The planning and design of good quality urban parks in China: the perspectives of technical professionals

ABSTRACT

Previous studies have identified barriers to investment in good quality urban parks during the planning and design stage, particularly noting the ineffectiveness of planning instruments, a low political will to invest in urban green spaces and constraints in governance operation. The factors that influence the quality of urban parks in the planning and design stages of investment were investigated through interviews with technical professionals who have acted as consultants to local government across China on urban planning and landscape projects. A set of thematic characteristics were identified as shaping the planning and design of good quality urban parks in China: the reliance on quantitative metrics in the contemporary planning context; the linkage between local political will to invest in urban parks, local leaders’ prestige and local administrators’ enthusiasm in governance operation; and local administrators’ equipment with knowledge and effectiveness in communicating with technical professionals.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban park
• urban green space
• governance
• urban planning
• landscape planning
• urban design
• urban planner
• landscape architect
• urban designer
• China

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Department of Planning & Environmental Management, School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester, for supporting the project through PhD training courses.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The legalised procedures in the planning and design of urban parks primarily involve urban planners and landscape architects, while the participation of urban designers is not compulsory (MOHURD, 2002; SH7; SH8).

2. MOHURD classifies urban planning consultancies into Grades A, B and C, according to their ability to undertake various planning and design tasks. Landscape design consultancies are divided into Grades A and B. Grade A consultancies are allowed to have the widest scope in undertaking planning and design tasks.

3. A Chinese city commonly has one municipal planning consultancy that undertakes the majority of work in the land use planning of specific local districts under the urban comprehensive planning. A municipal consultancy that has been accredited as Grade A by MOHURD commonly undertakes the urban comprehensive planning too.

4. In China, urban comprehensive planning is prepared so as to manage the population in conjunction with the area’s overall development. Relevant documents and maps set out the overall development arrangement, functional zones, land use distribution, an integrated transportation system, the geographical scope of the areas where construction is prohibited/restricted/preferable, specialised plans with different focuses, and perspectives for long-term development (a 20-year forward plan) (National People’s Congress of China, 2007; Wu, 2015).

5. The core emphasis of this programme is on creating and maintaining green spaces in suburban and rural areas for their ecological value, in order to minimise the harmful effects of urbanisation on nature.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yangnan Guo

Yangnan Guo graduated from the University of Manchester with a PhD on Planning and Environmental Management in 2019. She developed her research interest on urban planning as an undergraduate at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. During her study at the University of Liverpool and the University of Manchester, she focused on how planning policies and diverse stakeholder groups contribute to the delivery of public urban green spaces. Her PhD research explored the potential of improving the quality of public urban green spaces via policy making, as well as efforts of technical professionals (urban planners, landscape architects and urban designers), governmental administrators and citizens. Currently she is a real estate development practitioner based in Beijing, China. She hopes to play a role in the integration of planning practice, education and research in the future.

Ian Mell

Ian Mell is a Reader in Environmental & Landscape Planning at the University of Manchester (UK) and focuses his research on the development and management of Green Infrastructure in urban areas. His work examines the added socio-economic and ecological value that urban greening delivers and has extensive experience of policy and practice evaluations in the UK, Europe, North America, India and China. His work examines the complexity of government applications of Green Infrastructure at a number of scales aided by his experience as a local government officer and in a research capacity for Defra and Natural England helping to develop the UK National Green Infrastructure Standard. He is the author of Global Green Infrastructure (Routledge, 2016) and Green Infrastructure Planning: Reintegrating Landscape in Urban Planning (Lund Humphries, 2019), and has published in Landscape Research, Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, Environmental Research and Town Planning Review. He has also received funding from the UK government, Horizon 2020, the Valuing Nature project, and the Newton Fund.