The Greater Bay Area: Integration, Differentiation and Regenerative Ecologies | Archdaily
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6/24/2020 The Greater Bay Area: Integration, Differentiation and Regenerative Ecologies | ArchDaily By using ArchDaily, you agree to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. I ACCEPT The Greater Bay Area: Integration, Dióerentiation and Regenerative Ecologies Written by Thomas Chung 3 days ago Share The relevance of the Greater Bay Area within international geo-political assets is steadily increasing. Relying on projections and observations by Li Shiqiao, Rem Koolhaas and Manuel Castells as main bases for his interpretation of this process, Thomas Chung investigates the future layout that president Xi Jinxing’s project will delineate, involving nine urban areas of the Pearl River Delta and the two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao. In order to construct a range of possible futures, the author critically traces the various political turns that aóected the Pearl River Delta since the 80s Open Door Policy up to aóirming its contemporary role on a global scale. For the 2019 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB), titled "Urban Interactions," (21 December 2019-8 March 2020) ArchDaily is working with the curators of the "Eyes of the City" section to stimulate a discussion on how new technologies might impact architecture and urban life. The contribution belowS iasve part of a series of scientific essays selected through the “Eyes of the City” call for papers, launched in Home Projects Products Folders Feed https://www.archdaily.com/942022/the-greater-bay-area-integration-differentiation-and-regenerative-ecologies 1/16 6/24/2020 The Greater Bay Area: Integration, Differentiation and Regenerative Ecologies | ArchDaily preparation of the exhibitions: international scholars were asked to send their reflection in reaction to the statement by the curators Carlo Ratti Associati, Politecnico di Torino and SCUT, which you can read here. TByh uesin Gg AurcahDnagilyd, yooun agr-eHe to onugr T eKrmosn ofg U-sMe, Paricvaacoy P Golircey antde Cro oBkiae yPo Alicrye. a, whose development blueprint wI AaCsC fEinPaTlly released in February 2019 following the Framework Agreement signed in Hong Kong during the SAR’s 20th anniversary in 2017, is nothing less than a political megaproject directed from China’s highest level [1]. Aòer four decades of reform and opening up, the driving force behind this explicit rebranding of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) is twofold, to reaóirm the region’s leading role in national economic development and to address both Chinese geopolitics as well as the country’s global ambitions. The Greater Bay Area (GBA), comprising the nine PRD cities plus the two SARs of Hong Kong and Macao, is presented as an extension of “PRD miracle” in a new phase. Began in 1979, the PRD’s market-oriented reform process has transformed the region from an economic backwater to a regional powerhouse of global significance [2]. From gaining notoriety as the “world’s factory” with cheap land and labour churning out low-end consumer products in the 1980s-90s, the PRD has been successively restructured, albeit somewhat unevenly, to be more identified with innovation- driven high-tech manufacturing aspiring to “smart city” developments. With emerging realities such as improved connectivity, rising aóluence and mobility and the arrival of “new retail” with a technology- dependent digital economy, the national GBA directive calls for further commitment to regional cooperation while promising ample opportunities for growth. In terms of China’s internal geopolitics, the GBA framework is designed to expedite further reintegration of Hong Kong and Macao with respect to the "one country, two systems" implementation, with an eye on the ultimate resolution of the Taiwan issue [3]. In domestic strategic terms, the GBA also forms the southern tip of five major city-clusters in the shape of a diamond that include the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) on the east coast, the Jingjinji (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) or Greater Beijing capital cluster in the north, as well as two clusters in western and central China, the Cheng-yu cluster based around Chengdu and Chongqing and the Middle Yangtze River Valley Megalopolis centred around Wuhan respectively [4]. The GBA is also targeted to rival or become “greater” than other world-class “bay areas”, and comparisons have oòen been made with Save those of San Francisco, New York and Tokyo [5]. The GBA’s competitive advantage lies in its economic momentum and the mega-conurbation having four GaWC classified cities, although its complicated Home Projects Products Folders Feed https://www.archdaily.com/942022/the-greater-bay-area-integration-differentiation-and-regenerative-ecologies 2/16 6/24/2020 The Greater Bay Area: Integration, Differentiation and Regenerative Ecologies | ArchDaily subnational dynamics and various place-based discrepancies are real challenges to be overcome [6]. Externally, the GBA is also expected to playing a key part in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s cross- continent “infrastructure and trade as foreign policy” programme aimed at augmenting its international iBny fulsuinge AnrcchDea i[ly7, ]y.ou agree to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. I ACCEPT As a top-down strategy tied to national and global political economy, the “Greater Bay Area”’s more abstract appellation suggests images of bays, port cities and near-shore islands with a maritime propensity, subconsciously emphasising a more unifying intention and international outlook. Whereas “Pearl River Delta”, whose post-war coining in 1947 was based on empirical geographical research, resonates more with its estuarine roots and geo-cultural legacies, evoking the region’s rich and diverse local histories [8]. Interestingly, the meticulous Chinese scholars responsible for the PRD naming remarked that the technical term “Bay-head delta” also correctly described the region’s geography [9]. In 1985, the PRD was oóicially delimited to attract foreign investment, aòer which industrial relocation from coastal Hong Kong accelerated the growth of labour-intensive light industries inland. This inaugurated the early success of the “front shop, back factory” cooperation model whereby colonial Hong Kong fronted the overseas exports that was backed up by cheap PRD production. By the mid-1990s, as the PRD developed into a more formalised 9-city economic region subjected to strategic planning, there was a shiò towards heavier industries such as high-tech electronic equipment and machinery for export. The PRD’s post-reform urban evolution also came into view of the Western gaze. Rem Koolhaas, maverick architect-cum-theorist, was one of the first to call attention to the PRD’s “unbelievable quantities of new urban substance”, describing what he saw as an “important” city-prototype whose Save importance rested on attributes alien to Western measurements of culture and history [10]. Assisted by his studenHtso maet Harvard, KoolhaaPsro djeoctcsumented pertinePnrot dauscptsects of this so-caFlloelde CrsOED (City of ExacerFbeeadted https://www.archdaily.com/942022/the-greater-bay-area-integration-differentiation-and-regenerative-ecologies 3/16 6/24/2020 The Greater Bay Area: Integration, Differentiation and Regenerative Ecologies | ArchDaily Dióerence) in Great Leap Forward. He predicted that these disparate urban parts would eventually become a formidable entity operating within a market economy under communist state control, a new urban condition that might irrevocably alter the notion of “city” per se [11]. In 1996, eminent sociologist Manuel CBya usitneg Allrcsh,D wailhy, oyo uh aagrdee atol oruer aTedrmys owf Uoser,k Perivdac oy Pno ltichy ean dP CRoDok,ie w Porliocyt.e in The Rise of the Network City thI aAtC tChEisP Tvaguely perceived southern China metropolis would become “the most representative urban face of the 21st century” [12]. Whereas Koolhaas’ eastward gaze of revelatory wonderment was partly predicated on an iconoclastic refutation of the abstract ordering of the Western city, Castells identified the PRD’s emergent spatial logic as evidencing the emergence of a “network society” that is based on a globalized economy and information society. With his prescient research, Castell’s theorizing of the now-familiar “space of flows” prefigured the mega-urban futures, and even foreseeing problems such as large scale epidemics and probable disintegration of social control in these mega-city configurations that we are seeing today [13]. Within the discourse on regional planning and mega-city positioning, the PRD’s spatial structure has been contoured and realigned according to changing administrative boundaries, economic productivity and infrastructural connectivity. In the early 2000s, Chinese scholars began using the term “Greater Pearl River Delta” (GPRD) the describe the 9 + 2 city agglomeration that encompassed posthandover Hong Kong and Macao. The GPRD was conceptualized as a series of lesser cities as industrial nodes with specialist functions clustering around two prominent cores - Guangzhou, the provincial capital and historical “big brother”, and Shenzhen, the young dynamic upstart next to Hong Kong created by direct order from central government [14]. In 2003, Guangdong province advocated the idea of “Pan-PRD” as an even more extensive regional construct that comprised nine neighbouring provinces to promote economic co-operation [15]. Save Home Projects Products Folders Feed https://www.archdaily.com/942022/the-greater-bay-area-integration-differentiation-and-regenerative-ecologies 4/16 6/24/2020 The