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Planning and its discontents: contradictions and continuities in remaking China's great cities, 1950–2010

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2012

SAMUEL Y. LIANG
SAMUEL Y. LIANG*
Affiliation:
School of Humanities, Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityDepartment of Philosophy and Humanities, Utah Valley University, 800 West University Parkway, Orem, UT 84058, USA
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Abstract:

This article offers a theoretical overview of the urbanization legacy of China's great cities since 1949. It shows a persistent contradiction between ideology/planning and urban sprawl/cellular urbanism. The symbolic function of city planning reflects official ideology giving the city a unified formal structure, but the implementation of the city plan is compromised in the process of urban development. The state governance fragments Chinese urban society into emplaced groups. This social division takes effect through the spatial division of various compounds that negotiate with rather than conform to city planning. Using a case-study of Guangzhou's urban development, the article shows how the state-led spatial practices continue in the post-socialist era and how a new kind of developmental ideology informs urban developments.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 530 - 553
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

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References

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