“Inspiring” Policy Transfer: Analysis of Urban Renewal in Four First-Tier Chinese Cities

Yuanyuan Huang, Lizhen Wei, Guiwen Liu, Wenjing Cui, Fangyun Xie and Xun Deng ()
Additional contact information
Yuanyuan Huang: School of Management Science and Real Estate, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China
Lizhen Wei: School of Civil Engineering, Huaqiao University, Xiamen 361021, China
Guiwen Liu: School of Management Science and Real Estate, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China
Wenjing Cui: School of Management Engineering, Shandong Jianzhu University, Jinan 250101, China
Fangyun Xie: Party School of the Chongqing Committee of C.P.C, Chongqing 400041, China
Xun Deng: School of Management Science and Real Estate, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China

Land, 2022, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-31

Abstract: Most Chinese cities have spent decades achieving urbanisation. So far, rural urbanisation has shifted to urban renewal. However, the distinction between a rapidly changing social environment and the establishment of an institution has led to the failure of urban renewal policies to sustainably achieve complete transformation through urban modernisation involving many stakeholders. Owing to the top-down political system in China, the formulation and implementation of urban renewal policies are carried out in a closed-loop process in which “decisions are issued by the central government to the local government which gives feedback to the centre”. This seems to affect urban renewal through a transfer of renewal policies in a local area. Therefore, it is essential to explore the differences between the urban renewal policies at different government levels and to analyse these policies in diverse urban contexts with multiple stakeholders. Based on the policy transfer theory, this paper selects 216 core policy texts at the state level and at the level of four first-tier cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen), and uses the methods of text mining and semantic analysis to form open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Furthermore, it discusses the policy transfer and impact mechanism of urban renewal policy at different levels with diverse characteristics of policy subsystems. We found that the transfer of urban renewal policy occurred in China through top-down coercive vertical transfer, bottom-up combination reverse transfer, and voluntary horizontal transfer among cities. Finally, we suggest that “inspiration”-type policy transfer is an effective method to promote urban renewal in China.

Keywords: urban development; urban renewal policy; policy transfer; coercive vertical transfer; combination reverse transfer; voluntary horizontal transfer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/1/118/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/1/118/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:12:y:2022:i:1:p:118-:d:1020589

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().