Urban design governance in three Chinese ‘pioneer cities’

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the formal instruments of design governance and the urban design decision-making environment in Chinese cities. It identifies Shenzhen, Shanghai and Nanjing as three cities pioneering in design-led planning in China and critically evaluates their approaches using a series of ‘best practice’ principles for design review and development management. The findings are based on 20 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, a review of their design portfolios, and an analysis of urban design policies and plans. The paper identifies the progress made with design governance in the three ‘pioneer’ cities as well as the challenges associated with adopting more design-sensitive planning practice. It concludes with four recommendations for Chinese cities. These focus on foregrounding sense of place in city-wide urban design visions, raising the quality of design guidance and codes, more effectively coordinating regulations produced by different government departments and agencies, and widening opportunities for public participation.

KEYWORDS:

• Design governance
• urban design
• Chinese cities

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the twenty interviewees in China who have participated in the research, and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the revision of the paper. The authors would also like to express gratitude to Prof Simon Joss at the University of Glasgow for reviewing and offering suggestions for the improvement of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 These include the Permission Note for Location, the Land Use Planning Permit and the Building Permit, which are issued by the local authority at various stages during the development process to ensure conformity with the assigned terms and conditions (Chen 2016).

2 This analysis covered the Masterplan of Nanjing (2007–2030), the Masterplan of Shanghai (2017–2035), and the Masterplan of Shenzhen (2010–2020) as well as the Nanjing Guidelines and the latest version of the Shenzhen Urban Planning Regulation and Standard (2017).