Landscape and the cultural politics of China’s anticipatory urbanism

Abstract

China has seen a proliferation of monumental urban projects in recent years extending to lower tier cities. This paper examines the production of new urban landscapes in the Kangbashi New District of Ordos Municipality to assess the political economy and cultural logics of China’s current-day city-making programmes. The concept of ‘anticipatory urbanism’ is developed to interpret how monumentality in the built environment is aimed at foretelling new developmental futures promising to deliver power to the local state and prosperity to residents. The analysis assesses public responses to landscape transformations and discusses how speculation in the production of new city spaces generates conflict and crisis for the local state. Anticipatory urbanism is found to feed off government ambition and undermines sustainable urban growth.

Keywords:

• China
• boomtown
• monumentality
• urbanism
• new town

Acknowledgements

This paper was possible through research support from the Association for Asian Studies China-Inner Asia Council travel grant and through the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Dissertation Research Grant.

Notes

1. Some prominent examples in lesser-known cities include the Sheraton Hotel in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, and the Phoenix Island project in Hainan Province, both designed by Ma Yansong, protégé of Zaha Hadid, and the Henan Province Art Centre in Zhengzhou, designed by Carlos Ott.

2. See http://www.kbs.gov.cn/kbs2014/zjkbs_74569/ztgk_74570/ (accessed 26 December, 2016).

3. Interview, Kangbashi, September 2012.

4. The politics of unfinished construction projects in Ordos are discussed in an excellent essay by Michael Ulfstjerne (2016).

5. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLL72t_bHVo (accessed 15 July, 2016).