Trade-Offs, Adaptation and Adaptive Governance of Urban Regeneration in Guangzhou, China (2009–2019)

Bin Li, Kaihan Yang, Konstantin E. Axenov, Long Zhou and Huiming Liu ()
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Bin Li: City University of Macau, Av. Padre Tomas Pereira, Taipa 999078, Macau, China
Kaihan Yang: Macau University of Science and Technology, Av. Wai Long 999078, Macau, China
Konstantin E. Axenov: St Petersburg University, University Embankment, 7/9, 199004 St Petersburg, Russia
Long Zhou: City University of Macau, Av. Padre Tomas Pereira, Taipa 999078, Macau, China
Huiming Liu: Macau University of Science and Technology, Av. Wai Long 999078, Macau, China

Land, 2022, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-22

Abstract: This paper explores the specific “authoritarian” type of adaptive governance of urban regeneration using the example of Guangzhou city as the frontier of China’s reforms. As opposed to the “democratic” type of adaptive governance with its bottom-up policy initiations, community autonomy, polycentric power, participation in decision making, and self-organized policy actors, adaptive governance in Guangzhou is based on top-down decision making and implementation of public authorities’ solutions with the high role of political considerations. By analyzing data collected from policy documents, interviews, secondary data, and participative observations, this paper reveals three phases of urban regeneration in Guangzhou between 2009 and 2019: two of them based on “Three Old Redevelopment” policy implementation and the third one based on the local micro-regeneration initiative. Tradeoffs among urban regeneration, land leasing income and micro-regeneration are the key means of policy adaptation which differ from the described phases. Methodologically, the paper does not limit itself by answering only the traditional research questions in regeneration studies of “what” has changed and “why” these changes have happened. Instead, the main focus includes “how” such changes have occurred, which is less researched in the literature. Social–political mechanisms, including limited check-and-balance, selective feedback, and the social learning capacity of the local state, are crucial governance factors to enable adaptation.

Keywords: trade-offs; adaptation; adaptive governance; urban regeneration (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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