Solid Waste Governance and Institutions in Shenzhen a Comparative Case Study

Solid Waste Governance and Institutions in Shenzhen

A Comparative Case Study

Amsterdam, August 2017

Author: Bianca de Bats | 11131012 Email: [email protected] Professors: Marco Bontje & Chingwen Yang Second reader: Bas Hissink-Müller Shenzhen Thesis Group | University of Amsterdam

Master’s Programme in Urban and Regional Planning

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A Comparative Case Study

‘’Imagine living in a maze of a neighborhood where buildings ten stories tall crowd so closely together that their residents dwell in perpetual shade. Your apartment window, set with steel bars, is little more than a meter away from the building next door if it weren’t for the frosted glass, you’d

be able to see directly into the room across the alley. Going outside and looking up, you’d glimpse

the tall buildings in another community in the sky only through the narrow strips between the buildings. This is the life in the urban village. But despite all that, urban villages are not the depressing slums they might resemble. In narrow lanes paved with concrete, children play. Square mahjong tables are a common sight in ground-floor living rooms that open onto the street. The urban village is a flourishing lively community, but it rests on an unstable foundation. ‘’

- Baily Hu, 2008.

Journalist for the critical Chinese magazine Th at’s and other built environment journals.

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Colophon

Master Thesis

Graduate Degree Urban and Regional Planning

Title:

Solid Waste Governance and Institutions in Shenzhen: A Comparative Case Study

Student

Bianca de Bats Student ID: 11131012 [email protected]

University of Amsterdam

Nieuwe Achtergracht 166 1018 WV Amsterdam

Supervision

Dhr.dr. M.A. Marco Bontje

Co Tutor

Chingwen Yang MSc

Second reader

Dhr.dr. B.M. Hissink Muller

Date

21 August,, 2017

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Acknowledgements

Writing this Master's thesis was an enriching period, I improved my theoretical knowledge, I met many intellectual and supporting persons along the way, and this period especially brought me lots of tacit knowledge.

This thesis is dedicated to my family, in particular the support of both of my parents to complete

this Master’s program. I would like to extent my deepest thanks to Lisette Waanders and my

father for revising my documents and especially Michel Gapas for his encouragement. Also, I would to like to express my sincere thanks are to Summer and Adeleine, for their translating assistance

Finally I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my two supervisors, Professor Marco Bontje and Professor Ching Wen Yang, who offered collegial guidance in all stages of the thesis and revised various documents. They gave me the golden opportunity to do this research in Shenzhen.

Bianca de Bats

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Content

2. Theoretical framework......................................................................................................................11

2.1 Environmental Justice ............................................................................................. 11 2.1.1 Paradigms ............................................................................................................... 11 2.1.2 Municipal solid waste (MSW) management ............................................................ 13

2.2

Urban Governance and Institutions......................................................................... 13

2.2.1 Urban governanc e ................................................................................................... 13 2.2.2 Institutions ............................................................................................................... 15

2.3

Urban villages and other communities in Shenzhe n ............................................... 17

2.3.1 The low-cost housing market called urban village .................................................. 17 2.3.2 Governance in urban village s .................................................................................. 18

2.4

Conclusion............................................................................................................... 19

3. Research Design ................................................................................................................................20

3.5

Case selectio n ......................................................................................................... 29

4.

Case: Overseas Chinese Town..................................................................................................30

4.1

Introductio n .............................................................................................................. 30

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4.2

Institutional context.................................................................................................. 31

4.2.1 History...................................................................................................................... 31 4.2.2 MSW policy.............................................................................................................. 32 4.2.3 Daily MSW management......................................................................................... 32

4.2

Governanc e ............................................................................................................. 33

4.2.1 Stakeholders............................................................................................................ 33 4.2.2 Governance tasks................................................................................................... 34

4.5

Conclusio n ............................................................................................................... 37

5.

Case: Baishizhou .......................................................................................................................38

5.3

Governanc e ............................................................................................................. 43

5.3.1 Stakeholders............................................................................................................ 43 5.3.2 Governance tasks ................................................................................................... 44

5.5

Conclusio n ............................................................................................................... 48

6.

Main findings and comparison ................................................................................................49

Conclusion, Discussion& Recommendations...........................................................................53

7. 9.

Reflection..................................................................................................................................56
References .............................................................................................................................................57

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Abstract

This research assesses municipal solid waste (MSW) pollution in Shenzhen as an equity issue in a framework of environmental justice. Using two cases, this study addresses how governance and the institutional context influence MSW management. The aim is to understand the current waste management practices by examining the factors that identify the governance system and institutional performance. The final section of this thesis provides a critical reflection on the waste management system of the two case studies in Shenzhen.

Keywords: Environmental Injustice, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Management, Institutions, Urban Governance, Urban Village, China, Shenzhen, Baishizhou, Overseas Chinese Town (OCT)

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List of Acronyms

Abbreviation/Acronym

Definition

EJ

Environmental Justice

Greenhouse Gas (CO2) Municipal Solid Waste Overseas Chinese Town State-owned Enterprise
GHG MSW OCT SOE

NGO

Non-governmental Organization

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1. Introduction

1.1 Urbanization in Shenzhen

Urban planning practices in China are remarkable and often scrutinized by academics. China has a long trend of urbanization; Shanghai and Beijing are examples of megacities with drastically changed landscapes. Shenzhen, once consisting of farm and fishing communities along the border of Hong Kong, has grown into a world city due to rapid urban development. This growth was caused by the designation of Shenzhen as a special economic zone (SEZ) in 1979, which made Shenzhen an innovator of economic reform. Neo-liberal development strategies simplified the settlement of foreign companies. Therefore, Shenzhen obtained a large supply of factory jobs. Together with other policy approaches, the large supply of factory jobs became an incentive for unprecedented growth of the city. In 1979, Shenzhen had only 30.000 inhabitants (Chen & de'Medici, 2013). Today, Shenzhen’s population has increased to 15–20 million (Markus et al., 2016). A population growth of this volume was not expected by the government of Shenzhen (Y. P. Wang, Wang, & Wu, 2017). Housing policies were meant only for a small number of migrants and were not suitable for this explosive growth. The new housing policies in 1980 focused on the housing supply, but was completely macro-economy centered. Although millions of migrants built up the wealth of Shenzhen, the interests of the low-income groups and the poor were not considered a priority in these policies.
Nowadays, Shenzhen has ten districts, including the four districts of the first SEZ (Futian,
Luohu, Nanshan and Yantian), which are considered the most central (O’Donnell, 2013). In 2010, the Shenzhen municipality designated six outer areas as new districts of the SEZ (Guangming, Bao’an, Longgang, Longhua, Pingshan and Dapeng). Figure 1 illustrates the extension of the former SEZ to a larger area.

Figure 1. Shenzhen

Municipality in 2013

(O’Donnell, 2013)

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1.2 Problem definition

Some theorists state that the rapid urbanization processes in China improve living standards (Han, Zhang, & Xia, 2016). Still, Chinese cities face many issues. The growth of large cities in China has been accompanied by a large and rapid increase of municipal solid waste (MSW).

Zhang et al. (2015) indicate that “increasing MSW puts pressure on existing landfills, and leads to environmental degradation. The government faces a huge challenge in disposing this waste (

” (p.15). MSW issues also occur locally, lingering MSW in public spaces could have negative impacts for both the ecological environment and the surrounding community. In China, improper management of MSW often causes water, air, and white pollution (plastic), and in some cases it increase the risk of explosion, such as in urban villages. Urban villages are village settlements located within the boundaries of cities. These urban villages often show dysfunctional sanitary facility systems of MSW. It is remarkable that urban villages are concerned with other governance systems and institutional settings than regular communities (Po, 2011). The hypothesis of this study considers that governance structures and the institutional setting affect the MSW management system. This implies that a bad performance of governance and institutions could cause environmental MSW pollution. This research aims to explore the influence of the driving forces, the institutional setting and governance, of MSW management. The research question is:

How is MSW (municipal solid waste) management in different communities influenced by governance and institutions?

1.3 Societal and scientific relevance

The social relevance of this thesis pertains to a broadly recognized social phenomenon: inequities in society. Many cities are faced with challenges related to the externalities of urbanization processes in urban planning. These externalities contain various socio-spatial issues, such as social inequities, segregation, displacement, urban deprivation and environmental pollution. Urban planning is a helpful tool for improving social life and reducing inequality. In addition, this research supports future planning practices by establishing policy recommendations. This research also evaluates the waste management system in the concerned cases. This both provides knowledge of the waste management system and explores the potential improvements for the waste practices. The findings of this research could contribute to action by public officials through several recommendations.
This research also aims to fill a gap in scientific knowledge. Although there is already a large body of literature about uneven distribution and exposure of pollutions in environmental equity studies, there are still disciplines within the environmental literature that have not been given sufficient attention. This research could contribute in two aspects by gaining a deeper

understanding of Shenzhen’s waste management practices.

First, this research aims to contribute to established literature on environmental justice
(EJ) by relating solid-waste study to this discourse. In the EJ literature, a number of scholars have

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examined the more apparent forms of pollution (air, water and soil). Other scholars (Boone et al., 2009; Curtice et al., 2014) explored beneficial entities, such as parks and playgrounds, and their relation to EJ. Similar to earlier research concerning EJ, this report examines waste practices in an equity setting. However, waste management practices are a large part of everyday life and only a few scholars (e.g. Fragkou et al., 2013) have correlated waste management with EJ.
Second, this study will provide an in-depth understanding of institutional settings and governance in Shenzhen and their influence on environmental quality. In contemporary literature about China, many empirical studies focus on the significant interrelation between institutions and

Solid Waste Governance and Institutions in Shenzhen a Comparative Case Study

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