Planning Particularities: Reinterpreting Urban Planning in China with the Case of Chengdu

ABSTRACT

The concept of neoliberalisation is increasingly applied to China to explain its unprecedented urban transformation. This paper argues against fitting China into a prototype neoliberal model. Instead it proposes a fresh interpretation of its urban planning particularities within a continuity-contestation framework, embodied in the context, governance and practice of planning. Chengdu, the gateway in West China, is chosen as a case study to illustrate this framework. Analysing the successive city Master Plans of Chengdu, it was found that there was a strong path dependency in Chengdu’s plan-making process. Yet contestations from the planning context and planning practice pressured for planning transformation. Interestingly, inconsistencies within its Master Plans sometimes worked in line with the market and mediated the conflicts between plan-led and market-led development logics.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban planning
• continuity and contestation
• particularities
• Chengdu
• master plan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The Great Leap Forward (Chinese: 大跃进) was an economic and social campaign by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and aimed to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a socialist society through rapid industrialization and collectivisation.

2. This strategy is also a reflection on the Wenchuan earthquake northwest of the city and the fear of new earthquakes. This could potentially change the traditional division of the city where the parts least prone of earthquakes were the poorest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/N010981/1].

Notes on contributors

Julie T. Miao

Julie T. Miao is a Senior Lecturer in Property and Economic Development in the Melbourne School of Design, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. Julie was awarded her PhD in Economic Geography and Planning by University College London. Her research and teaching interests cover the economics, planning and the built environment of the knowledge economy, knowledge workers, housing market dynamics and affordability, as well as innovative, informal and entrepreneurial urbanism.