The impact of policy networks on the urbanisation around High-Speed Railway stations in China: the case of Wuhan

Abstract

In this paper I address the nationwide impulse to use new High-Speed Railway (HSR) stations to catalyse the urban extension of Chinese cities. I aim to unfold four modalities of actor relations in the process of urbanisation around the HSR stations— that is, the vertical intergovernmental relations, horizontal intergovernmental relations, government-market relations, and government-society relations. By introducing the network perspective, I demonstrate how the particular policy networks in China shape actor relations in policy games, and correspondingly impact on the outcomes of such urban policies. The new subcentre in Wuhan is taken as an in-depth case study. I identify key policy networks as the institutional settings, and analyse the role of such policy networks in the key policy games: location choice, infrastructure integration, functional diversity, and the quality of environmental and public space. Finally, as a consequence, the characteristic coordination problems that yield the policy games of urbanisation are characterised, which concern: tension between central and local competences of decision making; cross-jurisdiction separation; the overdominant role of governments and their opportunist behaviours; and, finally, lack of public participation.