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| URBAN SPATIAL EXPANSION UNDER THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT'S GOVERNANCE: A CASE STUDY IN GUANGZHOU |
| WU Yi-fei, LI Xun |
| School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China |
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Abstract Recent decades have witnessed a series of profound reform measures proposed by the central government in contemporary China, which changed the relation between central state and local governments.Consequently, similar to the neoliberalism in Western countries, local governments have been playing a dominant and essential role in urban development in China. This trend of decentralization requires local governments adopt new governance means to capture mobile resources in the global setting in order to facilitate urban growth and this has influenced the expansion of urban space significantly. Based on the theory of governance in political economy perspective, taking Guangzhou for instance, this paper discusses the relation between the government's governance and urban spatial expansion, identifies the features and problems in the process of Guangzhou's urban spatial expansion in recent ten years. From the analysis, this study identifies that one of the tools adopted by the municipal government in an attempt to allocating spatial resources is the administrative division. This political strategy makes it possible for Guangzhou's spatial expansion of builtup areas, which is mainly concentrated on the outskirts, such as Panyu, Huadu districts. Besides, based on the formulation and implementation of the strategic planning, the municipal government dominants the construction of production space and flowing space based on the strategic planning, reflecting in the distribution of large-scale projects, the change of urban construction land's structure and the change of the investment in basic construction. And the prime problem in urban expansion led by the market is the inefficient land utilization. Through the discussion of the influence of government's governance on the reconstruction of urban space, this paper intends to call for greater attention to the interrelationship between local government's governance and urban spatial expansion in the Chinese urbanization process, identify the effect of various governance methods and spark off discussion about how to deal with conflicts between different interest groups in the process of governance.
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Received: 30 November 2013
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2014, Vol. 29 
