Scalar Politics and Uneven Accessibility to Intercity Railway in the Pearl River Delta, China

Abstract

Focusing on the state as a contradiction-ridden, multiscalar institutional ensemble, this article interrogates the relationships between scalar politics and uneven development through two interrelated arguments. First, uneven development reflects the historical layering of the scalar architecture of state regulation. It is produced by the interplay between contradictions of sociospatial interests among state agents owing to the prevailing scalar division of labor and inherent patterns of uneven development inscribed by earlier rounds of state scalar arrangements. Second, actual patterns of this state-driven uneven development are mediated by a variety of discourses, through which contending state agents bargain for and against particular forms of state rescaling to assert their power and interests. Illustrating these arguments, this article examines the recent development of the Pearl River Delta Intercity Railway System through a combination of quantitative analysis, interviews, and documentary review. It reveals a pattern of uneven accessibility that defies conventional wisdom, with the region’s most developed cities possessing the worst station accessibility. It is found that this unevenness stems from conflicts between scalar state agents with differentiated powers over the railway regime on what constitutes the most efficient siting of stations, reinforced by disparities in economic and railway development attributable to historical state scalar selectivities. The scalar politics that resulted was discursively mediated, as the contending state agents leveraged various discourses, evoking a medley of scales of governance and issues to defend for their preferred station locations.

本文视国家为充满矛盾的多尺度制度整体, 通过两个相互关联的论点探讨尺度政治和发展不平衡之间的关系。首先, 发展不平衡反映了历史上国家管制的各类型尺度构造的叠加影响, 是各级政府空间利益相互作用的结果。利益冲突既源于现有的尺度分工, 也源于先前数轮国家尺度安排所造成的不平衡发展格局。其次, 各式各样的话语也塑造了这种由国家主导的不平衡发展的实际格局。博弈中的各级政府应用不同的话语来争取或抗拒尺度重构, 以维护各自的权力和利益。为阐明上述论点, 本文结合定量分析、访谈和文档回顾, 探讨了珠江三角洲城际铁路体系的发展现状, 发现其呈现一种与常理大相径庭的可达性空间格局一最发达的城市的车站可达性最差。由于各级政府在铁路体制中的权力差异, 以及以往国家尺度选择所导致的经济和铁路发展的落差, 令他们对何谓最有效益的车站选址争论不休, 造成了现在的可达性不平衡。由此产生的尺度政治是由话语来建构的, 当中相互博弈的各级政府应用各种话语, 致力于影响尺度管制的建构, 为其首选的车站位置辩护。

Enfocándose en el estado como conjunto institucional multiescalar cargado de contradicciones, este artículo interroga las relaciones entre política escalar y desarrollo desigual por medio de dos argumentos interrelacionados. Primero, el desarrollo desigual refleja la estratificación histórica de la arquitectura escalar en la regulación del estado. Ésta se produce por la interacción entre las contradicciones de intereses socioespaciales entre agentes del estado, debido a la prevalente división escalar del trabajo, y los patrones inherentes al desarrollo desigual inscrito por instancias anteriores de arreglos escalares del estado. Segundo, los patrones reales de este desarrollo desigual orientado por el estado están mediados por una variedad de discursos, a través de los cuales agentes estatales rivales regatean en favor o en contra de formas particulares de cambios de escala acometidos por el estado para reafirmar su poder e intereses. Para ilustrar estos argumentos, el artículo examina el reciente desarrollo del Sistema Ferroviario Interurbano del Delta del Río Pearl, a través de una combinación de análisis cuantitativo, entrevistas y revisión documental. Esto revela un patrón de accesibilidad desigual que desafía la sensatez convencional, en donde las ciudades más desarrolladas de la región exhiben el peor acceso a la estación. Se pone de presente que esta desigualdad viene de los conflictos sobre el régimen ferroviario entre agentes escalares del estado, con poderes diferenciados en términos de qué constituye la ubicación más efectiva para las estaciones, reforzado con disparidades en desarrollos económicos y ferroviarios atribuibles a selectividades escalares históricas del estado. La política escalar resultante fue mediada discursivamente, en cuanto los agentes rivales del estado hicieron uso de varios discursos, evocando una mezcla de escalas de gobernanza y problemas a defender en apoyo de locaciones preferidas para las estaciones.

Key Words:

• accessibility
• discourse
• intercity railway
• scalar politics
• uneven development

关键词:

• 可达性
• 话语
• 城际铁路
• 尺度政治
• 发展不平衡

Palabras clave:

• accesibilidad
• desarrollo desigual
• iscurso
• ferrocarril interurbano
• política escalar

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the support from Dr. James Jixian Wang from Hong Kong’s Greater Bay Area Research Centre and the constructive comments received during the peer review process. Author Calvin King Lam Chung was corresponding author for this article.

Notes

1 For the convenience of discussion, we use the term PRD in a more inclusive sense in subsequent parts of this article to refer to the nine constituent cities of the PRD and Qingyuan collectively.

2 In this article, GDP statistics in 2010 instead of more recent ones are used for two reasons: to maintain temporal consistency with other data we acquired (e.g., those from the 2010 national census for the calculation of average PRD-ICRS station accessibility) and to better reflect the level of economic development of the ten cities at the time that station locations of the PRD-ICRS were negotiated.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this article was funded by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (Project Number CUHK455712) and the Direct Grant for Research 2016–2017, Faculty of Social Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Project Number 4052140).

Notes on contributors

Mengmeng Zhang

MENGMENG ZHANG was a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Geography and Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, at the time this article was drafted. Zhang will be taking on the role as Lecturer in the Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Haidian, Beijing. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research specializes in transport planning, megacity region development, and state spaces in China.

Jiang Xu

JIANG XU is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests concern critical urban and regional studies in China, particularly state spatiality, state–business relationships, and the Greater Bay Area.

Calvin King Lam Chung

CALVIN KING LAM CHUNG is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include state spatial restructuring, politics of planning, and political ecology in China.