Sport events, urban regimes, and community development: a case study of Nanjing, China

ABSTRACT

Cities throughout the world have experienced mounting pressures to distinguish themselves in an increasingly competitive market for tourism, economic development, and investment. However, there are growing concerns about the sustainability of place promotion advantages and economic and community benefits brought about by hosting sporting events. This study examined Nanjing’s community development agenda and ongoing events strategy, in order to identify possible community development initiatives embedded in the events strategy (as evidenced in event policy), and the form they took. A deductive coding procedure was organized using four categories – agenda (problem-solving tasks), governing coalition (key individuals and organizations), resources (skills, expertise, organizational connections, informal contacts and level and scope of contributing efforts) and scheme of cooperation (coordination among the suppliers of the resources). The Nanjing regime appears to be a social-reform regime where the agenda targets disadvantaged groups or neighborhoods and focuses on community development aimed at encouraging community participation.

KEYWORDS:

• Sporting events
• community development
• China
• second-tier cities
• Urban Regime Theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Nanjing hosted 2013 Asian Youth Games and 2014 Summer Youth Olympics.