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Abstract
Pre-reform Chinese cities base their uniqueness in urban transformation on Mao's duality of utopian and revolutionary ideals and pragmatic and economized approaches in practice. Through the lens of urban economy, population management, and city planning, this paper examines China's pre-reform urban transformation. By the case study of Hangzhou, this research reveals that urban development was driven by a diverse set of forces devised by the communist state to configure the urban conditions and control people's daily lives in pursuit of radical socialist goals. The controls from the state and other pertinent forces led to the actual outcomes of political-economic ambitions and spatial policy rhetoric. It was an inherent feature of the society and economy to go outside of the state's controls, and the unintended consequences were unavoidable. The state had to revise their strategies, the outcomes of which were again to be tested by time. An iterative process determined the urban transformation of Chinese cities.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to express his gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers and the Editor-in-Chief for their critical and constructive comments. However, any errors are the author's own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Zhu Qian is an associate professor at the School of Planning, University of Waterloo, Canada. Since 2012, he has been working on a project on the history of China's pre-reform urban transformation supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He has published journal papers on China's post-1949 urban transformation, as well as land-use reform and urban restructuring under the economic reform.
Notes
1. Gaubatz, Beyond the Great Wall; Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form; Zhao, Social-spatial Transformation in Mao's China; Hua, Chongjian zhongguo [Reconstructing China].
2. Meisner, Mao's China and After.
3. Murray and Szelenyi, “The City in the Transition to Socialism.”
4. Pannell, “China's Urban Geography.”
5. Buck, “Review: The Fading of the Maoist Vision,” 133–134; Cell, “Deurbanization in China: The Urban-Rural Contradiction”; Lo, “Socialist Ideology and Urban Strategies in China”; Ma, “Counterurbanization and Rural Development”; Zweig, “From Village to City: Reforming Urban-Rural Relations in China.”
6. Kirkby, Urbanization in China.
7. Tang, “Urbanization in China,” 1.
8. Chan, Economic Growth Strategy and Urbanization Policies.
9. Wong, “Central Planning and Local Participation under Mao.”
10. White, “Chinese Development Strategy after Mao.”
11. Xie and Costa, “Urban Design Practice in Socialist China.”
12. Lai and Lai, “Socialist State Planning Reconsidered.”
13. Zhao and Gu, “A Policy Review on Spatial Strategy.”
14. Huang, “A Study on the History of Chinese Modern City Planning.”
15. Sit, Chinese Cities.
16. Forbes and Thrift, The Socialist Third World.
17. Mingione, “The Urban Question in Socialist Developing Countries.”
18. Murray and Szelenyi, “The City in the Transition to Socialism.”
19. Fuchs and Demko, Population Distribution Measures and the Redistribution Mechanism.
20. Tang, “Urbanization in China.”
21. Work unit, or Danwei in Chinese, is a socio-spatial unit in which urban citizen's productive, domestic, and social activities are carried out in a socialist, collectivized lifestyle. Most work units have a closely juxtaposed or intermingled workplace, residential compounds, and social services through which the state managed sources and social welfare. Effectively facilitating the Communist Party's ideology, policy, and control, the work unit is a principal territorial–organizational form of China's pre-reform urban population with an extremely wide array of types and sizes such as party organ, factory, research institute, education unit, hospital, cultural troupe, shop, military base, etc.
22. Kornai, Economics of Shortage; Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form.
23. Walder, “Property Rights and Stratification in Socialist Redistributive Economies.”
24. Gruchman, “Relevance of Regional Economics to Centrally Planned and Socialist Countries.”
25. Xie and Costa, “Urban Design Practice in Socialist China.”
26. People's Daily Editorial, “Fandui jianzhujie de langfei xianxiang.”
27. Sit, Evolution of the Chinese City and its Urbanism.
28. Xie and Costa, “Urban Design Practice in Socialist China.”
29. Fu, Zhongguo yunhe chengshi fazhan shi.
30. Mao, The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party.
31. Gao, The Communist Takeover of Hangzhou.
32. Hangzhou's commercial unit number dropped from 14,611 in 1937 to 9200 in 1949. The size of the survived commercial units became much smaller. Only 33 factories had more than a hundred employees. Hangzhou Research Team, Zhongguo dangdai chengshi fazhan ji.
33. Between November 1949 and February 1950, 1150 businesses closed down, leaving only 2022 in operation. Between May 1949 and April 1950, 14,000 workers became unemployed. By then, the city had a total unemployed population of 170,000, which was one-third of the total urban population. Zou, Liu, and Zou, Hangzhou chengshi fazhanshi.
34. Mao, “On the Policy Concerning Industry and Commerce,” 203.
35. Dong, “Cong jianshe gongye chengshi dao tigao chengshi jingzhengli 1949–2001.”
36. Mingione, “The Urban Question in Socialist Developing Countries.”
37. Zou, Liu, and Zou, Hangzhou chengshi fazhanshi.
38. There was a large share of private business in 1952. State or local state owned enterprises counted for 30.34%, cooperative enterprises counted for 0.03%, public–private joint enterprises counted for 8.19%, and private enterprises counted for 61.44%. In the second quarter of 1954, state or local state-owned enterprises counted for 37.72%, cooperatives counted for 1%, public–private joint enterprises counted for 18.78%, private enterprises counted for 42.5%. Hangzhou Committee of Chinese Communist Party, Guanyu chengshi de jihe jiben chailiao 1954.
39. These strategies and approaches derived from rural bases during wartime have lasting influences on China's post-reform urban transformation. See Li, Wan Li lun chengshi jianshe, 1–14.
40. Gao, The Communist Takeover of Hangzhou.
41. The essence of central Hangzhoùs contemporary urban form was formed in the Republican era. Ruan Xingyi headed the making of Hangzhou's first modern master plan in the Republican period. The plan turned the former bannerman garrison in the Qing Dynasty into a new business district and incorporated the West Lake into the city. Five garden-style parks were constructed along the West Lake and connected to the new business district. Besides serving trade and commerce, the new business district was also home to public institutions, as well as the residences for the business and administrative elites. While many of the elements in this plan had been materialized in the 1920s and 1930s, the urban development came to a pause during the Second World War. See Wang, “Tourism and Spatial Change in Hangzhou, 1911–1927.”
42. This master plan was never implemented but many ideas were incorporated into the 1953 master plan.
43. Li, Wan Li lun chengshi jianshe.
44. Zou, Liu, and Zou, Hangzhou chengshi fazhanshi [Hangzhou Urban Development History]. It is worth noting that Hangzhou experienced several administrative boundary adjustments during this period.
45. Hangzhou Research Team, Zhongguo dangdai chengshi fazhan ji.
46. Bo, Ruogan zhongda juece he shijian huigu.
47. Hangzhou Committee of Chinese Communist Party, Guanyu Hangzhou dushi jihua de baogao 1953.
48. The locations of many new factories posed an environmental threat to local residents. For instance, a silk-dyeing factory was located in the city centre and produced a large amount of smoke, sewage, and noise pollution. While Zhejiang Hemp Textile Factory, Hangzhou Cotton Textile Factory, and Zhejiang Pulp Factory were kept distant from the urban centre, they discharged their industrial sewage directly into the Grand Canal. Hangzhou Refinery Factory was very close to a dense residential area in the city centre. Many of these factories continued their operations until the mid-1990s, when they were shut down or relocated to suburbs.
49. Hou, “Dui jihua jingji tizhi xia zhongguo chengzhen hua de lishi xin jiedu [Historical Interpretation of China's Urbanization in planned economy].”
50. Alitto, The last Confucian, 190.
51. Ibid., 277.
52. Hayford, To the People.
53. Yang, “Shehui zhuyi chengshi de kongjian shijian.”
54. Yuan, Ding, and Wang, Shenfen goujian yu wuzhi shenghuo.
55. Hangzhou Research Team, Zhongguo dangdai chengshi fazhan ji.
56. Propaganda Division of Hangzhou Communist Party, Hangzhou 1949–1999.
57. Tao, “Guanyu gongnong and chengxiang guanxi de xin fazhan.” The local archive shows that the Great Leap Forward and the commune system resulted in grain-production decline from 823,000 tons in 1959 to 792,000 tons in 1961. Hangzhou Research Team, Zhongguo dangdai chengshi fazhan ji.
58. Hongweibing jianbao.
59. Chan, Economic Growth Strategy and Urbanization Policies in China.
60. Hangzhou Construction Bureau (1958), Document retrieved from Hangzhou Municipal Archive.
61. Problems were gradually exposed over the implementation of Hangzhou's second master plan. The primary problems in spatial configuration were numerous. (1) The inappropriate site selection of many factories led to problems in fire prevention and sanitation. Interference among factories close to each other was also a problem. (2) Some factories were located in dense residential urban districts. This constrained possible factory expansion and increased public health concerns for neighbouring residents. (3) The warehouses were highly clustered in three sites, which were at odds with site selection for resource storage, in consideration for a potential war. (4) The residences, cultural facilities, and shopping venues near suburban industrial areas were far behind their development schedules. The factory workers had to commute between the factories and their homes in the old urban core.
62. Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Construction, Hangzhou chengshi jianshe guihua jianyao shuoming 1959.
63. For a rich discussion of Danwei and its development, please refer to Bray, Social Space and Governance in Urban China.
64. For more detailed discussions on Hangzhou's urban transformation during the Cultural Revolution, please refer to Qian, “China's Pre-reform Urban Transformation.”
65. Hangzhou Municipal Government, Hangzhou zai shehuizhuyi geming jianshe shiqi de jingji he shehui fazhan.
66. Hangzhou Research Team, Zhongguo dangdai chengshi fazhan ji. According to publicized national economic statistics, during the Cultural Revolution, industrial and agricultural gross production enjoyed a 79% increase; gross social-production value experienced a 77.4% increase; and the gross national account had a 53% increase. Hou, “Dui jihua jingji tizhi xia zhongguo chengzhen hua de lishi xin jiedu.”
67. Hangzhou had multiple municipal administrative boundary adjustments between 1952 and 1978. The population statistics are calculated based on the adjusted boundaries.
68. Propaganda Division of Hangzhou Communist Party, Hangzhou 1949–1999.
69. According to a survey in 1981, the West Lake resort site accommodated 144 work units, ranging from manufacturing workshops to military groups. Those work units occupied a total land area of 359 hectares. Zou, Liu, and Zou, Hangzhou chengshi fazhanshi.
70. White, “Chinese Development Strategy after Mao”; MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution.
71. Fisher, “Planning the City of Socialist Man”.
72. See, for instance, Kornai, Economics of Shortage; Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China.