Urban morphology and urban fragmentation in Macau, China: island city development in the Pearl River Delta megacity region

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The island city of Macau, part of China's Pearl River Delta megacity region, has undergone urban fragmentation, occasioning transport problems and environmental inequalities as well as conditioning future urban development. Land scarcity associated with island spatiality encourages dense and incremental urban expansion, facilitated by coastal land reclamation, causing spatiotemporal urban fragmentation. The Macau Peninsula, formerly a hilly island, has expanded and become increasingly connected to the mainland over the centuries. Macau faces critical challenges regarding traffic congestion, environmental pollution, and lack of space for housing and other urban functions. As Macau becomes increasingly integrated into the Pearl River Delta megacity region, particularly through the construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the island city's urban planning strategy uses land reclamation to create new urban zones. This may produce new urban space for social and economic development yet risks further urban fragmentation. We argue that spatially and historically sensitive geographical understandings of island city development and urban morphology are necessary for understanding Chinese urbanisation and coastal cities.

Hearing voices: colonialism, outsider perspectives, island and Indigenous issues, and publishing ethics

“…Sheldon Adelson is an American who owns businesses in Macau and is thus an outsider, yet it is generally understood that the people of Macau have benefited significantly from the territory's gaming industry. If Macau, a special administrative region of China, can be studied as an island city (e.g., Kwong & Wong, 2017;Sheng, 2016;Sheng et al, 2017), and if island studies ought to advocate islanders' interests, then might it not in itself be problematic to ask researchers to prioritize the needs of Americans and Palestinians over those of the people of Macau? The people of Macau vanish in Kapstein's brief critique, just as surely as Pacific islanders vanish in all too many discussions of military strategy and geopolitics.…”

Bridges, tunnels, and ferries: connectivity, transport, and the future of Hong Kong’s outlying islands

“…Toland (2017, p. 105) describes such processes as "anti-archipelago," an "undoing of the various archipelagic conditions that have existed, historically and topographically." In contrast, Sheng et al (2017) regard the island cities of the Pearl River as "networked by nature and design: […] lack of connectivity would occasion the demise of these places' distinctive urban island lifestyles and practices, not accentuate their islandness." We now turn to consider how these island types are populated and some of the issues these communities face.…”

State size and democratization in hybrid regimes: the Chinese island cities of Macau and Hong Kong

“…The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) retain hybrid regimes with limited electoral rights and a certain level of civil liberties. Sheng, Tang, and Grydehøj (2017) propose that one can regard Hong Kong and Macau as 'Chinese island cities' from an urban island studies perspective because of their island spatiality and historical development in China's Pearl River Delta. The present regimes of Hong Kong and Macau can therefore each be classified as 'sub-national hybrid regimes' (Fong, 2017).…”