Speaker
Description
Urban shrinkage, characterized by sustained population decline and often accompanied by economic downturn, spatial decay, and reduced quality of life, represents both a warning signal of urban decline and a critical juncture for strategic intervention. While Western post-industrialized nations have developed planning paradigms like "smart shrinkage" - advocating spatial intensification and realigned urban systems under depopulation - this study investigates the implementation mechanisms of smart shrinkage in Chinese cities operating within growth-driven governance systems. Their adoption in China presents a unique paradox: how local governments reconcile contractionary planning with entrenched expansion-oriented institutions. Through a revelatory case study of Qinggang’s shrinkage governance, we unpack the strategic adaptations enabling this unconventional policy transition.
The analysis reveals a systematic "local government lobbying" mechanism – proactive maneuvers through which municipal actors negotiate shrinkage agendas within rigid pro-growth frameworks. We conceptualize this as a target-driven interactive process where subnational governments strategically persuade superior authorities and stakeholders to endorse contraction strategies through institutionalized bargaining, technical recalibration, and developmental reorientation.
The paper makes three key contributions:
1. Contextualized Implementation Framework: Develops a Chinese smart shrinkage model demonstrating how local states creatively reconcile market-based shrinkage strategies with socialist developmentalist institutions, extending the concept's geographical and political applicability. This research ultimately repositions smart shrinkage from a technical planning solution to a political process of institutional negotiation, while contributing original insights to debates on policy mobility and state-led urban transitions in the Global South.
2. Theoretical Formalization of Lobbying Mechanisms: The study innovates a phase-sequential model (F=A+n(B+C)) that formalizes how local governments accumulate policy influence through iterative lobbying cycles. By decomposing 'instrumental lobbying' (N=B+C) as the critical amplifier converting external resources into governance capacity, the framework reveals how Chinese cities progressively implement smart shrinkage through layered negotiation phases rather than linear policy adoption.
3. Bottom-Up Governance Theory: Proposes a "managed incrementalism" framework that reinterprets China's local governance modernization through spontaneous yet state-steered policy entrepreneurship, offering analytical tools for complex, long-term urban transitions.
These findings advance global urban scholarship by:
• Demystifying how illiberal governance systems adapt "Western" planning concepts through institutional bricolage
• Establishing smart shrinkage as a transposable paradigm through its operationalization in China's distinct political economy
• Providing methodological innovation through behavioral formalization of informal governance processes
Practically, the study offers policymakers:
• A diagnostic toolkit for implementing contraction strategies in growth-oriented institutional environments
• Evidence-based strategies for managing central-local tensions in urban transition governance
• Quantitative metrics to assess lobbying effectiveness in complex decision-making hierarchies
The theoretical framework demonstrates strong explanatory power for analyzing spontaneous, self-organizing governance behaviors in China's state-led system, with potential applications ranging from climate adaptation to industrial restructuring. Future research directions include comparative studies across governance regimes and temporal analyses of lobbying efficacy in different policy cycles.
References
Mykhnenko, V. (2023). Smart shrinkage solutions? The future of present-day urban regeneration on the inner peripheries of Europe. Applied Geography, 157, 103018.
Han, Z., Mykhnenko, V., Peng, K., & Mi, J. (2023). The governance dilemmas of urban shrinkage: Evidence from Northeast China. Journal of Urban Affairs, 45(9), 1608-1624.
| Keywords | Smart shrinakge; China; Local Governance; Lobby |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
