eco-cities are often regarded as branding tactics of the entrepreneurial local state for economic growth and land revenue generation. However, it is not clear whether the ecological goal has been pursued at all. This paper fills this lacuna using a case study of Taihu New Town. Through an ecological fix perspective we suggest that ecological enhancement through the production of nature is attempted in conjunction with the production of the built environment. The ecological fix is not confined to an economic agenda. Under state entrepreneurialism, the central state maintains environmental governance in the name of ‘ecological civilisation’, while the local state performs the ecological fix. In Wuxi, the fixes include the removal of low-efficiency, polluting town and village enterprises (TVEs); creation of green space and infrastructure; the development of renewable energy; and low-carbon transition.
Highlights
Despite an extensive body of literature that regards Chinese eco-cities as a growthoriented development tool and largely a greenwashing campaign (Caprotti, 2014; Chang and Sheppard, 2013; Chien, 2013; Wu, 2012, 2015), China has recently seen a turn towards the environment under the new discourse of ‘ecological civilisation’ (Kostka and Nahm, 2017)
The challenge is not about whether the ecological fix has been applied in China but rather about how the Chinese state is performing the ecological fix under state entrepreneurialism
This paper fills a lacuna in the extensive studies on Chinese eco-cities and investigates whether these initiatives have any intention to fix the ecological and metabolic crisis
Summary
Despite an extensive body of literature that regards Chinese eco-cities as a growthoriented development tool and largely a greenwashing campaign (Caprotti, 2014; Chang and Sheppard, 2013; Chien, 2013; Wu, 2012, 2015), China has recently seen a turn towards the environment under the new discourse of ‘ecological civilisation’ (Kostka and Nahm, 2017). The development of the ecological fix is inspirational for our study, as the concept reveals the possibility for the entrepreneurial city to perform the ‘ecological fix’ to pursue an environmental goal rather than always being driven by growth-oriented motivation (and in China’s case, the generation of land profits). The prevailing literature on Chinese eco-cities regards them as tactics or means adopted by the local government to achieve a growth-oriented agenda (Wu, 2015) through ‘imagineering’ (Pow and Neo, 2013), selling nature (Chang and Sheppard, 2013), the technological yet symbolic fix (Caprotti, 2014) or ‘aestheticisation’ (Pow, 2018) These growth-oriented eco-cities bring limited environmental improvement but generate greater social segregation (Caprotti et al, 2015). The challenge is not about whether the ecological fix has been applied in China but rather about how the Chinese state is performing the ecological fix under state entrepreneurialism
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