(Post)Suburban Development and State Entrepreneurialism in Beijing's Outer Suburbs

Abstract

Chinese cities are experiencing rapid urban expansion and rampant land conversions in periurban areas. Has China's suburban growth gone beyond commonly noted`suburbanisation'? To what extent does fast metropolitan growth reflect state entrepreneurialism after economic reform? The authors seek to elaborate further and contextualise Chinese suburban and postsuburban development and examine the underlying dynamics of state entrepreneurialism in the process of metropolitan development. The empirical basis of this research is a case study of the historical development of Yizhuang, an outer suburban new town of Beijing. The city originates from the establishment of the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone in 1992, but has passed rapidly through several phases of growth. The pattern of growth reveals both the complexities of adequately defining and delimiting such a growth node within the metropolitan fabric and of the state's intimate involvement in its development and evolution.

Emerging Chinese Cities: Implications for Global Urban Studies

“…Rather than caricaturing the Chinese state as an authoritarian regime, the emergence perspective allows us to comprehend how contradictory approaches could be adopted simultaneously: an absence of housing provision to rural migrants as a neoliberal retreat from social provision, aggressive land acquisition by the state-backed development corporations, and place promotion and branding through entrepreneurial strategy, discourse, and action (Jessop and Sum 2000). These are combined to create a version of state entrepreneurialism, as seen in the development of the Beijing ETDZ at Yizhuang: an edge city location (Garreau 1991) that is more a postsuburbia outcome of state entrepreneurialism (F. Wu and Phelps 2011). Similarly, Zhangjiang HighTech Park at Pudong in Shanghai is more than a cluster of urban agglomeration but is driven by state promotion of indigenous innovation capacities (F. Z.…”

“…Chinese urbanization thus does not follow the logic of global capital but rather the mentality of a developmental state, whose strategy is operationalized at the urban scale through market approaches. This can be seen in suburban development around Beijing, which is driven by state entrepreneurialism (F. Wu and Phelps 2011), orchestrated by the development corporation of the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone (ETDZ) at Yizhuang. Rather than a spontaneous cluster of postsuburban businesses at an edge city location, the development of new towns in this case has been under close supervision and strategically planned for the municipality of Beijing to create a new growth pole along the Beijing-Tianjin development corridor.…”

Planning centrality, market instruments: Governing Chinese urban transformation under state entrepreneurialism

“…As in many other development zones, a management committee model suitable for entrepreneurial development was adopted (Wu and Phelps, 2011). The industrial zone was governed by Lingang Industrial Park Management Committee, and the residential new town was managed by Nanhui New Town Management Committee.…”

The spatial distribution of industries in transitional China: A study of Beijing

“…Some of the hottest topics addressed by scholars in recent years include suburbanization, the development of commercial and housing markets, land expansion and urban sprawl, and social and spatial structure change (Ding, 2004;Feng et al, 2008;Li, 2000;Wong & Zhao, 1999;Wu & Phelps, 2011;Zhou & Ma, 2000). Relatively fewer studies have focused on industrial development and its spatial arrangement (Gao et al;2014;Liu et al, 2013;Ren & Sun, 2012), and these studies draw their conclusions mainly from case studies and are often focused on one single sector.…”

“…In addition, industrial polices like "retire the secondary industries while advance the tertiary industries" (tui er jin san), which were implemented since the 1990s, have also contributed to the decentralized industrial location pattern (Ye, 2014). Since the market economy is still under development and the command economy remains in many areas, government policies tend to be more influential on firms' location choice (especially state-owned firms) than the market factors (Wu & Phelps, 2011).…”