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Chinese Urban & Territorial Planning: From Soviet Legacy to Modern TSPS

Historical Context and Absence of Early Urban Planning

  • Industrial Revolution Gap

    • Industrialisation occurred largely in the West; Qing-era China retained traditional political and municipal management structures.
    • Consequence: Western-style urban planning (British, French, German models) was never imported into the Qing empire, even though it did influence Russia, Latin America, Singapore, Penang, etc.

  • Early Republican / Qing Late-Stage Conditions

    • Cities functioned on “old tracks,” so demand for comprehensive urban planning was minimal.
    • Modern planning ideas only arrive after 1949 via Soviet channels.

Soviet Influence & the Planned-Economy Era (1949-early-1980s)

  • Five-Year Plans (FYPs)

    • Borrowed directly from Soviet success in industrialising and defeating Nazi Germany.
    • Became the core public policy to mobilise national potential at the founding of the PRC.

  • Planned-Economy Logic

    • Single state objective → no formal conflict between sector plans.
    • Resources flow top-down; no market actors.
    • Typical project chain:
    1. Political goal set in FYP (e.g., turn Tsinghua into a polytechnic university).
    2. State Urban Planning SOE drafts a plan.
    3. State architects design.
    4. State contractors build.

  • Iconic Example – Main Building of Tsinghua University

    • Designed & built 1960\text{–}1963—PRC’s worst economic years, yet fully funded from the centre.

Shift Toward Market Logic & U.S.-Style Zoning (1980s-1990)

  • Economic Reform Need

    • Markets require multiple investors; government can no longer micro-design every site.
    • Solution learned from a 1980s lecture by a U.S. “Female Planners Association” delegation: introduce zoning.

  • Regulatory Planning (1990)

    • A simplified American zoning code is legalised nationwide.
    • Government now sets conditions; any public or private entity may invest if conditions are met.

Parallel Land-Use Plan vs. Urban Plan (1990s-2005)

  • Comprehensive Land-Use Plan (top-down, Ministry of Land Resources)
    • Protect arable land, water, biodiversity, forests.
    • Extremely rigid.
  • Urban Regulatory Plans (bottom-up, local governments)
    • Promote industrial & real-estate growth; approved solely by the same local governments that draft them.
  • Outcome: Same parcel governed by two plans → harmony or conflict. 1980s-2010: centre often tolerated violations for GDP growth.

NDRC’s 2005 Unity Proposal & Birth of the Ministry of Natural Resources

  • NDRC Proposal (≈2005)

    • Build a 1\,\text{km}\times1\,\text{km} national grid; scientists label each cell (residential, ecological, industrial…).
    • Intended to let NDRC control all spatial planning.
    • Never fully realised but triggered institutional change.

  • 2018 Reform

    • Creation of Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) unifies planning bureaus from:
    • NDRC
    • Ministry of Housing & Urban–Rural Development (MoHURD, formerly Construction)
    • Ministry of Land Resources
    • Local bureaus merged into single “(Natural Resources &) Planning Bureau.”

Urban–Rural Planning Law (2007-2008)

  • Inspired by British/Japanese ideas of balanced development.
  • First time rural areas officially planned.
  • Introduced legally binding public participation (post-2008) → initially paper maps, now smartphone apps.

Rural Land Tenure & Maoist Legacy

  • Each rural household entitled to:
    • A homestead plot.
    • Farmland for subsistence.
  • Ownership inalienable; land may be leased but not sold.
  • Historical rationale:
    • Dynastic cycles showed private land concentration → peasant rebellions → collapse.
    • Mao’s policy sought social stability by universalising smallholder security.
  • Gender variation:
    • Provinces differ; some grant women equal land rights (e.g., Sichuan), others male-only (e.g., Henan).

Case Study – Chouhu Lake Wind Corridor (Hefei, Anhui)

  • Textbook 1990s plan kept entire corridor green to funnel summer breezes into historic core.
  • 2000s revision (speaker’s team) urbanised corridor to build a new city for tech & services.
  • Consequences:
    • Positive: cheaper land → firms like Meituan move in; GDP, population, jobs rise.
    • Negative: lake reclaimed earlier; urbanisation worsened micro-climate, lost green space, ecological damage.
    • Illustrates "every choice has a price."

Traditional Multi-Level Planning Hierarchy (Pre-2018)

  • Levels: Nation → Province → City → Town → Village
  • Plan Types
    1. Master Plan (macro)
    2. Regulatory Plan (zoning)
    3. Site Plan (Soviet detailed design)
  • Local gov’ts both draft & approve regulatory plans → corruption risk (e.g., 100 k RMB bribe story).

Master-Plan Example – Beijing

  • Pre-1949 city ≈ historic core only.
  • PRC expanded municipality to \approx1.5\times10^4\,\text{km}^2 (≈half Taiwan’s 3.3\times10^4\,\text{km}^2).
  • 2016-2035 Plan integrates with Hebei (Jing-Jin-Ji megalopolis).
    • Cultural & tech sub-centres, ecological belts, transportation axes.
    • Revives Qing-era east-rich / west-noble spatial logic on a larger scale.

Regulatory Planning Mechanics

  • Mandatory controls: building type, density, height, plot ratio, greening-rate, infrastructure & public-facility quotas.
  • Guideline controls: aesthetics, urban design, setbacks, underground utilisation.
  • Essentially American zoning adapted to PRC conditions; market-oriented but state-directed.

Site & Village Planning

  • Site Plan: micro-scale layout of every building; state role faded—now prepared by developers.
  • Village Plan: township government drafts; important in Guizhou & other mountainous provinces to preserve ethnic settlement patterns.

Territorial Spatial Planning System (TSPS) – Post-2018

  • Goals

    • One map, one set of rules; end inter-plan contradictions.
    • Harmonise development and protection; curb corruption; protect environment.

  • Four Supporting Systems

    1. Formulation & Approval
    2. Implementation & Supervision
    3. Regulation & Policy
    4. Technical Standards (unified GIS)

  • Three Plan Categories
    \boxed{\text{Master}} \quad \boxed{\text{Detailed}} \quad \boxed{\text{Sectorial}}

  • Five Administrative Levels
    \text{Nation} \rightarrow \text{Province} \rightarrow \text{Municipality} \rightarrow \text{County} \rightarrow \text{Township}

  • Approval Logic

    • National & provincial plans need State Council and Communist Party Central Committee sign-off.
    • Municipal “special” cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Tianjin) also require central approval.
    • Detailed plans (zoning) still approved locally → original “judge-and-player” dilemma partly persists.

  • Sectorial Plans

    • Transportation, energy, water, agriculture, military, cultural heritage, etc., drafted by their line ministries/ SOEs (e.g., State Grid, China Railway) but must align with TSPS database.

  • Monitoring & Enforcement Tech

    • Weekly satellite imagery auto-compared by AI.
    • Cheap drones (≈ 7\times10^4\,\text{RMB}) for micro-level checks.
    • Unified coordinates & data standards across all GIS platforms.

  • Timeline Targets

    • 2025: Regulation, policy, & technical standards complete; monitoring & early-warning fully functional.
    • 2035: “Safe, harmonious, competitive, sustainable” spatial governance system fully modernised.

Ethical / Practical Implications & Discussion Points

  • Balancing rapid GDP growth vs. ecological preservation remains core dilemma.
  • Despite TSPS reform, local governments retain decisive power over detailed plans → corruption risk not eliminated.
  • Real-estate bubbles (post-2000) partly fuelled by local control over zoning; regulatory planning both enabled supply and allowed speculative demand.
  • Enhanced public participation (legal since 2008, digital post-2010s) provides a check, but effectiveness varies.
  • Rural land rights reforms (leasing without sale) aim to reconcile urbanisation with social stability; gender inequities remain culturally determined.

Key Figures & Expressions

  • 1\,\text{km}\times1\,\text{km} national land grid (NDRC proposal).
  • 5 year plan cycles (Soviet template).
  • 3 plan categories × 5 administrative levels = 15 primary plan types in TSPS matrix.
  • Beijing land area ≈ 1.5\times10^4\,\text{km}^2 vs. Taiwan ≈ 3.3\times10^4\,\text{km}^2.
  • Drone cost for enforcement ≈ 7\times10^4\,\text{RMB} (≈ 10\,000\,USD).

Major Take-Aways for Examination

  • Contrast plan economy vs market-oriented zoning in China’s urban history.
  • Understand why overlapping plans created conflicts and how TSPS attempts resolution.
  • Memorise the 3\times5 TSPS framework and the mandatory indicators in regulatory plans.
  • Be able to discuss the socioeconomic logic behind Mao-era rural land rights and its present-day evolution.
  • Evaluate pros & cons of the Chouhu Lake case as a template for development-environment trade-offs.