China’s Urban Transformation in the Shadow of Regulatory Centralism: The Revitalization of Old Industrial Cities as a Case

Jie Guo, Lixia Jin and Yongchun Yang ()
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Jie Guo: Guangzhou Institute of Geography, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 410070, China
Lixia Jin: Guangzhou Institute of Geography, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 410070, China
Yongchun Yang: College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730030, China

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-17

Abstract: Recent research has focused on a dialectical examination of neoliberalism and China’s inherent authoritarian regulatory regime and the planned economy tradition. In the same vein, this study examines China’s institutional reform and emergent goal-oriented governance since the early 1980s. It argues that China’s four decades of marketization and decentralization reforms are not toward neoliberalism, but have been accompanied by increased authoritarian regulation and state intervention. The reform aimed at complementing rather than dismantling the socialist planned economy through the localization of marketization and the adoption of a “small government” logic. A survey on the revitalization of an old industrial base in Lanzhou detailed the flow of power and its operation under the post-reform regulatory centralism. By delegating the power to formulate planning, the right to intervene in the land market, and the autonomy of policy innovation to the local governments, the central government can achieve precise intervention in local governance and land development, thereby achieving the strategic goal of national accumulation.

Keywords: neoliberal decentralization; regulatory centralism; goal-oriented governance; urban renewal; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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