From rapid growth to sustainability: predicting China’s future urban spatial growth policies by comparing with United Kingdom’s

Abstract

Research of urban growth management started in western countries, and aimed to set up policies and reduce the negative effects of urban sprawl. It was introduced to China in the late 1990s. Empirically, the planned sizes of most future Chinese cities, especially small cities, are much larger than moderate scale they would need, while without explicit growth management strategies. That would lead to a waste of resources, and inequitable development between urban and rural. With rapid urbanization, resource-conserving and environment-friendly society strategies in China, single-sided pattern of urban spatial growth is being transformed into an exterior-expand/interior-renewal mode. Therefore, new policy instruments, leading to sustainable development in transitional China, are required to meet the requirements of Urban Spatial Growth Management (USGM). According to present studies in China (Chen et al, 2009; Liu and Zhang, 2007; Wei and Wang, 2008), it is widely accepted that most developing Chinese cities need spatial growth management. However, since the technique of USGM has not been formulated in China, such research merely concerned with qualitative not quantitative analysis. Thus, the issue of USGM in China needs to be tackled from the perspectives of institutions, policies and techniques. This paper answers the following research questions: a) what USGM policy tools are needed in China; b) what kind of USGM policy in the UK could be used for reference; c) how these tools are utilized. By reviewing researches of urban growth management in both China and the UK, the author recommends China’s USGM research being proceeded by two main aspects: a) to set up environment-oriented system of USGM accompanied by Chinese characteristics, and b) to utilize modern techniques to examine the effectiveness of USGM.