Magic Cities, Future Dreams — Urban Contradictions

China Perspectives, 2021

Shenzhen, China's first special economic zone (SEZ), not only heralds the essence and evolution of the PRC's earlier domestic reform and global integration, but also demonstrates how urban spaces are rapidly produced in a socialist economy undergoing market transformation. This note identifies three such spaces: an economic space of globalization; a social space of exclusion and contestation; and a political space of governance.

Urban Geography, 2010

Shenzhen, China's first special economic zone (SEZ), not only heralds the essence and evolution of the PRC's earlier domestic reform and global integration, but also demonstrates how urban spaces are rapidly produced in a socialist economy undergoing market transformation. This note identifies three such spaces: an economic space of globalization; a social space of exclusion and contestation; and a political space of governance.

Progress in Planning, 2010

This paper evaluates the spatial development in the city of Taipei, Taiwan through a focusing study of the Eastern Xinyi District, where the transition of the urban form not only depicted the progress of spatial planning system of the city after World War II. Moreover, it also represents the dynamic complexity of the relationship among urban development, economy and society under the impact of globalization and democracy. The 1km2 area to be evaluated covers several blocks of the Xinyi Planning District, the CBD area nicknamed "Taipei Manhattan" where the the famous Taipei 101 locates. On the other side, the area also includes the once considered "border area", where closed sanatorium facilities and abandoned low-income housings were seen. Traces of military camps and ancient trenches can also be deduced from the current urban fabric. The first part will outline the urban development of Taipei and the course of change in the spatial planning system. Later on, I will focus the discussion by presenting a sequential evaluation of the changing patterns -key events, strategic plans and policies contributing to the image of the area as it is today. Furthermore, by cross-examining the layers of historical contexts with main factors behinds the transformation, I intend to conclude the analyses with a critical evaluation of the procedures that have been or will be implemented in the area.

Cities, 2003

As China's first Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to spur economic growth after the near collapse of the socialist centrally-planned economy in 1980, Shenzhen has transformed the agriculture-based Bao'an County into a 21st century metropolis housing over four million people. The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SSEZ) was built through demolishing native villages and the territorial spaces on which it now stands have undergone incessant pressure to restructure: agricultural land was first razed to give way to an industry-led SEZ which itself has been reconfigured since the 1980s as a result of internal and external changes. The physical growth and restructuring of the city reflect the imagination and bold experimentation of the government and urban planners who had no prior experience of planning for the growth of the invisible hand in a fledgling socialist market economy. This paper argues that while socioeconomic and spatial planning have played an important and exploratory role in Shenzhen's breathtaking growth from an outward processing SEZ to an aspiring world city of the 21st century, the city needs to work harder to establish an effective development control system.

In the past 20 years, China has seen the active redevelopment of old towns and construction of new towns around booming cities. Zhengdong New District is one of them. Zhengdong (150 sq km) is located in central China, and was planned by the Japanese architect, Kisho Kurokawa (1934–2007). After the plan was approved in 2001, Phase I of 33 sq km was constructed in 5 years with monumental buildings and grand plazas. Why did this foreign designed project receive tremendous support from the Chinese government during its planning and implementation? What are the problems of redeveloping new towns at such a fast pace? With these crucial policy and praxis questions, the authors studied the project on site and visited the stake-holders. This paper describes the birth of the plan and discusses how it was developed and nurtured into being by the various forces of government, developers and architects in the background of contemporary China. Through the process of development and construction in Zhengdong New District, the authors analyze the reasons behind the support and success of this unique planning phenomenon with strong Chinese characteristics.

Cities, 2017

The new millennium signified a new phase in the development zone-oriented suburbanization of China. Spurred by a new round of urban development strategies, development zones in many large cities face a need for enormous transformations and redevelopment. These areas have often been compared with the Western concept of "edge cities", although in this paper we argue that this "imported" concept, in practice, bears little resemblance to the actual development tendencies in China. Taking a comparative approach, this paper presents a critical examination of edge urban formations in the Chinese context, and identifies the major differences between the concept in China and the United States. Drawing upon a case study of Nansha in Guangzhou, the unique paths and underlying dynamics driving these transformations are revealed. It is concluded that Chinese edge urban areas are being transformed from mono-function development zones into new fully functional cities. A city in China like Nansha reveals the dynamics of both state interventions and local actions in boosting the polycentric economies of large city regions.

Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2003

An American geographer examines the recent economic resurgence of a historically significant city in China's interior as a result of a policy utilizing science and technology research institutions and the local labor force to "jump-start" technology-intensive growth. The study, based on a series of interviews and data gathered during field research in 2000 and 2002, reveals synergies among the city's pre-existing defense-related activities (electronics and aviation), its favorable financial and transport infrastructure, and the concentration of several large, prestigious technical universities, which have been utilized in the transformation of the city economy toward high-technology production for China's domestic market.