The Emerging Public Realm of the Greater Bay Area

Approaches to Public Space in a Chinese Megaregion

Miodrag Mitrašinović, Timothy Jachna, Miodrag Mitrašinović, Tim Jachna

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000396072
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Through illustrated case studies and conceptual re-framings, this volume showcases ongoing transformations in public space, and its relationship to the public realm more broadly in the world's most populous urban megaregion—the Greater Bay Area of southeastern China—projected to reach eighty million inhabitants by the year 2025.

This book assembles diverse approaches to interrogating the forms of public space and the public realm that are emerging in the context of this region's rapid urban development in the last forty years, bringing together authors from urbanism, architecture, planning, sociology, anthropology and politics to examine innovative ways of framing and conceptualizing public space in/of the Greater Bay Area. The blend of authors' first-hand practical experiences has created a unique cross-disciplinary book that employs public space to frame issues of planning, political control, social inclusion, participation, learning/education and appropriation in the production of everyday urbanism. In the context of the Greater Bay Area, such spaces and practices also present opportunities for reconfiguring design-driven urban practice beyond traditional interventions manifested by the design of physical objects and public amenities to the design of new social protocols, processes, infrastructures and capabilities.

This is a captivating new dimension of urbanism and critical urban practice and will be of interest to academics, students and practitioners interested in urbanization in China.

1

FROM THE PEARL RIVER DELTA ESTUARY TO THE GREATER BAY AREA MEGAREGION: PRODUCING THE NEW PUBLIC REALM

Miodrag Mitrašinović

This book endeavors to make a timely yet historically situated contribution to the growing body of literature and scholarship on the rapid urbanization of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) and the role public spaces and infrastructures have played in the formation of the new public realm of the Greater Bay Area (GBA) megaregion. It is based in a pragmatic understanding that one can grasp this rapidly evolving process only episodically, by reflecting on a series of fragments that necessitate scholarly attention and reflection. This seems to be both an accurate and an ethical approach, as the totality of the process has reportedly escaped even its main protagonists: as Vlassenrood noted, “It is still unclear to both foreigners and Chinese how urban planning processes and decision-making are ultimately taking place” (2016: 8). Orff accurately employs the term “has becoming” to describe the ongoing contiguities of accomplishment and suspension (Orff 2001: 383) that epitomize the drama of frantic PRD urbanization. Each chapter in this book acts as analysis, a reflection and a theorem of public space as it has becoming in the PRD since 1978 and in the GBA megaregion since 2016. This chapter aims to contextualize the PRD→GBA transformation and to examine the relevance to the GBA of ongoing discourses of megaregionalism and practices of megaregionality. The new public realm, the megaregional public space and public spaces in the GBA megaregion will be briefly outlined here and then discussed in Chapter 17.

A Brief Chronology of the Transformation

Since the 1980 establishment of Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou in the Guangdong province as the first Special Economic Zones (SEZs) on the heels of Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 Open Door Policy and the subsequent establishment of Hong Kong and Macau as Special Administrative Regions (SARs) in 1997 and 1999,¹ the PRD has unquestionably been the testbed for the global geopolitical ambitions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The rapid urbanization of the PRD, particularly since the 2016 launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)² global development strategy, must be understood as part of an assertive planetary urbanization, through which the Chinese government has massively urbanized mainland China while also investing directly in infrastructure development in over seventy countries around the world (Scissors 2020; Arnold 2014). The scale and intensity of this enterprise have been breathtaking.

Initiated and modeled by the fourteen SEZs (Bach, O’Donnell, and Wong 2017), the “de-Maofication” (Vogel 1989: 780) and economic modernization (i.e., decentralization and deregulation) of China have obliterated landscapes, towns and villages across the nation. Until Gordon Wu’s 1994 Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway (Guangshen), Guangdong province boasted not a single mile of high-speed highway (Campanella 2008: 231). Typical of a river delta landform—a rural estuary supporting rice fields, farms and fishing villages—the region was among the most fertile in Asia (Du 2020). As the world’s most rapidly urbanizing territory from 1978 to 2008, the PRD epitomized contradictions inherent in the economic reforms of the SEZs—incongruities that strongly challenged expectations regarding concordant political ideology, economic development, urbanization and social transformation and urban and architectural forms (Chung et al. 2001). The hurried development of large-scale transportation, production and communication corridors gave rise to an urbanism predicated on polarization and interregional competition and on infrastructure as the main ideological device for development of the PRD.

A comprehensive national urbanization strategy was first proposed in the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001–2005) aimed to coordinate urbanization with economic development and environmental protection. Whereas the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2006–2010) put forth megaregion as the main vector of the national urbanization strategy, it was the National New-Type Urbanization Plan (2014–2020) that has solidified the megaregional approach as key to China’s national urbanization platform (Tan 2017). China’s Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (2016–2020) put forth a megaregional imaginary that reframed the PRD estuary as a new geopolitical, geo-economic and spatial concept—the GBA—assembling four “core cities” (Guangzhou, Shenzhen SEZ, Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR) and seven “key node cities” (Zhuhai SEZ, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing). The GBA is part of the national urban system of twenty-three megaregions categorized into three levels—national, national secondary and regional—each with an estimated 50 million inhabitants (Sua et al. 2017). All these plans gradually moved official rhetoric from the “quality of urbanization” to “humanized urbanization,” indicating the orientation toward social equity and environmental sustainability in addition to economic development.

The Concept of Megaregion

The megaregion is not a Chinese invention—indeed, it often means “different things, to different people, in different contexts” (Harrison and Hoyler 2015: 237)—yet the concept has certainly developed into a “megaregionalism with Chinese characteristics.” That is, megaregions have become the foremost geo-economic, geopolitical and spatial configurations for globalized wealth creation and accumulation and drivers of the post-national and post-metropolitan space of neoliberal economic competition (Sassen 2007, 2012; Florida et al. 2008; Ross 2009), forming an increasingly coherent and globally competitive urban space (Harrison and Hoyler 2015: 18). They represent spatial agglomerations of economic functions, characterized by large, global-oriented markets; significant economic capacity; innovative activities and processes; and a skilled, educated and creative labor force. A specific advantage of the megaregion is the scale on which it enables agglomerations of economic activity, far exceeding the capacity of any given metropolitan area (Sassen 2007); in fact, Richard Florida et al. claimed that megaregions relate to the global economy in ways analogous to a metropolitan region’s relationship with national economies (Florida et al. 2008: 3). Unlike in Europe (Hall and Pain 2006; Pain and Van Hamme 2014) and the United States (RPA 2006; Hagler 2007; Ross 2009)—where megaregions are “assertive systemic units of the global economic and political system” (Scott 2011), largely independent from nation-states vis-à-vis their formation and development—megaregions in China are established and organized by the central state as a matter of national and regional policy. In geopolitical and geo-economic terms, this is a critical distinction, and it must be placed in proper historical context.

FIGURE 1.1 Urbanization of the Pearl River Delta between 1979 and 2020.

Source: Images by NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA Earth Observatory © Creative Commons BY-2.0.

These images of the Pearl River Delta were taken by Landsat 7 in 1979 and 2003 and Landsat 8 in 2014 and 2020. In 1979, the image depicts a largely rural region with agricultural grids and dense, plant-covered land. By 2003, the Pearl River Delta was a densely populated, polycentric urban region with several large cities, depicted in gray. By 2014, it assumed the spatial form of a megaregion populated by over 60 million people. Between 2014 and 2020, less urban expansion and more densification and “spillover” can be observed. The 2020 Landsat image focuses on the southern portion of the Pearl River Delta, with Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen in focus.

FIGURE 1.2 Border crossings. In clockwise order: Gong Bei border crossing between Macau and Zhuhai; The Venetian casino, Macau, line for the border bus; Hong Kong Port Passenger Clearance Building of the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge; Hong Kong–Guangdong border at the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge; and Macau–Hong Kong Bridge Port Facility.

Source: Author.

Arguing that the PRD economy’s external-facing global orientation originated centuries ago, Zhang weaves its current development into a more complex historical narrative that recognizes the central state’s key role in Chinese national and regional development and accordingly its function as the fundamental driver of the GBA megaregion today (2015: 193). Thus, in many ways, the GBA should be understood as a continuation of the place-specific historical processes that have produced the political geography of the PRD. In China, the megaregion is both a geographic and a policy concept, causing megaregional boundaries to correspond with existing administrative divisions and regional policies (Sua et al. 2017). To ease tensions between cities and municipalities, orient them toward the global market and re-establish a significant degree of political control, the Chinese government has since 2013 employed a regional planning strategy, particularly concerning the megaregions that incorporate SEZs and SARs.

Consequently, the GBA megaregion also symbolizes and materializes new alignments of economic, political and geographic systems—a coherent ideological narrative fabricated and promoted in order to achieve certain political outcomes (Harrison and Hoyler 2015: 10). Such re-alignments are also necessary at the global scale and must be supported by the politics and policies of supra-national organizations, including the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and UN-Habitat. Under the leadership of Dr. Joan Clos, UN-Habitat has not only promoted megaregions but also attempted to normalize them as “natural economic units that result from the growth, convergence and spatial spread of geographically linked metropolitan areas and other agglomerations” (UN-Habitat 2010a: 8). The 2010–2011 State of the World’s Cities report claimed that while the planet’s forty largest megaregions covered only a very small portion of its surface and housed less than 18% of its population, they accounted for 66% of economic activity and about 85% of technological and scientific innovation. In China, the five largest megaregions accounted for 50% of overall wealth the nation produced (UN-Habitat 2010a: ix).³

Megaregionalism of the GBA, Megaregionality in the GBA

In an attempt to develop a megaregional dialectic, Schafran proposes an analytical framework composed of “megaregional space,” “spaces of the megaregion” and “tactical sub-regionalism” (2014: 597, 2015). This dialectical framework—together with Harrison and Hoyler’s definitions of megaregionalism and megaregionality (2015)⁴—is adapted here for the GBA context and employed to argue for an understanding of: GBA megaregionalism as a national strategy fo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Glossary
• Introduction: Approaching the Public Space of the Greater Bay Area Megaregion
• 1 From the Pearl River Delta Estuary to the Greater Bay Area Megaregion: Producing the New Public Realm
• 2 Planning a Value Network of Exploding Infrastructures and Imploding Centers in Shenzhen
• 3 Liquid Stories: Maritime Cultures in the Pearl River Delta
• 4 The Hyper-Collage City: Public Space in the Pearl River Delta
• 5 Gardens as Public Space: A Century of Continuity and Change in the Greater Bay Area, 1920–2020
• 6 Cross-Border and Transient Public Space in the Greater Bay Area
• 7 What Kind of Public Space Is the City of Shenzhen?
• 8 Interiorized urbanism in Macau: Model City for Post-Mao China
• 9 A Comparative Study of Spatial Analysis and Residents’ Perception of Accessibility to Public Open Space
• 10 Responsible, Remote Research and Design of the Public Realm in Shenzhen
• 11 Soul of the City: Public Space and Urban Planning in Hong Kong
• 12 Where ‘City’ Meets ‘Village’: Contesting Public Spaces During Shenzhen’s Urban Renewal
• 13 Three Genealogies: The Spatial Production of Social Publics in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong
• 14 Hong Kong’s Civic Square: A Short History of a Public Space
• 15 Reflections on Emerging Public Space Design Approaches in Hong Kong
• 16 Relearning the City and Public Space in the Greater Bay Area
• 17 The GBA Public Realm and the Megaregional Dialectic: The Public Space of the Megaregion, Public Spaces in the Megaregion
• Index