China's urban planning and administrative urbanisation: case of Ordos

Abstract

China's urbanisation is characterised by strong state intervention, which includes various forms of urban planning made by local governments. Not much academic attention has been paid, however, to the relations between urban planning and urbanisation. This paper tries to narrow this gap by developing a theoretical framework based on the concept of ‘administrative urbanisation’ developed by Liu and co-workers. It is argued that urban planning in China not only provides the local states with a number of tools to manipulate various resources to shape their urban spatial structure and accelerate the pace of urban sprawl, but also legitimates the irrational decisions made by local government. The rationales and strategies facilitated by urban planning in the process of defining goals for the city, struggling for enough land conversion quota and attracting capitals and population to the planned areas, reflect the fundamental characteristics of ‘administrative urbanisation’. Ordos, a city newly formed over the last 15 years, is examined as a case under this framework. The importance of relations between urban planning and administrative urbanisation is also discussed.

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