ABSTRACT
In a recent debate at the Barbican in London, Theodore Dounas – a professor of architecture in Xi’an – proposed that Chinese city making is a process in which Western planning practices are not an appropriate framework for analysis. His presentation highlighted that, contrary to Western reactions to new plans, the Chinese ‘recognise the basic intent, that even colossal scales of planning are ultimately intended to improve the lives of everyone’ (Self 2013, 104). This point, passionately discussed on the occasion by a few UK-based practitioners, highlights a key starting point for this chapter: our understanding of the Chinese planning process is quite limited. The ‘colossal’ urbanization in China – which for Western practitioners most times seems uncontrollable and exotic – can hardly be analysed using our existing practices as a lens for examination. As Wu (2012) suggests, the recent process of urban development in China has been dominated by three main stages: the fever for ‘development zones’ in the early 1990s; the ‘global city’ in the later 1990s; and the current enthusiasm for eco-cities. This enthusiasm, as Wu clarifies, comes from local governments – and municipal governments in particular (Wu 2012, 169).
