Government institutions and the dynamics of urban growth in China

Economic growth in China in recent decades has largely rested on the dynamism of its cities. High economic growth has coincided with measures aimed at improving the efficiency of local governments and with a mounting political drive to curb corruption. Yet the connection between government institutions and urban growth in China remains poorly understood. This paper is the first to look into the link between government efficiency and corruption, on the one hand, and urban growth in China, on the other hand and to assess what is the role of institutions relative to more traditional factors for economic growth in Chinese cities. Using panel data for 283 cities over the period between 2003 and 2014, the results show that the urban growth in China is a consequence of a combination of favorable human capital, innovation, density, local conditions, foreign direct investment, and city‐level government institutions. Both government quality—especially for those cities with the best governments—and the fight against corruption at the city level have a direct effect on urban growth. Measures to tackle corruption at the provincial level matter in a more indirect way, by raising or lowering the returns of other growth‐inducing factors.     

首府集中度和西部城市化模式探索

城市首位度是最早提出来对城市规模状况的指标描述,但随着经济的发展,处于第二位城市的人口数量的增加,首位度日益无法得力地描述城市体系的特征状况,更无法表述出地区人口在首府城市的集中程度,为此本文提出了城市首府集中度的概念,将首府集中度划分为不同的等级层次。对比中国与世界平均及中、俄间的首府度分布曲线,从而得出结论:中国大城市的发展潜力仍然很大,应进一步扩展和完善大城市。西部地区地广人稀,对比分析俄罗斯和西部的首府度状况,相应地提出西部开发模式。     

Urban geography and protest mobilization in Africa

Urbanization has long been seen by scholars and policymakers as a disruptive process that can contribute to social and political unrest, yet there is little cross-national quantitative empirical research on the topic. In this paper we provide a comprehensive analysis of the links between urban geography and the incidence of protests (i.e. demonstrations, riots and strikes) in African countries since 1990. In contrast to previous studies, we are careful to distinguish between urban population scale effects, urban population ratio effects, population rate-of-change effects and urban population distribution effects. We also provide an explicit test of the long-standing hypothesis that ‘over-urbanization’ increases the risk of civil unrest. Employing multilevel negative binomial models that control for key political and economic variables we find that urban population size and the number of large cities in a country are both positively and significantly associated protest incidence. By contrast, we find that a country's level of urbanization is negatively associated with protest incidence and reject the over-urbanization hypothesis: higher levels of urbanization are associated with less frequent protests at all income levels. We find no evidence that the pace of urban population growth or urban primacy significantly influence protest mobilization. In sum, our results provide a nuanced picture of the relationship between urban geography and protest incidence that challenges conventional wisdom and contemporary hyperbole about the dangers of ‘rapid urbanization’ in Africa in particular, and developing countries more generally.     

“借口”:中国城市资本高度集聚的政治经济学分析框架

面对改革开放以来中国快速城市化现象,本文从中国投资拉动的经济增长模式出发,发现中国城市存在着高度积累,特别是行政级别高的城市持续投资增长的现象,在分析投资、投资效率与大型事件关系的基础上,提出了官员晋升竞标赛和财政分权预算约束条件下的制度机会主义行为假设,认为大型事件不过是政府构建的一个有利于在城市体系下,通过打破传统的政府预算约束,实现资本高度集中促进经济持续增长的制度机会主义行为。"借口"模式旨在揭示大型事件现象背后的政治与经济激励,并以2010年广州举办亚运会为例,按政府构建—突破约束—官员晋升的结构,分析了广州市政府构建全社会共识,举办亚运会带来巨额投资促进城市发展实现政治与经济激励的事实,为"借口"模式提供了实证的案例。最后,对"借口"模式的未来趋势进行了探讨。     

Faith no more? The divergence of political trust between urban and rural Europe

Events such as Brexit and the Gilet Jaunes protests have highlighted the spatial nature of populism. In particular, there has been increasing political divergence between urban and rural areas, with rural areas apparently having lost faith in national governments. We investigate this divergence using data on over 125,000 EU citizens from the European Social Survey from 2008 to 2018. We show that people in rural areas have lower political trust than urban or peri-urban residents, with this difference clear for six different forms of political institutions, including politicians, political parties, and national parliaments. There has been divergence of political trust between urban and rural Europe since 2008, although this is primarily driven by Southern Europe. While these results can partly be explained by demographic differences between cities and the countryside, divergent economic experiences, differences in values, and perceptions that public services are less effective outside of urban areas, there is a residual ‘rural effect’ beyond this. We argue that the polarisation of urban-rural political trust has important implications for the functioning of European democracies.     

Unpacking administrative rank: Intercity competition and the remaking of local state space in China

The literature on interurban competition emphasizes that market rules as an external coercive power dominate local state space conductive to economic growth. Is there another external coercive power, other than the market as a hidden hand, to promote and mitigate interurban competition? Addressing this question, this paper specifies that the Chinese state's political efforts to downplay the role of the market in, and remake the rule of, interurban competition could have far reaching implications for urban political economy. The two cases are Ruili and Wanding, two border cities located on the edge of China's southwestern borderland adjacent to Myanmar. While reranking is supposed to balance out the inefficiencies of market principles in interurban competition, multiple rounds of reranking in Ruili and Wanding in the past seven decades indicate that this political orchestration can accelerate interurban competition into a cutthroat game for economic growth and thus create problems for macro economic management. Nevertheless, it can become a political tool to revamp the game by strategically selecting some cities as nodes of development at the sacrifice of urban fortunes of other cities. In this process, market rules operate in parallel with, and sometimes succumb to, the principle of political order from above. This finding expands the geographies of the state: the co-constitution of the local and the national becomes necessary and pragmatic since interurban competition is not a territorially-conditioned endeavor, but remains open to extralocal stakeholders—upper-level governments in this case—who can remake local state space.     

Popular Economies In,Against, and Through the Platform

Behind the conjunctural growth of popular economies in Brazilian cities lies a set of entangled disputes over urban density with important political consequences. While popular economic agents are repressed by local governments, informal work hired through digital platforms grows exponentially and engenders new precarious forms of assembling labour relations in, and extracting value from, global South cities. The contrasts and indirect relations between digital platforms and popular economic agents are important in understanding the growth of platforms, which hinges on accessing low-wage workers whose attempts to make an independent living are otherwise prohibited. This dynamic has resulted in the political mobilisation of popular economy agents and their alliances with urban social movements. Through this paper, I examine how their networking and particular disputes for a right to the city hold potential for the emergence of other economies.     

China's Urban Land Reform,Urban Productivity,and Local Government Behavior

Based on provincial land leasing data, this paper estimates the impact of urban land reform on urban productivity in China and analyzes factors affecting local government behavior in land reform. More specifically, it examines the relationship between urban productivity and: (a) the ratio of administrative land allocation to leasing, and (b) the choice of auction and tender among leasing methods. The paper documents differences in ratios of land leasing vis-à-vis administrative allocation depending on the percentage of industrial output by state-owned enterprises and the regional density of cities. Overall, the findings point to efficiency gains from adopting public land leasing and the importance of local context and political economy in understanding local government in China. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: E23, O18, R52. 1 figure, 4 tables, 36 references.     

LOCAL ECONOMIC POLICIES AND SOCIAL CITIZENSHIP IN SPANISH CITIES

This paper examines the restructuring of the local economy in Spain's largest cities, particularly Barcelona, but also Madrid and Seville, in relation to the main changes that have taken place in the urban environment since local democracy was re-established after the elections of 1979. This involves an analysis of the real capacity and impact of local council intervention in the economy and in the extension of the social dimension of citizenship. Despite their relatively small resources, local administrations have in the last few years attempted to create a more dynamic approach of leading, or at least collaborating in, economic and social reconstruction. The increasing role of localities in the economy has been particularly important since, in addition to counteracting a strong centralist tradition, it has coincided with the emergence of a new urban democratic arena which permits more social participation. However, the restructuring of state political and administrative power remains problematic at the local level due not only to the historical will of central government to apply a homogeneous pattern to heterogeneous urban realities, but also to the control that new regional governments seek to exercise over cities.     

非洲港口城市分布特征及其港城规模关系比较

非洲港口城市是联结中非贸易网络的重要节点,承担了资源配置的重要功能。以城市地理学的角度,着眼于非洲港口城市发展现状。选取2015年集装箱吞吐量在5万TEU以上的34个非洲沿海港口城市为研究对象,对非洲主要港口城市的分布格局进行探讨。借助位序规模法则和相对集中指数（RCI）,对34个港口城市的体系分布特征,以及在不同尺度下的港城规模关系现状进行比较。研究认为：①非洲主要港口和城市体系满足位序规模特征,大洲尺度下主要港口体系较为合理,城市体系规模较为集中;②非洲大陆港口城市整体布局不完善,国家内部存在港口城市首位度过高的现象普遍;③部分港口城市港城规模脱节现象较为严重;④不同区域港口城市发展差异较大,表现为北非、南非港口体系较为发达,西非、中非港口规模落后于城市规模,东非港城规模较为均衡但缺少大区级港口。结合非洲港口城市发展特点,提出了中国企业开展对非港口投资的建议。     

Migrants,civil society and the New Europe: The challenge for planners

International migration into European cities has stirred a great deal of debate about appropriate national policies. But the planning literature has been remarkably silent on the issues involved, particularly as immigration affects urban conditions. This paper is a first attempt to delineate the problems and to suggest ways that planners can contribute to the economic, socio‐cultural and political integration of international migrants at the local level.     

Disputing legal privilege: civic relations with the Church in late medieval England

This article explores how provincial town governments sought to bolster civic authority in the period from c.1350 to c.1500. It focuses on royal boroughs, such as York, Chester and Norwich, which had a strong sense of lay civic identity and political pride. In these places, the king was the direct overlord, but the power of civic government was nonetheless frequently challenged by the franchises of local abbeys and convents, cathedral chapters, bishops' palaces, areas of sanctuary and the estates of local nobles. The main case study is urban relations with the Church, in particular disputes with local religious houses and rivalry between the Church and borough courts. How town leaders sought to deal with rival authorities provides an insight into the creation and assertion of lay urban identity in the late medieval period, and illuminates broader themes of how power was legitimised and enforced in post-Black Death society.     

Coping with Peripheralization: Governance Response in Two German Small Cities

Urban governance processes and strategies in small cities in times of an integrated global economy have received little attention in urban research. However, in Germany as elsewhere they form the backbone of the urban system. On the basis of research in two small German cities—Pirmasens and Völklingen—this paper discusses local governance approaches in reaction to peripheralization. Peripheralization here is defined as a process of out-migration, dis-connection, dependency and stigmatization. The two case studies show quite different patterns of political governance. Pirmasens demonstrates a collective local project on how to deal with structural change, while Völklingen shows a more fragmented approach to overcoming peripheralization. These different political reactions are analysed and related to aspects of specific local settings. It is to be hoped that in future cohesion policy at the European level, but also on the respective national levels, more active policies will be targeted towards nurturing place-based opportunities for small cities.     

Voluntary Environmental Programs in the Public Sector: Evaluating an Urban Water Conservation Program in California

Solving conflictual environmental policy problems is increasingly falling under the purview of local governments and public agencies. Nonregulatory approaches, such as the development of voluntary environmental programs (VEPs), could offer a useful policy alternative as they often have greater political traction and flexibility. However, there has been little work examining the use of VEPs in the public sector. This article uses a new dataset from California to examine how political institutions affect decisions by local governments and public agencies to participate in a voluntary urban water conservation program and whether this program has improved the water conservation performance of its members. The results show that special district governments, private utilities, and water suppliers dependent on purchased water are more likely to participate in the program and to join early. However, urban water agencies that have joined the program have not reduced their per capita water use more than those that have not. These results underscore the influence of political institutions in public‐sector decision making and demonstrate that, as in the private sector, commitment to a VEP by local government and public agencies does not guarantee implementation or environmental improvements. While voluntary programs offer political and administrative advantages, in order for VEPs in the public sector to be effective they must be accompanied and supported by credible enforcement mechanisms, performance standards, and rigorous monitoring programs.     

吉林省城市体系等级规模结构研究

等级规模结构是城市体系的三大结构之一,其特征可以反映出城市在不同规模层次中的分布状况及城市人口集中或分散的程度,有助于认识城市体系发展所处的阶段。通过统计数据计算分析,运用分形理论,发现吉林省城市体系等级规模结构满足位序-规模分布规律,城市规模分布的均衡程度较高,中小城市比较发育,首位城市垄断作用不突出,缺乏大城市。在吉林省城市体系动态变化过程中,等级规模结构相对稳定且不断趋于集中。在此基础上提出重点培育通化、延吉等大城市;继续扩大长春规模,发挥整体效益;加强交通网络建设;加快矿业城市可持续发展等建议。     

Post-socialist Sprawl: A Cross-Country Comparison

This paper presents a land-use change analysis of five Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. We utilize CORINE (Coordination of Information on the Environment) Land-Cover and Urban Audit data for two distinct time periods: 1990–2000 and 2000–2006 aggregated at urban, suburban and non-metropolitan geographies. The literature on post-socialist cities suggests that urbanization rates and patterns in the post-socialist period are quite variable and divergent, both “inter”nationally and “intra”-nationally, and we expect to find both spatial and temporal differences. We compare and contrast urbanization patterns at the national scale, using cities and their functional urban regions as the unit of comparative analysis. Our results show that unlike other eastern European countries, metropolitan areas in the former German Democratic Republic began sprawling (defined as a decline in urban density) in the 1990s. Similar changes only became visible in other CEE countries later during the 2000s. We also demonstrate that larger cities which were better connected to the political elite and more economically integrated with global investment patterns experienced more extensive urban sprawl than their smaller and mid-sized counterparts.     

清代学额制度在地方的运作: 以散厅、废县和分州分县设学立额为中心

清代“科举必由学校”,学额的分配实质上是国家政治资源和权力在县级政区的分配。清朝近三百年间,地方行政制度多有变化。厅制行政区划为清代独有,其形成是一个较长的历史过程;后有废县(州厅卫)置乡;还形成具有“分征钱粮”职能的分州、分县。不过,按照规制非州县不得设学校。通过统计和案例分析可知,为保证各地都有一定数量基层绅士(生员),减少不同地区的学额之争,产生了散厅、废县置乡、分州分县设学立额的现象。清代看似严格的学校学额制度,在地方实际运作中有一定的灵活度。又通过适当的变通,保证了国家政治资源和权力在地方的有效分配。     

The politics of decentralizing national parks management in the Philippines

International donors and state bureaucrats in the developing world have promoted decentralization reform as the primary means to achieve equitable, efficient and sustainable natural resource management. Relatively few studies, however, consider the power interests at stake. Why do state agencies decentralize power, what political patterns unfold, and how do outcomes affect the responses of resource users? This paper explores decentralization reform by investigating the political processes behind the Philippine state's decisions to transfer authority over national parks management to local government units. Drawing on a case of devolved management at Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, Palawan Island, we examine how political motives situated at different institutional scales affect the broader process of decentralization, the structure of management institutions, and overall livelihood security. We demonstrate how power struggles between the Philippine state and City Government of Palawan over the right to manage the national park have impacted the livelihood support offered by community-based conservation. We conclude that decentralization may offer empowering results when upper-level policies and political networks tie into sufficiently organized institutions at the local level.     

Property and Personal Crime in Istanbul

In recent studies on urban safety, close relationships between physical and demographic characteristics have been found in crime levels in cities. In many countries social, political and economic turmoil have been the main reasons for the increase in urban crime and violence in the last 50 years. In physically deprived environments, the most important factors that increase urban crime are socially isolated communities, economic discrimination and lack of equality in political citizenship rights. In developing countries, it is difficult to obtain data about crime and safety. For this reason, there are very few studies on crime compared to developed countries. In the research in this paper, the similarities and differences of crime ratios against property and persons in Istanbul are compared with those in other countries. For this purpose, the spatial distribution of crimes committed were analysed on a comparative basis between 1998–2002 in 32 districts displaying different characteristics in terms of distance to the centre, use of land, value of land, physical and demographic features. The research revealed that the crime rates in Istanbul against property and persons were in parallel with developed countries. The districts which have mixed use (residential and commercial, residential and industrial), high population increase, high number of households, high density and high land value, property and personal crime levels are high; when date of becoming a district is recent and the size of the district is large, property and personal crime levels are low.