Planning Particularities: Reinterpreting Urban Planning in China with the Case of Chengdu

Abstract

The concept of neoliberalisation is increasingly applied to China to explain its unprecedented urban transformation. This paper argues against fitting China into a prototype neoliberal model. Instead it proposes a fresh interpretation of its urban planning particularities within a continuity-contestation framework, embodied in the context, governance and practice of planning. Chengdu, the gateway in West China, is chosen as a case study to illustrate this framework. Analysing the successive city Master Plans of Chengdu, it was found that there was a strong path dependency in Chengdu’s plan-making process. Yet contestations from the planning context and planning practice pressured for plannin..