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

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.

Automated summary

This paper explores the specific authoritarian type of adaptive governance for urban regeneration, using Guangzhou city as an example. Unlike the democratic type of adaptive governance, which involves bottom-up policy initiations and community autonomy, adaptive governance in Guangzhou is characterized by top-down decision making and implementation of public authorities' solutions. The paper analyzes data collected from various sources and reveals three phases of urban regeneration in Guangzhou between 2009 and 2019, highlighting the tradeoffs among regeneration, land leasing income, and micro-regeneration as key means of policy adaptation.