Shanghai Pudong

Abstract

The emerging of large-scale urban (re)development projects presents a complex situation for local urban managers to deal with. They involve various local-global actors, public-private sectors and flow of finance and know-how from far beyond local city boundaries. Developing projects as such can be prolonged. In the development of Pudong New Area in Shanghai, China, we have seen a mega project developed at an extraordinary speed that few projects in the world have ever achieved. How could the development of Pudong have been realized so rapidly? This book draws special attention to the large-scale urban area development with the focus of understanding how global-local interplay played a role in shaping area development strategies in Pudong's explosive development. It analysed in depth the practical measures which affected the speed of the development, including the decision-making process, management strategies affecting land development, infrastructural development and the closely related local real estate market and the way in which investment and finance was mobilised. The research shows that the speed achieved in Pudong development was made possible by a number of factors interrelated in such a way as to perform a unique function not achievable by any one of those factors in isolation. The theory of the developmental state made it possible to clarify the powerful motives underlying government intervention in local affairs and the network approach exploited by local government to formulate coalition between state and market, global and local.