China's Local Entrepreneurial State and New Urban Spaces

In this book, the author seeks to understand China's urban redevelopment from the theoretical perspective of the local entrepreneurial state. China's rapid socio-economic transformations since 1978 have been in large part attributed to China's state transformations. The author closely investigates Ningbo's two downtown redevelopment projects by conducting ethnographic fieldwork and documentary research. It is found that the local entrepreneurial state deploys local state enterprises to undertake strategic urban redevelopment projects, organizes high-profile city/district marketing campaigns in entrepreneurial manners, and develops corporatist intermediations with local business owners for collaborative urban governance. Yet the local entrepreneurial state is multi-layered, with the municipal and district authorities sometimes disagreeing, conflicting, and bargaining with each other. Meanwhile, the relationship between spaces and their users, as well as that between various space users,constantly changes. All these players and their interactions constitute spatial politics, or the story of conflicts, struggles, negotiations, and collaborations in urban governance. This work, based on six months of fieldwork, will appeal to scholars in the social sciences and experts in Asian Studies.

Provides a detailed case study of Ningbo, an oft neglected second-tier Chinese city, for a different perspective on urban China Features ethnographic fieldwork for six months, including both in-depth interviews and participant/passive observations, which vividly portrays and interprets urban governance in contemporary China Features intensive archival research conducted at local libraries and archives for a brief investigation of Ningbo's urban history since 1840, as well as the government policies for urban redevelopment since the late 1990s Presents a people-oriented perspective on China's urban redevelopment, which is demonstrated through the voices and live experiences of various stakeholders involved in urban redevelopment, who have different sexes, ages, education, occupations, social status, religions and hometowns and even nationalities

Autorentext

Han Zhang, PhD, is a recognized authority in pipeline integrity management and reliability engineering, specializing in the structural reliability and failure assessment of both onshore and submarine pipelines. He earned his doctorate from the University of Alberta and brings extensive expertise across a broad range of areas, including pipeline mechanics, hydrogen energy transportation and utilization, advanced composite materials, machine learning, and maintenance optimization for energy and manufacturing systems. Dr. Zhang has made significant contributions to the energy sector, authoring two monographs and over 40 papers in prestigious international journals. His work seamlessly blends theoretical research with practical applications, driving innovation and advancements in both traditional and renewable energy industries. Zhang Jie, born in 1987, graduated from Shijiazhuang Railway University with a bachelor’s degree in 2009 and obtained a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Southwest Petroleum University in 2016. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Alberta in Canada from December 2016 to June 2017. His research interests include the service safety of pipelines and pressure vessels, hydrogen energy equipment, and hydrogen safety. He has published four monographs and over 120 papers and has been granted 25 Chinese invention patents. He has been recognized as a reserve candidate for academic and technological leadership in Sichuan Province, a young talent of the China Association for Science and Technology’s think tank program, and an outstanding young energy technology professional by the China Energy Research Association. He is listed among the World’s Top 2% Scientists. Dr. Ruinan Lin is a senior engineer at PetroChina Southwest Oil & Gas Field Company. He earned his doctorate from China University of Petroleum-Beijing in 2020 and has since focused his research on oil and gas storage and transportation engineering, safety engineering, and pipeline mechanics. Over the years, Dr. Lin has been actively involved in more than ten scientific research projects and has published 17 articles in reputable academic journals. Yifei Wang is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta, with a research focus on health monitoring, reliability engineering, machine learning, and maintenance decision-making for energy and manufacturing systems. His research contributions have been recognized in several publications in peer-reviewed international journals.

Zusammenfassung
It is found that the local entrepreneurial state deploys local state enterprises to undertake strategic urban redevelopment projects, organizes high-profile city/district marketing campaigns in entrepreneurial manners, and develops corporatist intermediations with local business owners for collaborative urban governance.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. The City Operator and the Tianyi Square Redevelopment Project.- 3. Ningbo's Historic Laowaitan.- 4. The Redevelopment of the Laowaitan.- 5. The New Urban Spaces of the Laowaitan.- 6. The Flawed Governance of the Laowaitan and the Coping Strategies.- 7. Conclusion and Discussion.