Planning centrality, market instruments: Governing Chinese urban transformation under state entrepreneurialism

Fulong Wu

doi:10.1177/0042098017721828

Abstract

This article defines the key parameters of ‘state entrepreneurialism’ as a governance form that combines planning centrality and market instruments, and interprets how these two seemingly contradictory tendencies are made coherent in the political economic structures of post-reform China. Through examining urban regeneration programmes (in particular ‘three olds regeneration’, sanjiu gaizao), the development of suburban new towns and the reconstruction of the countryside, the article details institutional configurations that make the Chinese case different from a neoliberal growth machine. The contradiction of these tendencies gives room to urban residents and migrants to develop their agencies and their own spaces, and creates informalities in Chinese urban transformation.

Highlights

Understanding Chinese urban governanceUnderstanding Chinese urban governance requires an appropriate reading of theUrban Studies 55(7)state–market relationship (Logan, 2008; Yeh et al, 2015)
In a recent article concerning the debates in urban theory, Storper and Scott (2016) criticised postcolonial urban theory for its particularism and provincialisation of knowledge
Contemporary urban transformation is characterised by the rising dominance of the capitalist urban process which is evolving towards a greater role for the market (Harvey, 1978; Peck, 2011, 2016)

Summary

Introduction

Understanding Chinese urban governanceUnderstanding Chinese urban governance requires an appropriate reading of theUrban Studies 55(7)state–market relationship (Logan, 2008; Yeh et al, 2015). As a prosperous informal rental market, experience the absence of the state, their regeneration reflects a new mode of governance that uses market instruments but at the same time maintains planning centrality. We interpret Chinese new towns as an outcome combining planning centrality and market instruments under state entrepreneurialism.

Results

Conclusion