The trials of China’s technoburbia: the case of the Future Sci-tech City Corridor in Hangzhou

ABSTRACT

Set against the wider background of global suburbanization, this paper contributes to the emerging literature on the formation of technoburbia in China, and more importantly, the potential “urban contradictions” accompanying this process. Through a bottom-up empirical exploration of the Future Sci-tech City Corridor in Hangzhou and its embedded Featured Town initiative in particular, we observe how the future of technoburbia in China is by no means free from similar challenges in housing affordability and labor stratification. However, these contradictions are managed entirely differently in China. Nevertheless, the highly planned nature of China’s technoburbia also rubs up against political decentralization, demographic change and economic upgrading, implying significant trials and tribulations along the way.

KEYWORDS:

• Suburbanization
• technoburbia
• urban contradictions
• featured towns
• China
• Hangzhou

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our thanks to the editor and to referees for their timely and constructive comments on previous drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Wenzhou model is one of small family-run rural village-based enterprises engaged in production and long-distance trade. In the post-reform period, it has been at the center of significant transformation of non-farm incomes in rural communities and partly as a result can be said to have some similarities with the industrial districts of the Third Italy (Wei et al., 2007).

2. Administrative townships must fulfill any of the following: (1) where the township government is based; (2) village with less than 20,000 population, but non-agricultural population is over 2000 in the location where the village government is based; (3) village with more than 20,000 population, and non-agricultural population accounts for 10 percent of the village total at where the village government is based; (4) ethnic minority, priority locations, mountainous and mining areas, small ports, tourist sites and border ports with less than 2000 population could also be considered.

3. The dissemination of the Dream Town model has not been left to chance but rather deliberately and vigorously promoted from the outset. Moreover, the featured town model within Yuhang district is an income generator since fees are charged for visits organized to Featured Towns.

4. For example, the first private university established in China is located in Cloud Town. The use rights for its comparatively small site were re-acquired by local government for a reported 1 billion RMB and passed on to the university for a nominal 1 RMB (Staff Member, Cloud Town Administration, 26 April 2018).

5. According to a senior officer from Zhejiang Planning Bureau, Featured Towns are not designed as high-tech clusters but attractive platforms for working and living. Therefore, it is important to consider the housing affordability issue. House prices in featured towns are not the highest in Hangzhou, but they have experienced the highest growth rates and have affected surrounding areas with implications for labor stratification and social segregation.

6. The highest salary was paid in the finance (108,136 RMB) and real estate sector (99,468 RMB) annually.