CONNECTING CITIES :CHINA CHINA

Transcription

1 CONNECTING CITIES :CHINA CHINA

2

3 CONNECTING CITIES :CHINA A research Publication for the 9th World Congress Of Metropolis Essays by Peter Taylor Michael Hoyler Eric Heikkila CBRE Research Asia Anthony Yeh Jiang Xu Richard Hu Richard Marshall Edited by Chris Johnson Richard Hu Shanti Abedin Published by Metropolis Congress 2008

4

5 FOREWORD The 9th World Congress of Metropolis, to be held in Sydney in October 2008, is a great opportunity to generate research into the future direction of cities. With this in mind, the organisers of the congress have developed a number of research publications that explore new concepts related to cities as well as the emerging cities of India and China. In organising the Congress, we found that there was a network of researchers and commentators about cities across the globe who had very interesting issues to raise. While many of these will be presenting papers at the Congress, we also thought it would be useful to develop a series of publications that raise these issues in a provocative manner. The first of these books will be about networks the concept of cities interacting across the globe. The second examines the spreading urban regions around many cities followed by publications that look in detail at the cities of China and India. Contemporary world urbanisation, particularly the rise of Chinese and Indian cities, means both opportunities and challenges for Australian cities. These publications put Sydney and other Australian cities in scenarios with global counterpart cities to benchmark their urban performance. The provocative topics are aimed to trigger fruitful debate in government, private sector and the general public regarding how to create better strategies for the future of Australian cities. We would like to thank all contributors, sponsors and research coordinators. Without their work, these publications could not have been possible. The influence of their contributions will be far reaching. Chris Johnson Director, Metropolis Congress 2008

6

7 Introduction 10 Chris Johnson 1 Chinese Cities in Contemporary Globalisation 21 Peter Taylor and Michael Hoyler 2 Urbanisation With Chinese Characteristics 47 Eric Heikkila 3 3 Mega City Regions in China 73 CBRE Research Asia 4 Greater Pearl River Delta: Urbanisation and Challenges 119 Anthony G.O. Yeh & Jiang Xu 5 China s Urban Age 143 Richard Hu 6 Shanghai s Waterfront 161 Richard Marshall

8 PETER TAYLOR & Michael Hoyler Leicestershire, UK Peter Taylor is Professor of Geography and Director of the Globalisation and World Cities (gawc) Research Network. He is author of over 300 publications including 20 books. His most recent books include World City Network: a Global Urban Analysis and Cities in Globalisation: Practices, Policies and Theories. Michael Hoyler is Lecturer in Human Geography at Loughborough University (uk) and heads the European Cities Research Unit of the Globalisation and World Cities (gawc) Research Network. His research interests are in urban economic and social geography focusing on the transformation of European cities and metropolitan regions in contemporary globalisation. Anthony G.O. Yeh & Jiang Xu HONG KONG, CHINA Anthony Yeh is Chair Professor of the Department of Urban Planning and Design and Dean of the Graduate School, the University of Hong Kong. He is an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Hong Kong Institute of Planners (hkip), Royal Town Planning Institute (rtpi), Planning Institute of Australia (fpia), British Computer Society (bcs) and the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (cilt). Jiang Xu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Resource Management, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her main areas of specialization are in urban and regional planning and government studies in China. She has been leading research projects in intercity competition and cooperation as well as urban and regional governance in China. Richard Marshall DUBAI, UAE Richard Marshall is Principal and Director of Urban Design, Woods Bagot and is based in Dubai. Richard has taught and lectured at a number of Universities and was Associate Professor of Urban Design and Director of Urban Design Degree Programs at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has authored three books: Emerging Urbanity Global Urban Projects in the Asia Pacific Rim (2003), Waterfronts in Post Industrial Cities (2001), and Designing the American City (2003). He is currently Adjunct Professor of Architecture at University Technology Sydney.

9 CBRE RESEARCH ASIA HONG KONG, CHINA Andrew Ness, Executive Director of cbre Research, cb Richard Ellis, oversees cbre research activities across the Asian region. Andrew works to ensure that research is deployed to support the company s business throughout Asia, promoting business development, managing client relationships and raising corporate media exposure and providing critical support in the preparation of white papers and client briefing reports and presentations. Ada Choi, Associate Director, cbre Research Asia. Yannis Kuo, Assistant Manager, cbre Research Asia. Franklin So, Senior Geographic Information System (gis) Consultant, cb Richard Ellis. James Cox, Associate Director, cbre Research Asia. Eric J. Heikkila CALIFORNIA, USA Eric J. Heikkila is Professor and Director of International Initiatives at the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California. For two decades he has served as founding Executive Secretary of the Pacific Rim Council on Urban Development. Contributors Chris Johnson SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA Chris Johnson is the Executive Director, Special Projects Division in the Department of Planning and Director of the Metropolis Congress He was previously nsw Government Architect. Chris is Adjunct Professor of Architecture at the University of nsw and University of Technology Sydney and has authored ten books. RICHARD HU SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA Richard Hu is a research officer and phd candidate at the Planning Research Centre, The University of Sydney. His research interests include comparative analysis of global cities, cbd transformations, urban competitiveness, and city governance. His current research is on a comparative study of the central cities on the Pacific Rim.

10 INTRODUCTION / Chris Johnson CITIES MADE IN CHINA Beijing was the first city of modernity to reach one million the benchmark to be a member of Metropolis. For the past millenium Chinese cities have ranked in the world s top three. As Peter Taylor outlines in his chapter in this book, from 800 ad to 1800 ad, the population of Chinese cities were in the top three of the world and generally ranked at number one. In 1100 it was Kaifeng, in 1200 Hangzhou, in 1400 Nanjing and Beijing in By 1800 Beijing was back on top followed by London and then another Chinese city, Guangzhou. By 1900, however, there were no Chinese cities in the top ten, but now Chinese cities are again positioned at the top of the table.

11

12 3 LARGEST CITIES THROUGH HISTORY Tertius Chandler 100 AD 1 ROME 2 LOYANG 3 SELEUCIA 500 AD 1 Constantinople 2 Ctesiphon 800 AD 1 BAGHDAD 2 XI AN 3 LOYANG 900 AD 1 BAGHDAD 2 XI AN 3 Constantinople 1000 AD 1 CORDOVA 2 KAIFENG 3 Constantinople

13 GROWING CITIES CASS 2008, Chinese Urban Competitiveness Report MILLION 1 2 MILLION 500K 1 MILLION Amazingly, China, now has 119 cities with over one million people and amongst these are some of the world s leading cities. Hong Kong, now firmly part of China, and Shanghai are amongst the top ten airports and Beijing and Shanghai have joined the top 25 global service centres in the world, according to Peter Taylor s research. New measures of a city s global ranking even include how many of the world s 100 tallest buildings a city has and Shanghai with five is clearly establishing itself as a global city. With a population estimated at 17.5 million and with 946 buildings over twelve storeys in height, Shanghai is challenging the world. It is even number two in the world as a container port with 26,150,000 teus. 200K 500K LESS THAN 200K ALL CITIES

14

15 I visited Shanghai some years ago and was fascinated by the layering of the various cities that have occurred on the site. The original Chinese city is still identifiable although the walls that surround the circular inner city have been replaced with roads and historical buildings which are often reconstructions. At a street market I bought a crumpled, ancient map of the city (no doubt a copy) showing an almost perfect circular walled city surrounded by a moat with formal gateways to the wall. Inside the walled city was a series of meandering canals crossed by bridges and each of the significant buildings and temples are carefully marked. The map could almost be of the world globe containing an ancient civilisation. And Shanghai, according to Andrew Ness team from cbre Research Asia; has become the focus of more than the city itself, but the whole of the Yangtze River Delta (yrd). This area is emerging as the most competitive region in mainland China. Evolving from an ancient city within the circular walls, Shanghai has developed a series of satellite cities reflecting the earlier layering of the French, American and British quarters. But the urban growth is spreading fast from Shanghai itself to the whole yrd with the 1983 structure of Shanghai plus nine cities now transformed into one plus fifteen cities. And these cities are not small with five being over four million people each and a further six being over two million people. The cbre research extends from the yrd urban region to investigate the Greater Beijing area and the Pearl River Delta (prd). The prd is also an impressive area of growth. Here the snappy acronym of cities have: hk+sz+gz = prd (i.e. Hong Kong and Shenzhen and Guangzhou sit in the Pearl River Delta). Complementing these cities as nodes is a network of impressive intercity rail networks and expressways providing state of the art infrastructure. Guangzhou was one of the first cities in China to be opened up to economic development and it quickly took on growth that changed the city overnight. It grew, according to the chapter by Richard Hu, from 3 million people in 1980 by 146% to 7.2 million in The stand out growth, however, is Shenzhen which was a small town of 330,000 people in 1980 and has grown by 2,046% to 7.2 million in While rapid growth often leads to vast numbers of new high rise buildings in China, it is pleasing to see that cities like Guangzhou are also carefully protecting its earlier heritage. The city has nominated for the Metropolis awards the restoration and adaptation of one of its historic districts. Careful use of conservation and planning techniques has analysed the significance of the whole precinct and lead to a sympathetic renewal of the area. Richard Hu s chapter also addresses the competitiveness of China s cities and it is not surprising to see that Shanghai tops the list followed by Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou (Hong Kong was not included).

16 1100 AD 1 KAIFENG 2 Constantinople 3 KYOTO 1200 AD 1 HANGZHOU 2 FEZ 3 CAIRO 1300 AD 1 HANGZHOU 2 BEIJING 3 CAIRO 1400 AD 1 NANJING 2 Vijayanagar 3 CAIRO 1500 AD 1 BEIJING 2 Vijayanagar 3 CAIRO 1700 AD 1 Constantinople 2 YEDO 3 BEIJING 1800 AD 1 BEIJING 2 LONDON 3 Guangzhou

17 Eric Heikkila in his chapter looks at the underlying causes of urbanisation in China. He examines five key contributions to urbanisation: technological change, globalisation, market forces, political devolution and democratic change. Eric Heikkila finds that many of these factors become intertwined in tracing China s increasing urbanisation. Professor Anthony Yeh of Hong Kong University undertakes a detailed study of the prd and examines urban sprawl. This has been facilitated by the rise of private automobile ownership with a growth in car ownership up to 2010 predicted to be 16 to 20%. The rise of gated communities for the wealthier communities is also increasing sprawl in the prd cities. The final chapter by Richard Marshall of Woods Bagot examines Shanghai s waterfront. Marshall positions Shanghai as the dragon head of new China and particularly reinforces Shanghai s repositioning efforts in relation to waterfront sites that in the past were often degraded places in the city. His chapter looks at the sites along the waterways that the new Shanghai is developing and how this is providing opportunities for a new identity. He sees Shanghai as becoming an international laboratory for experimental architecture and advanced urban planning concepts. He believes that Shanghai is the leading city in the world in terms of planning and building, having done so much over the past 20 years. The importance of cities to China s development clearly has stretched over 1,000 years, but there is a new renaissance in the country that is now driving growth into many cities. With 119 cities over one million people and 36 over two million, it is clear that the future of China will depend very much on how these cities are managed, how they grow and how they handle issues like climate change. This book examines the rise of the Chinese dragon through the development of its cities. There are more people living in cities in China than any other country in the world, but our understanding of these cities in a global context needs to be lifted to higher levels.

18

19 1

20 20

21 CHINESE CITIES IN CONTEMPORARY GLOBALisation Peter J Taylor & Michael Hoyler A multi dimensional perspective on Chinese cities in contemporary globalisation: built form, economic strength, global competitiveness and growth potential 21

22 22 Until the full force of the industrial revolution generated a new modern urbanisation after 1800, Chinese cities were ranked among the world s top three cities by population in every century for over a millennium

23 A civilisation of great cities Of all historical civilisations, it is China that has been characterised most by great cities. Until the full force of the industrial revolution generated a new modern urbanisation after 1800, Chinese cities were ranked among the world s top three cities by population in every century for over a millennium. According to Tertius Chandler in his mammoth historical city census, demographic world rankings of Chinese cities are as follows: 800 AD 2nd Xi an, 3rd Luoyang 900 AD 2nd Xi an 1000 AD 2nd Kaifeng 1100 AD 1st Kaifeng 1200 AD 1st Hangzhou 1300 AD 1st Hangzhou, 2nd Beijing 1400 AD 1st Nanjing 1500 AD 1st Beijing 1600 AD 1st Beijing 1700 AD 3rd Beijing 1800 AD 1st Beijing, 3rd Guangzhou This remarkable record appears to be in good shape in 1800 (London is sandwiched into second place between two Chinese cities) but we know now that this was the final phase of an unparalleled level of continuous and world leading urbanisation. By 1900 there were no Chinese cities in the top ten as China has been incorporated into the modern world system and relegated to peripheral status. In contrast, contemporary globalisation is changing this situation. Globalisation has created conditions for expansion of cities across the world and China is no exception. On the contrary, with its great urban tradition, Chinese cities are making their mark in the world greater than at any time since In this short discussion we consider how Chinese cities are faring in the early twenty first century. As we shall see, the country is again becoming a region of great cities. Chinese cities in globalisation will be discussed in two distinctive arguments. First, the very unusual path of Chinese cities towards becoming an important part of economic globalisation is outlined. The result has been a remarkable late burst onto the global scene. This latter phenomenon is the second topic; Chinese cities are assessed in relation to their ranking in the world economy over several criteria. Although never reaching the pinnacle of historical demographic rankings reported above, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, and to a lesser extent Guangzhou, are becoming leading world cities. 23

24 China s average annual real growth rate BETWEEN 1995 and 2004 was 9.1%, compared to India s 6.1% and the United States 3.3% AND THE World 3% 24

25 The Chinese path to economic globalisation The relationship of China and its cities to globalisation is quite unique. In general, globalisation is associated with two types of city development. First, there has been the development of great mega cities much larger than any historical cities (the un defines them as cities with populations over eight million). The majority of these cities are in the poorer regions of the world and are the product of global de peasantisation, a great rural urban migration that has dominated global demography since Given that the main driver has been rural, the recipient cities have not been ready to cope with the new migrants in terms of jobs, basic urban services and infrastructure. The result is what Mike Davis has famously called Planet of Slums. In contrast, second, there has been the development of world or global cities that have prospered greatly with the globalisation of economic practices; these vibrant cities are mostly in richer parts of the world and form a world city network through which the world economy is structured. In the twentieth century these two processes were commonly called urbanisation without industrialisation (mega cities) and post industrial urbanisation (world cities) respectively. The Chinese experience is very different from these two global urbanisations because of the 1949 revolution and the creation of the People s Republic of China (prc). The resultant powerful state apparatus controlled urban change to such a degree that Chinese city development had a completely different trajectory from other economic peripheral areas. Through their self reliant policies of 25

26 26 catching up, the state devised a unique policy of industrialisation without urbanisation. Deriving partly from the regime s anti city ideology, the idea was to industrialise without wasting capital on provision of services and infrastructure that urbanisation inevitably entails. At certain times this actually led to de urbanisation (in the 1960s) just as the rest of the poor world was in the throes of creating mega cities. However, overall there was a creeping urbanisation with the industrialisation policy favouring the big cities where services and infrastructure already existed, but also interior China to ensure relatively even economic development. All this changed in 1978 with post Maoist policies opening up the Chinese economy. This was partly due to the economic example of two major Chinese cities outside the prc: Hong Kong and Taipei. Both these cities industrialised in the 1950s and 1960s, and developed further into finance and services in the 1970s to produce a platform for a post industrial city economy. If the game was to be catching up this second Chinese path was clearly working better than Maoist state policy. China with its new policies has been amazing in terms of sustained economic growth rates. According to the World Bank, China s average annual real growth rate between 1995 and 2004 was 9.1%, compared to India s 6.1% and the us 3.3% (World: 3.0%). Unprecedented economic change has created the great workshop of the world that is globalisation s greatest success story. And, of course, this has had profound effects on Chinese cities. There have been two distinctive effects on Chinese cities. First, the eastern coastal region has experienced massive urbanisation in the wake of new infrastructure investments and large and growing foreign direct investments. Second, small and medium sized cities have prospered as new industrialisation has become urbanised both in the east coast zone and in regions of the interior. Thus by the early twenty first century Chinese cities were becoming integrated into the world economy through urbanisation with industrialisation (i.e. not as typical poor mega cities) and with the largest cities developing strong financial and service sectors. In fact the latter were being heralded as creating a new globalisation urban form: multi centred mega city regions. Not to be confused with mega cities, these city regions are integrated economic zones featuring several major cities. The Pearl River Delta Region in South China (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Zhuhai, and Hong Kong) is sometimes viewed as the archetypal case of this new polycentric urban form. The Yangtze River Delta Region in Southeast China (Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi,

27 Ningbo) and the Bohai Rim Region in North China (Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, Yantai) are the other two commonly cited examples. These regions are the economic powerhouses of China: in 2004, according to an analysis by s.x.b. Zhao and L. Zhang, they accounted for 54% of national gdp, 79% of China s foreign trade, and 85% of total inward foreign direct investment (figures exclude Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan). However, in the remainder of this discussion the focus will remain on individual cities. Chinese cities in a contemporary world of cities In discussions of Chinese cities in globalisation there is a debate about whether the current economic success is largely due to endogenous processes or whether outside globalisation influences are the prime movers. It is clear that the state remains a vital part of the story beyond the 1978 reforms but it is also problematic to separate what is going on inside the country from the encompassing world economy. This is a very large national economy with key state inputs but letting the market genie out of the lamp has created an integration into the world economy that has its own momentum; it is impossible to see how the prc could ever begin to de urbanise the country again. From this integrationist perspective it is legitimate to ask questions about how Chinese cities fare in relation to other cities in contemporary globalisation. Answers are given in the form of lists of Chinese cities and their world rankings. Numerous sources are used to provide these rankings, some of which cover large numbers of cities across the world, and some relatively few, but the message is consistent: China is once again a world of great cities. Measuring the importance of cities in globalisation is not without its problems. There are two basic methods. The first treats each city as a place for which attributes can be measured; population size of a city is the most commonly used such measure. But cities are more than the content of the physical place they occupy; a vibrant city is an immensely dynamic entity. Cities are also multiple nodes and hubs in material flows, such as trade in commodities. At the city level, data on flows is much rarer than on attributes so the argument will start with the latter. 27

28 Chinese cities as important spaces of places Starting with the demographics, Figure 1 shows 25 Chinese cities that have populations estimated above three million. Six of these cities qualify as mega cities on the un criterion, and China again has a city in the global demographic top ten. But, as pointed out previously, simple population size is not itself a reliable indicator of a successful city. Shanghai is definitely a mega city but is she also a world city; in other words is Shanghai a new third world mega city or a new economically vibrant world city with more in common with the rich figure 1 Chinese cities as world mega cities Source: Th. Brinkhoff: The Principal Agglomerations of the World, WORLD RANK CITY POPULATION SHANGHAI GUANGZHOU BEIJING SHENZHEN WUHAN TIANJIN HONG KONG TAIPEI CHONGQING DONGGUAN CHENGDU SHENYANG XI AN NANJING HARBIN HANGZHOU SHANTOU DALIAN CHANGCHUN JINAN QINGDAO FUZHOU TAIYUAN KUNMING ZHENGZHOU 17,500,000 14,700,000 12,800,000 9,150,000 8,650,000 8,000,000 7,100,000 6,700,000 6,200,000 5,500,000 5,450,000 5,050,000 4,675,000 4,575,000 4,250,000 3,925,000 3,925,000 3,375,000 3,325,000 3,275,000 3,200,000 3,125,000 3,100,000 3,075,000 3,025,000 28

29 mega cities like Tokyo and New York? World cities attract much investment in their built environment and one common feature is a distinctive skyline of skyscrapers. Figure 2 shows a ranking of such skylines and it is at once clear that China is well represented. As well as featuring at number one (Hong Kong), two other Chinese cities feature in the top ten. All in all, one fifth of the cities ranked (20 out of 100 cities worldwide) are Chinese cities indicating a remarkable physical representation of this world city form across the whole country. figure 2 Chinese cities as world city skylines Source: Emporis 5/2008 WORLD RANK CITY BUILDINGS 1 POINTS HONG KONG SHANGHAI GUANGZHOU CHONGQING SHENZHEN BEIJING MACAU WUHAN NANJING XIAMEN DALIAN TIANJIN TAIPEI QINGDAO SHENYANG CHENGDU HARBIN XI AN JINAN GUIYANG 7, ,406 13,610 9,904 7,469 6,735 6,115 4,300 3,523 2,114 2,111 1,839 1,781 1,452 1,418 1,313 1, * 1=Completed high rise buildings over 12 storeys 2=Points based on the Skyline Ranking calculation. Points based on the Skyline Ranking calculation (points assigned to individual buildings based on floor count and then aggregated for each city) 29

30 30

31 Moving on to direct economic measures, Figure 3 shows the relative market sizes of Chinese cities in comparison with other world cities. As would be expected, Chinese cities feature less well in the upper echelons of this ranking Hong Kong just makes the top ten but once again there is a long tail of important Chinese cities in this ranking list. This pattern is repeated in Figure 4 in which estimates of productivity in cities are used for the ranking. In this case, notice that the top four cities all missed the Maoist state policies and continue to be ranked above Shanghai, the city that has emerged from the trials and tribulations of the prc with the highest productivity. However when economic growth is used to rank cities (Figure 5) a completely different pattern emerges: the top five from Figure 4 now occupy the bottom five places in Figure 5. This confirms the spread of economic globalisation beyond the great cities to numerous other cities across China. figure 3 Size of Chinese City Markets Source: Global Urban Competitiveness Report ( ), Social Sciences Academic Press (China) WORLD RANK CITY MARKET SIZE HONG KONG SHANGHAI BEIJING GUANGZHOU SHENZHEN TAIPEI TIANJIN HANGZHOU NANJING DALIAN CHONGQING CHENGDU SUZHOU KAOHSIUNG QINGDAO XI AN XIAMEN CHANGSHA WENZHOU MACAU ZHUHAI HEFEI

32 WORLD RANK CITY PRODUCTIVITY figure HONG KONG MACAU TAIPEI KAOHSIUNG SHANGHAI SUZHOU XIAMEN SHENZHEN HANGZHOU GUANGZHOU ZHUHAI QINGDAO DALIAN BEIJING WENZHOU TIANJIN CHANGSHA NANJING CHENGDU HEFEI XI AN CHONGQING HEFEI SHENZHEN SUZHOU XIAMEN QINGDAO DALIAN HANGZHOU WENZHOU CHANGSHA GUANGZHOU ZHUHAI NANJING TIANJIN BEIJING CHENGDU XI AN CHONGQING SHANGHAI HONG KONG MACAU TAIPEI KAOHSIUNG WORLD RANK CITY ECONOMIC GROWTH figure Productivity in Chinese cities Source: Global Urban Competitiveness Report ( ), Social Sciences Academic Press (China) Economic growth in Chinese cities, 2005 Source: Global Urban Competitiveness Report ( ), Social Sciences Academic Press (China) 32

33 Harbin Changchun Shijiazhuang Taiyuan Beijing Shenyang Tangshan Tianjin Dalian Zibo Jinan Qingdao Xi an Chengdu Chongqing Zhengzhou Hefei Suzhou Nanjing Wuhan Hangzhou Ningbo Wenzhou Changsha Shanghai Kunming Nanning Fuzhuo Shantou Dongguan Guangzhou Foshan Shenzhen Macau Hong Kong Taipei Kaohsiung Haikou Although Chinese cities are doing better than most developing world mega cities, they remain lowly ranked in measures of overall well being 33

34 But it is important not to be sanguine about these economic results. Although Chinese cities are doing much better than most third world mega cities and their ilk, they remain lowly ranked in measures of overall well being. In Figure 6 cities are ranked in terms of their gross domestic production and Chinese cities are concentrated at the bottom, with only three cities in the top 50. Moving on to a quality of life measure (Figure 7) and the fall in ranking is even starker the highest ranked Chinese city (Hong Kong) is down in 70th position. Of course, these latest results are not a surprise, Chinese cities have come from behind their counterparts in other parts of the world: they have come a long way in the era of economic globalisation but they still have far to go to create places that are prosperous, liveable cities. figure 6 Richest cities in 2005 Source: citymayors.com, PricewaterhouseCoopers, www. citymayors.com/statistics/richest cities 2005.html, [Note: Taiwanese cities missing from list] WORLD RANK CITY GDP IN US$BN HONG KONG SHANGHAI BEIJING GUANGZHOU TIANJIN WUHAN CHONGQING SHENYANG CHENGDU XI AN CHANGCHUN figure 7 Overall quality of living Source: 2007 Worldwide Quality of Living Survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, com/qualityoflife.htm, WORLD RANK CITY INDEX 2007* *100 = NEW YORK CITY HONG KONG TAIPEI SHANGHAI KAOHSIUNG BEIJING GUANGZHOU NANJING SHENYANG JILIN

35 Chinese Cities In Global Spaces Of Flows Chinese cities are at the centre of commodity flow patterns across the world. In terms of cargo traffic (Figure 8) both Hong Kong s and Shanghai s airports are major top ten hubs and there are three other Chinese city airports in the top thirty. This central positioning of Chinese cities is accentuated in data on container ports (Figure 9); here Chinese port cities occupy three of the top four places with another five port cities in the top twenty. This is not surprising; it reflects China as the contemporary workshop of the world expressed as flows through its major cities. However, for passenger traffic, which is the usual way that flows between cities are measured at the global scale, there are only two Chinese cities in the top thirty (Figure 10). Clearly it is flows of commodities not people that define the importance of Chinese cities in global spaces of flows. WORLD RANK CITY (AIRPORT) HONG KONG SHANGHAI TAIPEI BEIJING GUANGZHOU TOTAL CARGO HANDLED (TONNES) 3,609,780 2,168,122 1,698,808 1,028, ,907 figure 8 Cargo traffic 2006 Source: Airports Council International, ACI Annual Traffic Statistics Collection WORLD RANK PORT TOTAL TEU SHANGHAI HONG KONG SHENZHEN KAOHSIUNG QINGDAO NINGBO GUANGZHOU TIANJIN 26,150,000 23,881,000 21,099,000 10,256,829 9,462,000 9,360,000 9,200,000 7,103,000 WORLD RANK CITY (AIRPORT) TOTAL PASSENGERS 9 14 BEIJING HONG KONG 48,654,770 43,857,908 figure 9 Chinese cities as world container ports Source: Containerization International figure 10 Passenger traffic 2006 Airports Council International, ACI Annual Traffic Statistics Collection

36 36 There is another way of assessing Chinese cities in global spaces of flows. In order to make economic globalisation feasible, there have to be professional, financial and creative services collectively known as advanced producer services to counter the complexities of operating across boundaries and through different cultures. Services that facilitate global business are provided by, for instance, commercial and corporate law firms specialising in inter jurisdictional contracts, advertising agencies devising global marketing campaigns, and management consultants advising on trans national corporate organization. Such firms typically have numerous offices across cities in all parts of the world to give their clients a seamless service. Collecting data on the location and functions of all offices in firms office networks produces information that can be modelled to produce measures of the world city network of global service centres. Such an exercise was carried out in 2000 and 2004 and the remaining figures are drawn from analyses of these data. The basic measure derived from world city network analysis is network connectivity. This indicates how well integrated a city is into the network; a city with important offices of firms that are well represented across the world will score high in terms of network connectivity, conversely a city with few important offices will score lower in network connectivity. Hence this is a measure of how easy it is to do global business in a city through what service provision is available. Such measures were calculated for 315 cities worldwide including eleven Chinese cities and the results for 2000 are shown in Figure 11. The most remarkable finding is that Hong Kong ranks 3rd, behind London and New York, but ahead of Paris and Tokyo both of which are generally considered to be more important world cities. What this shows is that Hong Kong s diversification into a post industrial city has enabled it to take full advantage of the mainland Chinese global economic boom to become its business service centre. This has enabled it to leap frog other cities in world ranking and become deeply integrated into the world city network. However, other cities do less well: Taipei just makes the top twenty, and after Shanghai and Beijing there is a rapid fall to a tail of little integrated service cities. These results in general are not surprising since business services of an advanced nature tend to be particularly concentrated in economic globalisation.

37 37

38 figure 11 Chinese cities in the world city network, 2000 Source: Globalisation and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) ( WORLD RANK CITY NETWORK CONNECTIVITY HONG KONG TAIPEI SHANGHAI BEIJING GUANGZHOU SHENZHEN DALIAN MACAU TIANJIN XIAMEN NANJING RANK CHANGE HONG KONG BEIJING SHANGHAI GUANGZHOU MACAU SHENZHEN TIANJIN XIAMEN WORLD RANK CITY HONG KONG BEIJING SHANGHAI TAIPEI GUANGZHOU MACAU SHENZHEN TIANJIN DALIAN XIAMEN NANJING NETWORK CONNECTIVITY TAIPEI DALIAN NANJING figure 12 Chinese cities in the world city network, 2004 Source: Globalisation and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) ( 38

39 In Figure 12 the same exercise is reported for Hong Kong keeps its high position but note the rise of Beijing and Shanghai to overtake Taipei. Other Chinese cities remain relatively unimportant. However, Figure 12 is best read in conjunction with Figure 13 that shows 2000 to 2004 changes in connectivity. Figure 13 illustrates the changes just indicated but also highlights the rise of Macau as a rapidly growing service city, albeit from a low base. Thus the concentration of these services is confirmed but change is also clearly present with both Beijing and Shanghai entering the top twenty five global service centres in the world. Finally, these data can be analysed in numerous other ways and one particular analysis highlights the potential importance of Beijing and Shanghai. Carrying out a fuzzy set analysis on the 2000 and 2004 data produces clusters of cities with like patterns of services: the clusters are called urban arenas and because of the type of analysis, clusters can overlap. The main change in the results between 2000 and 2004 is the emergence of a new separate group encompassing Shanghai and Beijing. This is shown in Figure 15 where the top nine urban arenas for 2004 are illustrated, ordered in terms of average network connectivity from top to bottom. Note that Hong Kong is placed in a global second tier of cities and Taipei is to be found in an arena of Asia Pacific capital cities. But the interesting arena is the new one: the Shanghai Beijing group is at the centre of second strata cities worldwide with three of the six overlaps: to western European cities through Sydney, to us cities WORLD RANK CITY MACAU BEIJING SHANGHAI HONG KONG TIANJIN XIAMEN SHENZHEN GUANGZHOU NANJING TAIPEI DALIAN NETWORK CHANGE figure 13 Chinese cities in world city network change, Source: Globalisation and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) ( 39

40 through Los Angeles, and to eastern European cities through Munich. In addition through the western European link it has an indirect overlap with the cities in Hong Kong s group through Frankfurt. The key point is the contrast between the unlinked Asia Pacific regional arena that includes Taipei, and Beijing Shanghai as the most interlinked urban arena. This suggests that the rise of these two leading Chinese cities as global service centres is more than a Chinese based phenomenon; the cities seem to be becoming pivotal in the changing configuration of the upper echelons of the world city network. Watch this space for future data analyses Taipei 101 building, Taipei, M 5 Two International Finance Centre Hong kong, M Minsheng Bank Building Wuhan, M 22 One Island East Centre Hong Kong, M Height in metres

41 figure 14 21st century skyscrapers in Chinese cities Source: Emporis 5/ Plaza 66 Shanghai, M Chongqing world trade centre Chongqing, M Bocom financial towers Shanghai, M China International Centre Guangzhou, M Dapeng International Plaza 48 Guangzhou, M Grand gateway i Shanghai, M 41

42 three Chinese cities Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing have become crucial world cities as global service centres in the world city network Conclusion: LONDON NEW YORK TAIPEI BANGKOK JAKARTA SEOUL KUALA LUMPUR MANILA HONG KONG TOKYO PARIS SINGAPORE BRUSSELS FRANKFURT MILAN MADRID AMSTERDAM TORONTO CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO SYDNEY WASHINGTON DC BEIJING SHANGHAI figure 15 Chinese cities in global urban arenas, 2004 LOS ANGELES MUNICH WARSAW BUDAPEST PRAGUE VIENNA OSLO HELSINKI COPENHAGEN STOCKHOLM SAO PAULO BUENOS AIRES MEXICO CITY SANTIAGO CARACAS MIAMI DALLAS ATLANTA BOSTON HOUSTON SEATTLE Source: Globalisation and World Cities Research Network (GaWC Research Bulletin No. 204) ( 42

43 The potential of Chinese world cities The story of the path of Chinese cities towards globalisation is a strange one but the contemporary outcome is clear enough. Numerous Chinese cities are important players in contemporary globalisation and three Chinese cities Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing have become crucial world cities as global service centres in the world city network. However, returning to the image of world cities with their skyscraper skyline (Figure 2) suggests that this finding might be under estimating the potential of Chinese cities to become world cities. The original skyline measure in Figure 2 included all existing skyscrapers some of which were built before the current globalisation era (for instance, New York s skyline ranks second). In the final figure presented here only skyscrapers completed in the twenty first century are included. In Figure 14 individual buildings are ranked by size. Note that there are eighteen buildings completed in Chinese cities since 2000 in the top one hundred (ten depicted). In terms of this particular symbolic investment in city development, Chinese cities appear to be doing even better than much of the above text suggests. Taipei leads the list with the highest building but there are no other buildings listed from this city. In contrast Shanghai has five, Guangzhou has four, and Hong Kong has added three to its already impressive skyline. It may be that the previous analysis has not fully revealed the potential of Guangzhou. It is also noteworthy that, as well as Beijing, four other Chinese cities feature in this list but have been scarcely mentioned above: Wuhan, Chongqing, Hangzhou and Dalian. The conclusion that China is likely to have just three leading world cities in the future may need to be adjusted sooner rather than later. But even without this prediction of further Chinese city development with global repercussions, what has been reported here is an utter negation of the Maoist political heritage. This clearly suggests that it is globalisation processes rather than continuing prc practices that will determine the destiny of leading Chinese cities. 43

44

45 2

46

47 UrbaniSation WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS Eric Heikkila A theoretical framework justifying the causal factors and relations which have been shaping the urbanisation process in China as well as its consequences 47

48 A similar emphasis on professionalism and international standards is in fact a defining aspect of contemporary China s transformation For urbanists, the transformation of contemporary China is one of the most fascinating case studies conceivable. It seems improbable that such an immense entity could launch itself so abruptly in a newly set direction, and with sufficient force to sustain that momentum over decades. The level of urbanisation in China was less than 20% of the population in 1978, and is now 40%, with 60% anticipated by the year It would seem to defy the very laws of nature. Moreover, urbanisation is only one aspect, albeit a very crucial one, of a much broader transformation of Chinese society. We have seen China transform itself from a closed society to one that actively seeks a central place in world affairs. Its former command and control economic system has devolved steadily towards market norms and institutions. Concomitantly, the level of economic and social development has leaped forward in dramatic fashion as measured by any number of standard indicators. For example, although its per capita income at us $1100 is less than the $1570 for lower middle income countries as a whole, its annual growth rate of 9.3% well exceeds the 5.7% of this comparison group. Likewise, its mortality rate of 30 per 1,000 live births compares favourably to 31.39, and life expectancy of 70.8 in China 48

49 is more favourable than that of lower middle income countries (69.21) and even middle income countries (69.71) as a whole. Although some observers in the West decry a lack of democratisation in China, the political transformation within China has also been quite dramatic, from Maoist ideologically driven party rule to a decidedly more professionalised state leadership. Indeed, the grooming of state leaders in China is not unlike what one finds in Singapore, with a very thorough personal, political and professional vetting process at the highest levels. A similar emphasis on professionalism and international standards is in fact a defining aspect of contemporary China s transformation. One finds in China today a near obsession with international (often interpreted as American) accounting standards, construction standards, academic standards, legal standards, and so on, across the board. Gaining admission to the World Trade Organisation and hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games are grander versions of this same deep rooted impulse to measure up, as it were. It is in this broader context that urbanisation too has proceeded apace. China s population has flooded into urban areas from its rural regions, steadily transforming China s character from that of an agrarian society to one that is increasingly urban and urbane. Geographically, the eastern seaboard has been the focus for much of this transformation, where labour from the west conjoins with capital from the West. The result has been a deepening regional inequality between an increasingly urban east and a still largely rural west within China. The chasm is not just quantitative, but qualitative as well, delineating an emerging class of modernity dwellers from an as yet vast pool of humanity that still resides in a China that once was. This chapter seeks to take a step back to investigate the underlying causes of urbanisation in China. As noted, China is undergoing a massive transformation where urbanisation is one facet among many. This is perhaps most readily summarised as in Figure 1, where urbanisation is part of an inter related set of mutualities that feed on each other while transforming each other. The other elements depicted there include technological change, globalisation, market forces, political devolution, and demographic change. 49

50 POLITICAL DEVOLUTION P MARKETS M Figure 1 A causal web of urbanisation in China GLOBALISATION G 50

51 D DEMOGRAPHICS U URBANISATION T TECHNOLOGY 51

52 T T e c h n o lo g i ca l c h a n g e Transportation and communications technology are clearly having an effect on the emerging shape of cities in China. Building technologies are also permitting urban dwellers to live, work, and entertain themselves in very different built environments than might have been possible even one generation earlier, and this is evident in the dramatic urban restructuring one readily observes throughout China. This warrants a medium level causal link from T U in Figure 1. The primary impact of technological change, however, is on globalisation rather than urbanisation per se. What Professor David Harvey refers to as the space time compression of globalisation is nourished and supported by technological change, and this is represented by a high level causal link extending from T G in Figure 1. Globalisation in turn has impacts throughout the system, including impacts upon urbanisation processes in China, as discussed below. POLITICAL DEVOLUTION P D DEMOGRAPHICS MARKETS M U URBANISATION GLOBALISATION G T TECHNOLOGY 52

53 The primary impact of technological change, however, is on globalisation rather than urbanisation per se 53

54 the population growth of cities in China is fuelled in large measure by rural urban migration D Demographic movements Demographic movements, unlike technological change, constitute a driving force behind urbanisation that is largely unmediated by the other factors. Its direct contribution is evident as the population growth of cities in China is fuelled in large measure by rural urban migration. It is important to recognise however that this migration is itself fuelled by the transition to a market economy and by the general easing of political controls over the issuing and enforcement of the hukou residency permits. The latter were effective in keeping urban populations at very low levels relative to global norms during the socialist era, as only those with eligible hukous could hope to secure accommodation, food and other basic essentials. Ideologically and pragmatically, cities were regarded as administrative and industrial centres but not as centres of consumption or engines of growth. This all began to change as reforms set in. The percentage of total population in China that is urban has almost doubled during the past quarter century, from just over 20% to almost 40%. During this same period, the corresponding figure for the world population has grown from about 40 to 50%. Note that the divergence between world and China trends shown in Figure 2 would be even more pronounced if the former excluded the latter. POLITICAL DEVOLUTION P D DEMOGRAPHICS MARKETS M U URBANISATION GLOBALISATION G T TECHNOLOGY 54

55 Given China s enormous and growing overall population, this rapidly increasing urban share clearly points to a profound demographic restructuring and surging urbanisation within China. The essential point for our purposes, however, is that this restructuring is itself the resultant of other forces. In fact, these trends underline the importance of markets and institutional changes rather than demographics per se, and so Figure 1 indicates a medium strength causal link from markets to demographic movements, M D, a similar link from political devolution to demographic movements, P D, and then a resultant link of comparable magnitude extending from D U. Figure 2 Urban population as percentage of total population Source for China data: Jianfa Shen (2005) Source for World data: United Nations Population Division (2005) 50% WORLD 45% 40% CHINA 35% 30% % 20% % % 5%

56 P Political devolution & institutional change The role of political devolution and institutional change in the causal web of factors behind urbanisation is an intriguing one. Political devolution here refers to the transfer of political decision making authority from the central government to provincial and other lower level governments. The term does not necessarily imply any movement towards democratisation in the Western sense of the term, although we often see the two in tandem, as in the case of Indonesia or South Korea. In the case of China, the concomitant political and economic devolutions are intertwined in complex ways with important interactive effects between the two. Local governments rely increasingly on the marketisation of land use to support their own institutional aims. Public land leasing provides local governments with the financial resources to invest in physical infrastructure and other public services. The values of these services are then recaptured through capitalised land lease values, thereby promoting a virtuous cycle of institutional change and economic growth at the local level. The net effect of these changes is the emergence of what we may term a land market with Chinese characteristics at the local level. Government retains ultimate land ownership, but markets for land use have flourished along with attendant legal reforms. Primary markets transfer land use rights at a kind of wholesale level to land developers who in turn develop the land for housing, industrial or commercial use and then sell land use rights at the retail level. State Owned Enterprises (soes) and other government agencies entered the reform era owning or controlling substantial tracts of land as a direct result of the socialist era legacy. During that period, the pattern of urban land use reflected the political qua economic institutions of the time. In particular, self contained work units (danwei) were the focus of much urban based production activity, which often housed and fed their workers on site. This cellular structure was largely impervious to opportunity cost considerations with respect to land use and location because in the absence of markets such economic considerations were not manifest. This began to change with the introduction of markets as the opportunity to sell land use rights in central urban locations helped to offset increasing losses in the context of competitive markets for goods produced by soes. Local governments increasingly gained exclusive legal authority to lease urban land. As noted already, these local governments have a 56