China’s urban development in context: Variegated geographies of city-regionalism and managing the territorial politics of urban development

Abstract

China’s urban development is often regarded as exceptional in terms of both the pace of urbanisation and the size and territorial reach of the country’s constituent city-regions. This commentary examines the variegated role of city-regionalism in the internationalisation and domestic management of Chinese state territory, and considers how the rise of new city-regional urban forms inside China is transforming the politics of urban development. China urban development processes are neither exclusively unique nor are they resistant to general theorisation; instead they are essentially comparable and therefore amenable to further theoretical interpretation.

Adding new narratives to the urban imagination: An introduction to ‘New directions of urban studies in China’

“…Hamnett (2020) asks whether Chinese cities are unique and argues that, because Chinese urbanisation is so different from both western and other developing countries’ experiences, we should not simply incorporate Chinese urban studies into an existing literature. Jonas (2020) uses the geographies of city-regionalism to illustrate that Chinese urban development processes are not exclusively unique. They are essentially comparable.…”

Rethinking China’s urban governance: The role of the state in neighbourhoods, cities and regions

“…The flagship of Xiong'an reflects not only the role of the central government but also the leadership of the Party. The research thus enriches our understanding of city-region formation in terms of both economic and geopolitical dynamics, especially state politics across geographical scales (Jonas, 2020a;Wu, 2020b). In the Western political system, the 'politics of redistribution' (Jonas and Moisio, 2018;Harrison and Hoyler, 2015) is a key driving force behind cityregionalism, involving mobilisation of different political jurisdictions.…”

“…Land-driven development and revenue maximisation are seemingly plausible explanations for the cause of the entrepreneurial behaviour of the local state at specific historical moments. However, the model leaves out the 'politics of development' or geopolitics (Jonas, 2020a(Jonas, , 2020b and intentional strategies of the state, using the market only as a tool rather than replacing its rationality of governance (Wu, 2020b). It is therefore important to study the governance of actual development processes in which revenue maximisation might be only part of the motivation (Wu, 2018b), and also the 'endogenous impulses of the state' (Guo, 2020).…”

“…Third, rather than considering the state as a single entity, recent studies on China’s urban governance highlight the state’s multi-scalar nature and complex central and local interactions (Li and Jonas, 2019; Lim, 2019; Shen et al, 2020; Wu, 2016). The state is territorially organised but also transcends geographical spaces (Cochrane, 2007; Jonas, 2020; Robinson et al, 2021). There are complex central and local relations and different hierarchies of government and inter-local competition (Cartier, 2015; Logan, 2018; Lim, 2019; Zhang and Wu, 2006).…”

Between Elites and Society: The Politics of Territorial Splits in a Decentralizing Era, Case of Lebak District, Indonesia

“…First, territorial politics is related to the center-border relationship, which concerns social, economic and political affairs, and the second is the central-regional relationship on issues of locality and decentralization. (Bradbury, 2006;Jonas, 2020;Kimura, 2010;Nsamba, 2013;Tang & Huhe, 2016;Troconi, 2021).…”