*5.4. Zhuhai*

Zhuhai is the smallest city among the four selected case studies and has only 1/10 of the population of Guangzhou. Within the PRD, however, Zhuhai has a unique and important position. Like Shenzhen, Zhuhai is also a special economic zone (SEZ) because of its proximity to Macau. However, just as the city of Macau can be hardly compared to world-financial centre of Hong Kong, Zhuhai has never attempted to become a second Shenzhen. Instead, it has developed its own reputation of liveability and lifestyle. In terms of its urban structure, Xiangzhou forms its central area and Hengqin joined as a new district in 2009. Doumen county has weaker connection to Zhuhai central area, although it has been a part of Zhuhai since the 1980 s. Doumen county split into Doumen district and Jinwan district in 2001, and Jinwan became a national industrial park with a harbour. However, the key area of urban development in Zhuhai remained in Xiangzhou and Hengqin.

The number of new town projects in Zhuhai is lower than in other cases, and all of them are contained in the master plan. However, the situation is more complicated as will be outlined below. In 2013, the Singaporean urban planner Liu Thai Ker was commissioned to develop a new spatial plan for Zhuhai up to 2060, setting Zhuhai's new CBD in Hezhou island, an uninhabited wetland located between the Jinwan and Hengqin districts. The idea was to provide a connection between the central area with the western Jinwan and Doumen districts. A year later, however, the idea of a new CBD in Hezhou was dropped from the revised Zhuhai master plan in 2014. Instead, the master plan identified six new town projects as shown in Figure 8. Some of the new town projects were poorly justified. For example, Fushan city (No. 6 in Table 5) has very little information about its development goals and roles in Zhuhai urban structure. Airport city (No. 3) and Binjiang city (No. 4) were together branded as 'western ecological new town', without explanation of how two new towns could be connected and related to ecology. Many of them were named with ambiguous concepts. Additionally, these new town projects are quite large compared with the small central area of Zhuhai. Strangely, the new CBD in Hezhou and Liu Thai Ker's plan are still referenced by Zhuhai official media, despite the fact that almost none of it was ever implemented and they are still excluded from the most recent urban master plan. This appears to be a branding technique designed to sell land.

*Sustainability* **2020**, *12*, x FOR PEER REVIEW 16 of 20

**Figure 8.** New town projects of Zhuhai. **Figure 8.** New town projects of Zhuhai.

**Table 5.** Information of new towns in Zhuhai.


6 Fushan Industrial City Municipal Industrial city 47.94 km2 2016 In general, as the smallest city in our selection, Zhuhai is quite ambitious in terms of new town development and is similar to Foshan in several ways, such as its large-scale district-level planning for new towns and its high dependency on land-leasing revenues. Analysis indicates that urban development in Zhuhai aims to achieve spatial growth and generate land revenue. New town projects are used as the main vehicle to implement such growth. Although its new town projects are well connected with its urban master plan, it is likely that these new town plans serve entrepreneurial In general, as the smallest city in our selection, Zhuhai is quite ambitious in terms of new town development and is similar to Foshan in several ways, such as its large-scale district-level planning for new towns and its high dependency on land-leasing revenues. Analysis indicates that urban development in Zhuhai aims to achieve spatial growth and generate land revenue. New town projects are used as the main vehicle to implement such growth. Although its new town projects are well connected with its urban master plan, it is likely that these new town plans serve entrepreneurial purposes than urban transition despite heavy use of sustainability-related concepts such as transit-oriented development and eco-city.

purposes than urban transition despite heavy use of sustainability-related concepts such as transit-

5 Harbour City/Pingsha New Town Municipal Harbour city 25 km2

### oriented development and eco-city. **6. Discussion**

**6. Discussion**  The four case studies illustrate that cities adopt an 'entrepreneurial' stance to promote urban growth and compete with each other to attract capital. In the highly competitive PRD region, a city's competitiveness is not only defined by its infrastructure, institutional set-up, and physical attractiveness, but also about the 'differences in image' [62]. This is the reason that these cities are keen to embrace innovative and sustainable urban concepts, since being more innovative and The four case studies illustrate that cities adopt an 'entrepreneurial' stance to promote urban growth and compete with each other to attract capital. In the highly competitive PRD region, a city's competitiveness is not only defined by its infrastructure, institutional set-up, and physical attractiveness, but also about the 'differences in image' [62]. This is the reason that these cities are keen to embrace innovative and sustainable urban concepts, since being more innovative and sustainable can reconstruct city's image to enhance its importance of rankings in regional development. Since the 1990s, land and financial reforms have given local governments more scope for deploying two critical resources:

sustainable can reconstruct city's image to enhance its importance of rankings in regional

land and capital. Local governments have adopted pro-growth approaches in urban development, focusing on large projects like new towns to boost economic development, to project new city images and to accumulate capital. This has also resulted in a general dependency on urban growth mechanisms and consequently the risk of urban overdevelopment and local debt. A two-step examination has been used to illustrate the dependency on land-leasing revenue of four selected cities and their respective strategies of new town development.

Guangzhou and Shenzhen are in competition for the leading role in the PRD region. Although they share many similarities in terms of social and economic performance and sustainable urban development goals, Guangzhou has a much higher dependency on land-leasing revenue than Shenzhen. Their reliance on the urban pro-growth mechanism has impacts on their new town development strategies. Although Guangzhou does not need large-scale land development to generate capital, it has more small-scale new town projects than other cities and some of them are similarly branded. The hasty planning of new towns to boost land-lease revenue and cover the debts generated by hosting the Asian Games reveals a hidden agenda behind the sustainability-related concepts and labels. On the other hand, Shenzhen has tried to align its new town projects, partly due to its compact urban development tradition for land scarcity and high population density, and partly due to its low dependency on land-leasing revenue. New town projects in Shenzhen indicate more attention to fulfilling its innovation-driven ambitions and for generating more quality-based prestige in the region other than boosting short-term land revenue. Foshan and Zhuhai both have higher dependency on land-leasing revenue than Guangzhou. Their new town projects are much larger than those in Guangzhou and Shenzhen since they need more land development to achieve their land-leasing revenue targets. Prestige projects still matter in Foshan and Zhuhai, but since they are not competing for the best of the best in PRD, land revenue can easily eclipse other goals. Even in Zhuhai, with more attention to liveability, the city has adopted very ambitious pro-growth approaches in urban expansion. Its urban development strategies and plans are the results of a gap between its urban development objectives on paper and the hidden agenda of promoting urban growth. The innovative and sustainable brands it proposed are therefore unlikely to be realised. The study illustrates that local governments' land-leasing revenue can be used as an indicator for how a city depends on urban pro-growth mechanisms (Table 6). This has policy implications to decision makers, urban planners, and researchers that the reliance on urban pro-growth strategy can bring potential risk to any sustainable urban transition.


**Table 6.** Comparison of land-leasing revenue dependency and new town development strategies of four selected cities.
