Contenu du sommaire : Urban Planning in China

The aim of this issue is to observe the role played by spatial planning and urban planning in contemporary Chinese changes, and to identify theoretical and practical transformations by focusing on the concepts, actors, and projects of urban planning. First, it is a matter of questioning the evolution of the styles of planning and of the concepts that underpin action. (...) In the Chinese context, this raises the question of going beyond the traditional planning model and of the advent of new styles of planning that could become more strategic in order to follow neoliberal prescriptions, more collaborative in order to better build consensus among actors, more sustainable in order to respond to environmental emergencies (...). Secondly, it is a matter of observing the concrete modalities of these voluntary transformations of space. (...) The interest of this dossier is to try to cross-reference these dimensions in order to provide a more detailed understanding of this central element in contemporary Chinese transformations.

Which bodies of knowledge and which paradigms of thinking shape spatial plans? A content analysis of three textbooks on town planning shows that on the one hand, planning standards, models, and paradigms for technical modernisation are well developed, while on the other hand, environmental planning and preservation of culture have been identified as current challenges. Introductions to town planning have been found to shift between routinely presenting established approaches and exploring solutions or technical approaches to challenges to town development.

Chinese urban planning has recently begun an institutional revolution that seeks to integrate plans drawn up by several ministries. Aimed at giving more coherence to public action, the process of integration, already technically complex, is confronted with a power struggle between administrations, making duoguiheyi difficult to implement.

In order to face the challenge of sustainable urban development on its own territory, China has chosen Singapore as its model and privileged partner. By analysing more than 20 years of cooperation, the aim of this article is to study what sort of vision and model for development China is pursuing, how the “Singaporean model” is imported and incorporated by Chinese stakeholders, and in what ways it is transforming the specificities in planning, building, and organising the country's cities. Our analysis covers two Sino-Singaporean urban operations that are currently leading the way in China: the Suzhou Industrial Park and the Tianjin eco-city. The incorporation of the Singaporean model into these two operations shows that the latter offers an effective way of linking economic development with urban production, and of enabling the building of orderly cities with good environmental standards. However, these advances have only been made possible by the capacity to take political and financial initiatives that are still exceptional in the country as a whole, and until now do not appear to be easily extendable to other Chinese cities. Moreover, the Sino-Singaporean view of urban development based on productivity and concentrating on supply, infrastructure, and technology encounters major limitations in terms of environmental sobriety and the cities' social integration.

This article aims at showing the benefits of applying organisational learning theories to the study of transfers of eco-city concepts to China. Following this recommendation in the study of the transfer of the concept of “careful urban renewal” to the city of Yangzhou, this article shows that the contribution of international cooperation to reforming local urban development practices can be strongly hindered by the extant institutional and organisational structures. Consequently, the reform process may present characteristics of instability and patchiness, in turn resulting in a selective, gradual and uncertain introduction of new approaches to city (re)development.

Over the past decade, the concept of sustainable development has gained increasing importance within China's urban development. Urban(ising) China not only catalyses many of the country' sustainability issues, but also constitutes the locus where novel institutional arrangements for sustainable development are tested and implemented. This paper explores new paradigms of integrated territorial management unfolding in areas where concerns of water pollution intersect with objectives of urban renewal. The analysis focuses on the case of the Lihu Lake basin, located in the city of Wuxi (Jiangsu Province), considered by many observers to be at the forefront in China's quest for sustainable urban development. In Lihu the integration of environmental management with urban planning has led to the creation of a new organisational field, revolving around the issue of sustainable development of urban areas, with distinctive regulatory, normative, and cognitive aspects. While epitomising a case of integrated territorial management, the experience of Lihu Lake basin highlights the challenge of fostering inclusive social development in urban areas.

Illustrated by a case study on the urban development of a medium-sized city in China, this article develops a theoretical framework to help understand the role the financial system plays in the urban development model based on land in China. Three fields of literature have been used in order to link the various mechanisms between land, urban infrastructure, property development, and financing channels in urban production. The case study illustrates the many interactions between local government and real estate businesses, both state and private, as well as local banks, in order to create urban infrastructure that responds to “communal and public” needs and real estate objectives of a “private and individual” nature. In doing so, it highlights the fundamental role of capital in urban production in China.

In the late 2000s, the phenomenon of ghost cities emerged in China, including not only boomtowns such as Ordos but also “ordinary” third- and fourth-tier cities such as Changzhou. Based on a conceptual framework of China's land-driven growth machine under entrepreneurial governance, we update the ghost city phenomenon through an in-depth empirical study of a third-tier city, Changzhou. The objective of this paper is to expand our understanding of how excessive accumulation of real estate assets has come to dominate the landscape of this type of city against the background of China's economic slowdown. The author argues that overbuilding is due to the malfunction of the classic urban expansion model under entrepreneurial governance. In the case of Changzhou, the local government continued massive “sales” of residential and commercial land while effective housing demand was declining due to slowdowns in the local manufacturing industry and in population growth. In response to the “New Normal” advocated by the central government, the government of Changzhou redirected its land and housing policy. Nevertheless, more profound reforms are needed to change the paradigm of growth-oriented urbanism.

This article contributes to the development of a reading grid for the globalisation of urban models and their hybrid forms through an analysis of the urban production and social construction of a district in the suburbs of an emerging Chinese metropolis based on a casestudy of Thames Town, located in the new city of Songjiang, to the south-west of Shanghai. First, this contribution gives an account of the circulation of internationalised urban planning models and practices and the local development of public-private growth coalitions, that is to say, the establishment of new configurations of players promoting “urban marketing” both at the level of the Shanghai Municipality and that of the District of Songjiang. Secondly, this urban creation with its borrowed architectural forms raises questions with regard to both its morphology and its social reception/construction. The “Town on the Thames” presents a meticulous English-style layout that crystallises the tensions encountered in Chinese urban peripheries: gated communities, the staging of Western architectural styles and their appropriation by the inhabitants, the identity enhancement they represent, and over and above this, relationship of the self to others and of others to the self. What do these districts with their Western-style architecture teach us about the way Shanghai, a metropolis that wishes to transmit its own model of Chinese urban planning, thinks, produces, and appropriates the Chinese city?

Ever since Expo 2010 was held in Shanghai, the city has been trying to present an image of itself as having the capacity to offer amenities that are more environmentally friendly and that contribute to an improved quality of life. This article aims to show that a locally-enacted facility – far from the much-publicised monumental developments – can constitute a high point of urban activity, an example that contributes to cultivating the sought-after identity of a modern city concerned about the sustainability of its actions. Thanks to a singular grouping of actors from the public, semi-public, and private sectors, the Gubei Pedestrian Promenade (GPP) in the western district of Changning laid the principles of a sustainable urban planning programme ten years before the publication of Shanghai's New City Plan, resetting the ways for building the city. From today's perspective, this initiative could be seen as a manifestation of this new way of imagining the city.