Abstract
This chapter sheds light on the role and type of the giant city-regions, and examines the planning efforts on these city-regions in China. By analyzing policy and planning documents about new urbanization, national spatial planning, city-region and city master plans, the chapter reveals that these urban giants are expected to serve as spatial platforms of China’s national development. There are four basic types categorized by a two by two table featuring both dimensions of spatial extent (i.e., multiple vs single provincial unit involvement) and main forces of formation (i.e., passive outcome vs active intervention). Though planning efforts are discernible at three levels (framework/economic plan, city-group plan, and city master plan), none of the seven giant city-regions have systematic plans at all the levels. Heavy top-down planning approach is questionable for legitimacy and effectiveness. The lack of plans for institutional integration is yet another area that needs serious attention by planners and policy-makers.
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- 1.
The term chengshi qun literally means a ‘group of cities’. Chinese urban researchers interpret this term using various translations, such as mega cities, urban agglomerations, urban clusters, interlocking metropolitan areas, and extended metropolitan areas. In this paper, the term ‘giant city-region’ is used interchangeably with chengshi qun in order to earmark its extraordinary scale and its relevance to the terms ‘world city-region’ (Hall 1966) and ‘global city-region’ (Scott et al 2001).
- 2.
This is to contrast with a land focused urbanization which has characterised the Chinese urban development for the past decades.
- 3.
The urban–rural dichotomy describes the inequalities between urban and rural settlements; the urban dichotomy describes the inequalities between rural migrant workers and urbanites in cities.
- 4.
These include fresh air, clean water, and liveable climate (The State Council 2010: 10).
- 5.
In both central and local governments, specialized ministries/departments such as NRDC and the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Construction, are responsible for the plans and their implementation.
- 6.
They are the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR), and the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Construction (MHURC). There are national plans endorsed by the State Council for economic development and land-use by NDRC and MLR respectively. MHURC worked on a national system of cities and towns in 2000–2006 but that plan was never endorsed by the State Council. By leading the formulation and approval process of both NPMFA and the new urbanization plan, NDRC is the most powerful planning authority at national level.
- 7.
For example, provinces and cities have formulated local plans for major functional areas that detail the NPMFA. Similarly, local governments formulate local five-year plans which detail the national five-year plans.
- 8.
However, the Pearl River Delta chengshi qun Plan was made in 2005, long before the endorsement of the NPMFA and the new urbanization policy.
- 9.
The plan does not specify which government. In this type of statement it can be interpreted that it applies to all government levels involved.
- 10.
This does not exclude a strong spatial focus in these types of plans, as the Yangtze River Delta plan exhibits. The planning contents and responsible agencies are hot topic in debate about urban planning reform in China. A dedicated analysis is required for further details.
- 11.
The discussion here focuses on economic and spatial planning. Land-use planning which is under the purview of MLR is not examined. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the existing issues relating to the economic, land-use and urban planning, as well as proposals for and against the combination of the three plans. Nevertheless, this chapter shows that geographical scale needs to be considered in the analysis.
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Acknowledgements
Part of the contents of this chapter was presented in the 2014 Global Chinese Real Estate Conference in Nanjing, China. The author is grateful to H. Detlef Kammeier, Kevin B. O’Connor, and Bo Qin for their constructive comments on an earlier draft. Ada Chan helped to prepare Figs. 9.5 and 9.6; Jerome Han helped to prepare Fig. 9.3. Yuanyuan Liu assisted to gather several planning policies and documents from Baidu policy bank. Irene Han proofread the draft. All the remaining errors are the author’s.
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Han, S.S. (2015). The Giant City-Regions in China’s New Urbanization. In: Wong, TC., Han, S., Zhang, H. (eds) Population Mobility, Urban Planning and Management in China. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15257-8_9
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