Delta Governance: The DNA of a Specific Kind of Urbanization

LUUK BOELENS

Urbanization is the result of the way leading actors, volatile factors, and historic and dynamic institutional settings interact. However, major differences occur between what we might call Capital and Delta metropolitan areas. This paper compares the governance of two of these Metropolitan Delta Areas: the Euro Delta of the Rhine­ Meuse-Scheldt and the Pearl River Delta of the Xi-Bei-Dong - partly historically but also with respect to recent developments within governments, businesses and civil society. Although they differ greatly in terms of context and historical path dependencies, similarities are also evident. One might even speak of a governance family or DNA of collaboration and assemblies within deltas; that is simultaneous internal cooperation and competition. While these specific features evolve further in present shifts of glocalization and financial, economic and political crises, not only is more research needed into these realms of governance, but also a new approach by politicians and planners in delta areas.

Setting the Scene sequently affect leading actors and new insti­ tutions, which in turn etc... That kind of Urbanization is the result of the way in which reciprocal interaction is highly situational, and people, circumstances and organizations could develop as a kind of 'DNA profile of interact, construct specific networks and, in cities' (Boelens, 2009; Boelens and Taverne, this way, determine the dynamics of urban 2012). By this is meant the highly dynamic, but landscapes. It is shaped by the continuous also somewhat situational path-dependent interplay between leading human actors (e.g. way people and space interact, determined by rulers and entrepreneurs), environment and the geographical and institutional preferences history (e.g. the soil, geomorphology, past of politicians, entrepreneurs and citizens over events) and institutional settings. It goes time .., Entrepreneurs or investors must take beyond historical-geographical or situational these interactions into account if they want determinism of which landscape historians to create a sustainable future for themselves and geographers are sometimes guilty. It also in these regions. goes beyond a modernistic actor-oriented That view is more poststructuralist than view, in which mankind is glorified as the structuralist (Murdoch, 2006), complex rather sole or at least main creator of urbanization. than complicated (Bovaird, 2008), co-evolution­ It takes the view that historical events, geo­ ary rather than co-productive (Boelens, 2013), graphical circumstances and leading (£)actors following a broad ontological and strategic co-evolve into a loose or fixed set of assemblages, view of actors and networks (Latour, 2005). which in turn direct the interplay between It refers to Henri Lefebvre' s The Production people, space and their organization, and sub- of Space (1974, translated 1991), where he

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distinguished between the lived space (espace most prominent, driving one); it operates vecu) and the perceived and conceived space interactively in an ocean of agents and agency (espace pen:;u, and espace con~u). Beyond, within continuously changing settings. and to some extent even combining, or at However, according to these (co-)evolu­ least not privileging the perceived space tionary paradigms, networks of (self)organi­ of materialized spatial practices and the zed agents and agencies would also behave conceived space of thoughtful representations according to routines and ingrained habits, and imaginations over each other, these in path-dependent ways (Schamp, 2010; lived spaces would be the terrain for the Boschma and Frenken, 2011). Here again generation of 'counterspaces' - the spaces the (co-evolutionary) idea of a kind of geo­ of the inhabitants and the users stretching graphic DNA would come in, although it beyond the pure epistemological and/or has been developed in a completely different socio-political views of spatial developments scientific realm. In our case it would refer (see also Soja, 1996). In fact, and in someway to the unique, place-dependent information or another, that kind of living space that allows living systems to function, grow resembled what complexity theorists would and reproduce. It would allow geographers, call dissipative systems, which operate out urbanists and planners to engage with the of, and often far from equilibrium in an context and conditions of living systems, environment with which they exchange as open systems, out of equilibrium. Para­ energy and matter (Prigogine and Nicolis, doxically, it would also permit us to deal 1977). These 'living systems' would be highly with the unpredictable, while actions would unstable, characterized by the fracture of be framed by embedded path dependencies symmetry breaking the formation of complex, and reciprocal adaptation would not be sometimes chaotic structures, characterized endless, but only stretchable to its situational by exceedingly self-organized correlations, limitations. defined as: a process in which the components of a system Deltas versus Capitals in effect spontaneously communicate with each other and abruptly cooperate in coordinated and The usefulness of these kinds of co-evolu concerted common behaviour. (Stacey, 1993) tionary, open, and situational adaptive ap­ However, as said above, these kinds of self­ proaches, although fit for all circumstances, organization are also conditioned by their sur­ becomes especially apparent in the ongoing roundings, with which they exchange informa­ urbanization of the estuaries of world famous tion, and therefore co-evolve. The context (geo­ rivers (Gerrits and Teisman, 2012; Allaert, morphology, soil, power relations, institutional 2012). More than, for instance, capital cities arrangements etc.) and the real and symbolic or the urban headquarters of regional or spaces are effected by these 'living (non­ national power holders, those kinds of urban equilibrium) systems' and vice versa. There­ developments along changing river branches, fore, twinned with these kinds of spatial unpredictable flooding, highly volatile eco­ idea are the upcoming paradigms of (co) nomic circumstances and the adjoining mer­ evolutionary geography and adaptive plann­ cantile rerouting etc., have been very sensi­ ing (Holling, 1987; Nelson and Winter, 1982; tive and adaptive to those changing circum­ Barkow, 2006; Bertolini, 2007; Durrant and stances from the very start. In fact this dis­ Ward, 2011; Boelens, 2013). The main focus tinction refers back to the preliminary urban here is to regard changes in space, spatial dichotomy of Max Weber (1921) more than contexts and planning itself in multiple, 90 years ago: reciprocal and fundamentally open settings. The city can in principle be justified in two kinds; Planning is only one of many forces (and the namely a) as a fundamental gorgeous, especially

170 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 40 NO 2 DELTA GOVERNANCE: THE DNA OF A SPECIFIC KIND OF URBANIZATION extended place of the sovereign to serve his or hers tried elsewhere to point up a new kind of needs, and b) as a concentrated place to produce post-structural typology of metropolises in or exchange goods for the welfare and wellbeing the interaction of (more local) institutional­ of its citizens. geographical circumstances and (more global The first 'capital' cities would mostly and/or cross border) actor-relational net­ be positioned in the centre of a dominated works and assemblages (Boelens, 2009; Boelens region, and would be central in developing and Taverne, 2010, 2012). major infrastructure from the capital to the Exemplary types of American, European outskirts of the ruler's territory, in order to and Asian metropolises (geographical) were reproduce its hegemonic status. It would not crossed with Capital and Delta metropolitan mean that these cities did not include some settings (actor-relational). More or less in production facilities or economic services, but concordance with Weber, Capital metro­ that these would be mainly determined by politan areas were primarily characterized the ruler (as in Paris or Madrid), his or her as the centres of government, administration government and public servants (as in Peking and their adjoining headquarters, whose or Washington) or even by large landowners most important responsibility was to provide (as in Moscow before the abolition of serf­ services to protect and provide structure dom). In contrast, 'production' or 'commercial' for their subjects. However this would not cities would have evolved mostly at the cross­ alter the fact that these metropolises would roads of major trade routes or junctions of also serve prominent economic and socio­ various transport modes (rivers, land routes, cultural interests too. After all, a Capital and later rail, aviation and telecommuni­ Metropolis such as Seoul National Capital cations), near or accessible to the fertile land Area is much more than a political capital: and raw materials, as the basic elements for with more than 10 million inhabitants, it production and market processes. Although is the financial, cultural, commercial and these cities also housed consumer and manage­ industrial heart of South Korea. Some of these ment services, they would be driven by the Capital metropolitan areas even have major (in)formal laws of production. According to trading and logistic functions, like Tokyo Weber, they would result mainly from the and London. Furthermore all these Capital motives of urban traders, merchants, crafts­ metropolitan areas - like Beijing, Delhi, men, businessmen, bankers and the like, who Dubai, Mexico City etc. - have also become could move away from the interests of the Global Power Hubs, dominating and serving ruler and organize their own socio-economic not only the nation-states, but also the world and urban realm inside or even beyond those in several ways. hegemonic and ideological regimes. Distinctive are the Delta Metropolitan Although current urbanization processes Areas. Originally these developed indirect are far more complex, driven by global and even detached links with their rulers, and networks beyond a simple production and over time created their own economic and consumption dichotomy, in some ways it political regimes. While these 'production' could still be useful to discover the actor­ or 'commercial cities' could traditionally be relational path dependencies of specific urban found at the crossroads of trade routes and and even metropolitan realms. Weber (1921, at the sources of raw materials, today we find 1958) also noted that the territorial aspects are the largest production and trading metro­ important elements in defining the typology polises near the sea, due to the importance of urbanization and that these aspects need to of accessibility in a global economic system, be taken into account with the actor-relational and preferably with good hinterland con­ path dependencies, and vice versa. Therefore, nections and efficient water, road, rail and somewhat in concordance with Weber, I have telecommunications hubs. At present, the

BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 40 NO 2 171 DELTA-URBANISM: NEW CHALLENGES FOR PLANNING AND DESIGN IN URBANIZED DELTAS largest and most rapidly growing of these peculiarities. Nevertheless, my first encount­ metropolises are located in the deltas of ers with, for instance the Yangtze, Mekong the world largest rivers, like the Yangtze, and Parana Delta, show some similar regimes. Pearl River, Ganges, Nile, Congo, Rhine and Parana. More than the Capital or Colonial The Euro Delta metropolitan areas, these Metropolitan Deltas consist of urban archipelagos along inlets The Euro Delta is commonly defined as the and branches of river deltas, highly adaptive area of and between the Dutch Randstad, and poly-nuclear (both actor-relational and the Flemish Diamond and the Rhine-Ruhr, physical), whose nuclei are opportunistic in consisting of numerous mid-sized cities nature and combine both competition and with a maximum population of one million, collegiality (corn-col) with each other. There­ but more commonly with between two fore, although the pattern of urbanization is hundred thousand or some tens of thousands entirely different in each Metropolitan Delta, inhabitants. However, and depending on how there are striking similarities in economic the area is defined, the total the Euro Delta driving forces, institutional settings and ways population could amount to 33.5 million, of governance. scattered around an area of some 52,000 In this article I will take two examples - the square kilometres, and contributing to some Metropolitan Delta of the Rhine, Meuse and 15-60 per cent of the GDP of the respective Scheldt rivers (hereafter the Euro Delta) and countries of Germany, the Netherlands or that of the Xi, Bei and Dong rivers (hereafter Belgium, including about twenty-five head­ the Pearl River Delta) - in order to highlight quarters of the Fortune Global 500 corpora­ some of the similar path dependencies, tions. despite their geographical separation and In terms of geomorphology, it is made up their very different geographical, historical, of the clay and peat lands along the estuaries socio-cultural and political realms. Further­ of the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt, extending more I would stress that these two examples from Cologne in the east and Kortrijk in should not be considered as the most rep­ the south-west and Alkmaar in the north­ resentative of a more general delta-DNA. west, towards the North Sea and the English In fact all Delta Metropolitan Areas would Channel, flanked by the more hilly sandy need an approach designed according to their regions of the Kempen and Veluwe, and

Figure 1. Overview of the governmental regions of the Eurodelta. (Source: Drawing by author)

172 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 40 NO 2 DELTA GOVERNANCE: THE DNA OF A SPECIFIC KIND OF URBANIZATION stretching beyond the national borders of new course of the river streams and/or the the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. inhabitants retreated to the former Roman Although some might claim that this area fortress nearby, reappearing again after the had its own historic capitals too, for instance raiders left. This characterizes the resilient Bruges, Ghent, Rijssel, Den Bosch, Leuven, character of the Delta citizens, which we shall Nijmegen, and in recent times Amsterdam, see recurring over the course of time. Bonn and Brussels, none of these cities Nevertheless, at some point during the dominated the surrounding regions in the twelfth century, the circumstances evolved way that the capitals mentioned above in such a way that the Delta inhabitants did; and over time they regularly changed could decide to stay and defend themselves position, depending on the circumstances, against rivals and the persistent salty floods, moods and aspirations of the regional rulers which made the soil extremely infertile. (Boelens and Taverne, 2012). In addition, gov­ This happened first in the agricultural areas ernmentally, it could therefore be regarded behind the West-Flemish dunes in Veurne as an adaptive Delta area, fundamentally Ambacht and later in the area which we distinctive from the Capital Metropoles. now call 'the environs of Bruges'. Initially More specifically and from the start, the with some help from the Count of Veurne rivers and/or the seas often flooded this area, Ambacht, but later autonomously, farmers which compelled the scarce early inhabitants decided to join forces to dig ditches, erect to become highly adaptive to such conditions. dikes and install some kind of water manage­ Thus in the first centuries after Roman domi­ ment regime to protect their areas from nation, new settlements appeared for a short flooding and foster agricultural production. It period in the surroundings of old urban frag­ was grounded in the triad principle 'interest, ments, such as walls, old Roman fortifications payment and voice' meaning that everyone or monasteries, only to disappear and, after a who had a special interest in the operation while, reappear a bit further away. (the landholders), had to contribute to the The first settlement which held on for operations (by paying a tax, or contribute in more than two centuries was Dorestad; kind) and would therefore have the right to during the eighth and ninth centuries AD be represented on the board. Among them­ it dominated the trade routes from England selves, they chose a bailiff (or dike count), and Scandinavia towards the Rhineland and who guaranteed that every partner would even the North Atlantic and Mediterranean uphold his commitments (Van Ve, 1993). coastal areas (Leupen, 1996). It was situated These so-called 'Waterings' were so success­ in the heart of what one could call the ful and prosperous that soon some 400 of neutral land in-between or on the outskirts them were operational on the Belgian, Flemish of the territories of the Frisians, Saxons and side of the Euro Delta and even resulted in Franks and could therefore expand more or villages and urban developments, due to less autonomously and experimentally on the improved agricultural production in the the border of the Christian south and non­ area. Water management and rural and urban Christian northern areas (Willemsen, 2009). development became very much interdepend­ Nevertheless the city, which extended some ent. Moreover, from mid thirteenth century, 3 kilometres along the Rhine and peaked at they were reproduced in other places in the some point to 3,000 inhabitants, frequently delta, leading to more than 2,500 'Water and literally 'went for a walk', due to the Boards' in the northern Lowlands (e.g. the ever-changing courses of the rivers, floods Netherlands). These bottom-up 'cooperatives', and the plundering expeditions of the more or less common pool resource manage­ Vikings and other invaders. In these times ments were perceived as one of the most the structure of the city was adapted to the effective Delta organizations, and were an

BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 40 NO 2 173 DELTA-URBANISM: NEW CHALLENGES FOR PLANNING AND DESIGN IN URBANIZED DELTAS essential part of survival there, not only in constituent of the Delta Golden Age) was in physical terms, but also in political, economic fact a cooperative of six former companies of and socio-cultural terms. According to the local merchants, which were given not only historian Simon Schama (1987) it was the main the sole right by the government to trade with reason why so many, varied and warring Pro­ the newly discovered areas in the Far East, testant communities appeared here; every but also to reinforce settlements and agrarian Watering or Water Board had its own or production settlements en route and on the even several. But soon it also became part of spot on behalf of the welfare of the whole a broader, mutual and self-grounded Delta nation. It was from the beginning a mixed esteem. Thus when in the sixteenth century, operation, combining private enterprise with the Emperor Charles V wanted to create an state control, but paid and executed by the overarching water body that would central­ entrepreneurial cooperative with venture ize the appointment of dike counts so as to capital of its own (Home, 2013). have some control of these organizations, he Next and famous are the cooperatives of immediately met resistance from the local agricultural and dairy farmers, and later the population, churches, as well as the water flower growers and horticulturists, who set boards and the provinces (De Klerk, 2008). up an efficient sales, marketing, R&D and Similarly, these centralizing tendencies and distribution infrastructure themselves in even the creation of a new Ministry of Water order to break the monopolistic powers of Management under the Batavian Republic big landowners or capitalists. While in the and French rule (1795-1814) were immediate­ southern Lowlands of the Delta workers' ly reversed after 'liberation' and the inaugura­ groups (the so-called Naties) were founded tion of the first unified consociational King­ in the harbours in order to organize the dom of the Low Countries (Kloosterman, handling and transport of goods between the 1993). quay and warehouses. Later, housing, bank In fact one could claim that these voluntary and (health) insurance cooperatives were community cooperatives are an essential part established by and for the workers, in order of the Delta DNA, long before they were to finance and organize their own welfare. 'officially' invented in eighteenth-century UK Thus the history of the Euro Delta is (Cornforth et al., 1988). They were typically influenced by these cooperative organizations based on the cooperative values of 'self-help', in all spheres of governance, and probably 'self-responsibility', 'equity and solidarity', more so in its spatial development. with the focus on open membership, eco­ Walter Lotens (2013) even claims that the nomic participation by members, autonomy Netherlands, Belgium and the Westphalian and interdependence, democratic member part of Germany were home to the greatest control and specified community concern. density of cooperative movements. Never­ As such the first urbanization of the theless this was partly brought to an end northern Europe was very different of that by the post-war governments, in which of the south. Unlike such the Mediterranean the Dutch Social Democrats decided to city-states as Venice and Verona, the first rebuild the nation under the guidance of cities of North-Western Europe could be the national government, while the Belgian characterized as a voluntary cooperation of and German Christian-Democrats focused ordinary citizens, who chose aldermen and on subsidizing individual households. How­ mayors from among themselves; although at ever recent collaborative agreements on health first under strict guidance and patronage of care, energy, food production, etc. have given the regional ruler. a new future to the cooperative movement As such even the seventeenth-century (ICA, 2013). Thus the ideas on state­ the Dutch East India Company (so much a controlled (spatial) planning of the past five

174 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 40 NO 2 DELTA GOVERNANCE: THE DNA OF A SPECIFIC KIND OF URBANIZATION to six decades could be regarded, as just a Cottman (1961), it was not be made up of hiccup in a longer history of consociational a physical conurbation of successive urban/ self-determination. I will return to that later. suburban units each with relative functional autonomy. Rather, it represented a spatial discontinuity of rural settlements, agricultural The Pearl River Delta land and undeveloped areas, separating Although the Pearl River Delta (PRD) has global urban centres, logistic nodes, industrial its own distinctive political history (from areas and economic hubs, with a backbone of the Chinese emperors, via colonial periods multiple communication and transport links, to the present state-controlled liberalization both internally and externally (Castells 1996, policies) its economic and social organiza­ pp. 403-409). Nevertheless, it functioned as a tions are also conditioned by these formal kind of metropolitan urban-economic entity, and informal self-organizations and consocia­ comprising some 40,000 km2 and 65 million tional mechanisms. Situated on the estuaries inhabitants, connected on a daily basis and of three major Chinese rivers: the Bei Jiang accounting for some 10 per cent of China's in the north and the Dong Jiang in the east, GDP, 35 per cent of total trade and 30 per separated by the core branch of the Pearl cent of foreign investments, depending on river (the Xi Jiang) in the west, today the PRD how these were defined and which year is is one of the most densely urbanized regions taken into account. in the world. After Woo (1994) and others, Its governance structure - dominated by Manual Castells highlighted this in the first the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), main­ volume of The Rise of the Network Society taining a unitary government and centralized (1996), even before Hong Kong and Macao state, military and media - resembles a same rejoined China. kind of discontinuous, multi-level, corn-col According to Castells, the PRD represented and highly adaptive delta rule and order, a new networked metropolitan form. Unlike as in the Euro Delta. Its path-dependently the traditional megalopolis identified by also originated from ancient times. Although

Figure 2. Overview of the Pearl River Delta including its Special Administrative Regions (SAR), Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and Experimental Economic Regions (EER). (Source: Drawing by author)

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China remained predominantly an agricul­ recent history of the PRD. For instance, since tural community until well into the last cen­ the 1980s, when the Chinese Communist tury, already in the Shang (1480-1122 BC) and Party introduced the market mechanism Zhou Dynasty (1122-221 BC) several towns and (partly) opened its doors to the world, and cities had developed as the regional two Special Economic Zones (SEZs) where outposts and power bases for the various introduced in the PRD - Shenzhen and Zuhai emperors. However, over time they devel­ - neighbouring and partly anticipating the oped various forms of corresponding urban 'Handover' or 'Reunification' of, respectively, cultures (Sivin et al., 1988). After Quangzhou, Hong Kong (1997) and Macao (1998) to the first Foshan and later on, in the seventeenth Peoples Republic of China (PRC). These SEZs and eighteenth centuries, Guangzhou in were given some freedom from national gov­ particular flourished as a more or less self­ ernment, special tax incentives and greater organized merchant and harbour city, far independence, in order to employ an eco­ away from the capitals of the respective nomic management system that was more imperial reigns of the Shang, Zhou, Han, conductive to carrying out market related Tang, Min and Qing. businesses (Leong, 2013). Furthermore, and in Although orthodox Confucianism abhorred accordance with the 'One Country, Two Systems' trade and placed merchants at the lowest principle agreed between the respective gov­ position of the social ladder, already during ernments of the UK, Portugal and PRC at the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD) a lively the 'Handover', since the end of the 1990s trade developed between China and the Hong Kong and Macao have been labelled smaller states of South and Southeast Asia Special Administrative Regions (SARs), leaving from Quangzhou, Foshan and Guangzhou. the pre-PRC governance system and its way It was largely privately initiated and partly of (economic and cultural) life largely un­ illegal, but was presented as a tribute from changed for another period of at least fifty the smaller vassals to their overlords in years. China. It was further strengthened when In addition, the opening to the world first Portuguese, and later Dutch and British extended to the other major cities in PRD, merchants began trading in the East and including Guangzhou, Huizhou, Zhaoqing, involved in Guangzhou's economy. On behalf Foshan, Jiangrnen, Zhongshan and Dongguan, of their respective nation-states, but largely resulting in another seven so-called Experi­ independently, they established trading posts mental Economic Regions (Yeh and Xu, 2006). run by large merchant cooperatives such And finally, the ongoing global, and especially as the Dutch East India Company and the national competition with other special British Company of Merchant Adventurers. Administrative Economic Regions in China, Under the pretext that they did not need particularly the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) Western products, the emperors tried to resist and Bohai Sea Rim (BSR), together with the commercial pressure from the West until increased land and labour costs in PRD the beginning of the twentieth century. But (Yeung, 2005), created the idea of a Pan­ as we know, from the opium wars on (1839- PRD-Region, comprising not only the PRD 1860 AD) step-by-step Chinese ports were Guandong province, but also eight other opened to Western traders, and even parts provinces; in fact including nearly the whole of the country annexed. As such the PRD of the Pearl River basin (Liu, 2011). It has proved to have a long subversive history to made the jurisdictional and political setting and within existing institutional regimes, of PRD complex and multifaceted - with partly self-organized, but was also subject to centralized and decentralized, vertical and external influences. horizontal features - and difficult for an This becomes prominent in the most outsider to understand what is allowed and

176 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 40 NO 2 DELTA GOVERNANCE: THE DNA OF A SPECIFIC KIND OF URBANIZATION

what not. However, until now local planners Kong with the other urban centres on the (networked with other stakeholders) still mainland of PRD (at first especially with seem to control the spatial developments Shenzhen, but later also with the other bottom-up and to enforce, as far as possible, centres) resembled a kind of 'front shop­ consistent standards for both structure and back factory model' (Sit, 2006). Already development. The Hong Kong study 2030 by the beginning of the 1990s 75 per cent (HK, 2007) and the Planning Study on the of the manufacturing firms had set up coordinated Development of the Greater manufacturing facilities in mainland PRD Pearl River Delta Townships by Hong Kong China. The firms in Hong Kong evolved into SAR and Macao SAR, with participation of headquarter offices, focusing on management, the State Council of the Guandong Province design, financial control, and international (Planning Department, 2009) are examples marketing and sales; while Shenzhen, Zuhai, of this. They were later merely approved by and later also Dongguan, Foshan, including the central government (Yeh and Xu, 2013). Guangzhou as the former delta's primate Importantly, this local induced planning city, housed branch plants, focusing on experience is even copied in other Chinese the production, with low labour costs, raw Metropolitan Delta Areas, as for instance the materials, services and some components and YRD (Walcott, 2011) equipment. The 'Closer Economic Partnership

... Sichuon \.. --, ...... ---- - ~ ·._.' ' ._f< ..; ·~- •. G'lkhou ..• .. Yannan :~---.::~~~

- ·-·----· __,... / ,,....---: ~

Figure 3. Overview of the Pan Pearl River Delta. (Source: Drawing by author) ....

Within this fuzzy political setting, adapt­ Agreement' (CEPA, 2003)' opened up the ive self-organizing structures and cooperative whole of the China market to Hong Kong organizations regained their importance, and goods and services, enhancing the already can be said to characterize a 'Delta mental­ close economic cooperation between Hong ity'. The first is the so-called 'corn-col mental­ Kong and the mainland (Yeh, 2011). ity' of its urban centres; that is the mentality Nevertheless this 'front shop-back factory of 'mutual competition wherever possible, model' did not prove sustainable, simply collaboration if necessary'. Since China's open­ because the quality of the PRD mainland pro­ ing and economic reform in the 1980s, the ducers also improved production, marketing cross-border economic cooperation of Hong and services, and through sales, buy-outs

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and new establishments, the original front have already joined forces to promote an shops and back factories are no longer con­ Information Technology Industries Corridor. trolled by one firm (Meyer, 2011). As a By collaborating in the PRD and Pan-PRD result the original somewhat two-directional platforms, but competing with each other model (of Hong Kong versus the mainland) in each of these and other projects (as in has changed too, resulting in an increase of logistics, airports, and high-speed rail con­ dynamic cooperative relationships, depend­ nections) the corn-col mentality gets new ing on item, place and time. impetus, despite the massive top-down five Today the planners distinguish an east year planning of the federal state. bank and a west bank of the Pearl River Delta: But in addition, that kind of 'Delta gov­ focusing in the east bank on world class high­ ernance' does not operate at the level of end and new innovative technology based public services and governments only, but industries, around high-speed, inter-city rail also in firm and intra-firm relationships. In in order to improve the competitiveness of the 2002 Peter Dicken highlighted the national region, and in the west bank on the integra­ and/or continental variations in corporate tion of the service sector, consolidation of organization and planning, despite their administrative functions and urban-rural increasing global nature. While the dominant integration, undertaking thematic planning economic ideology of US and West European of tourism as the new pivot of the Bay Area businesses focused mainly on free enterprise (NRDC, 2009). Next to that, and next to liberalism or social partnership, Asian (and Hong Kong's status as an Asia's World City, especially Japanese and Chinese) businesses Macao wants to make full use of its status were driven by a kind of 'familism' and as the world's largest and finest 'gambling 'techno-nationalism'. As a result US business­ city' (in fact already surpassing Las Vegas es would focus in their corporate governance in this respect), while Guangzhou focuses and financing on short-term shareholding on (regaining) its position as a key city in and diversified, global funding, while Euro­ the PRD, the prime gateway and centre of pean and especially German businesses would culture, education, bio-based economy and be guided by managerial autonomy with life sciences (Van den Bosch et al., 2007). concentrated regional funding. In turn, Asian Furthermore, on the mainland new indus­ business would be guided by stable and long­ trial districts have been established - includ­ term shareholding, network constrained and/ ing a Science Park in Shenzhen, the IT or constrained by family or corporate ideol­ Industrial Park around Songshan Lake in ogy (Dicken, 2002). Dongguan and Bio Island in Guangzhou - in However, before the opening and reform of order to emphasize the creation of skilled, the economy, this DNA of Chinese businesses knowledge-based and professional develop­ was very much constrained by the Chinese ment in the mainland, and by doing this Communist Party ideologies and were highly also competing with the IT and biomedical government driven or at least government flagship developments in Hong Kong (Yeh, linked. But since then, and especially in Delta 2011). Moreover, Ziaoqing (electronics chips areas like PRD, businesses have rapidly and products), Foshan (audio-visual and elec­ regained their organizational and cultural tronics products), Guangzhou again (software origins (Yeung, 2002). and telecommunications products and technol­ In these Delta areas, guanxi quickly ogy), Dongguan (computer and electronics regained a prominent role in doing business. products), Shenzhen (telecommunications Quanxi refers to a highly personalized net­ and audio-visual products, and computer work of influence, in which business and hardware and software) and Huizhou (audio­ social networks are combined to produce a visual and telecommunications products) mixed form of network. It is a network in

178 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 40 NO 2 DELTA GOVERNANCE: THE DNA OF A SPECIFIC KIND OF URBANIZATION which people have a long-term commitment of family of regimes, profoundly different to each other bound by an informal and from those of and in (metropolitan) capitals. unwritten code of trust. But guanxi is also Nevertheless, when we analyse the recent reciprocal in the exchange of favours and developments of governance in the Euro as such also utilitarian in nature; it is easily Delta, especially since the crises of the welfare broken when no longer achieving its object­ state, the ongoing networked global compe­ ives with and between the parties involved tition of 1990s and the recent financial, eco­ (Park and Luo, 2001; Dunning and Kim, 2007). nomic and representational democratic crises In this respect the nature of guanxi changes of 2008 and onwards, we can also detect the from a purely private to a functional-personal emergence of an ongoing variety of (self­ network, where personal connections do organizing) governance regimes, within this not necessarily involve sympathy, but are broader 'Delta family'. strongly associated with profit orientation. The first, as already mentioned, is the re­ In her study of the governance of customer­ emergence of a new kind of cooperativism producer relations within the electronics around several spheres of social welfare, industry of the Greater Pearl River Delta, including food production, health and com­ Susanne Meyer (2011) concludes that: munity care, energy transition, maintenance despite the central control mechanisms of PRC's of the public realm, cultural production, co­ policies - informal modes of interaction between housing etc. These cooperatives are defined firms regain importance in PRD, involving trust, by the International Co-operative Alliance personal considerations and reliability next to (ICA, 2013) as autonomous associations of pure economic or political motives; resulting persons voluntarily united to meet common, in an increase of cooperative relationships. Formal and informal processes are not mutually economic, social and/or cultural needs and exclusive for PRD firms in the electronic industry, aspirations through a jointly-owned and but rather combined to enlarge their pool of democratically-controlled enterprise. These economic opportunities. Moreover informal cooperatives would be based on the values modes of interaction even seem to enhance the of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, flexibility of firms, both in terms of speed and variety, while informal business contacts are used equality, equity and solidarity, focused on to find new producers and customers quickly, voluntary and open memberships, member informal business contracts speed up the market, control, economic participation, autonomy and negotiating instead of litigating saves time. and independence, and concern for specific (Meyers, 2011, pp. 198-199) communal goals. That would explain why PRO firms are therefore highly adaptive to cooperatives would exhibit a massive revalua­ changing circumstances, and can co-evolve tion in times of deregulation and decentral­ with the changing tides of global economic ization of the welfare state. But a less sceptical dynamics and changing or fuzzy Chinese view would be that such cooperativism politics very effectively. would also come very close to the ideals of common pool resourcing (Ostrom, 1990) or those of the associative democracy of Cohen Multiple Delta Governance Landscapes and Rogers (1992), Hirst (1994), Held et al. Returning to the Euro Delta, we might con­ (1999) Pierre (2001) and others. clude that in some way the governance regimes Nevertheless, as history shows, these kinds in the PRO and the Euro Delta resemble each of cooperative are organized along similar, other in their cooperative, or rather hori­ one-dimensional stakeholder and shareholders zontal and lateral organizational structures, interests. In deltas we have experienced co­ resulting in a kind of 'corn-col mentality' operatives of preliminary landholders (water in the public, business and civic realms. In boards), urban dwellers (north-west European DNA terms they could be defined as a kind cities), merchants (the Dutch East India

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Company), cattle breeders (milk coopera­ profound history in deltas like the Euro Delta. tives), poor labourers (housing cooperatives), Here I refer to the Triple Helix model of an harbour workers (naties) and the like. Effi­ ideological or business interest, backed by cient and prosperous as they were in their (academic) research and specific (geograph­ respective times, more and more academics ical, and or thematic cross-border) institu­ claim that the present global, volatile and tional arrangements. Particularly in the so­ non-linear society needs more innovative called 'Greater Kempen Area' of the Euro cross-over cooperatives between the public Delta these kinds of arrangements have a (law and regulations), business (money and longer history with the expansion of mona­ profit making) and civic realms (interest steries in the area, the Belgian agricultural sharing) in order to adapt and be resilient colonization policies during the nineteenth to change (Holling, 2001; Hillier, 2007; century, the workers' housing developments Boelens, 2009; De Roo and Silva, 2010; De built by the first industrial entrepreneurs, Roo et al., 2012; Davoudi et al., 2013). We the garden cities constructed for miners need associative (delta) assemblages for in the early twentieth century, and the re­ specific items, projects or interests, backed construction policies in the post-war era up by a broader range of social, economic (Urban Unlimited, 2012). and institutional actors. In some ways one But today, this takes shape in the could claim that the Healing Hills initiative in cooperation between leading firms and southern Dutch Limburg (Urban Unlimited, transnational corporations on the one hand 2005), or the crowd funding initiatives of and departments and branches of universities new entrepreneurs, financed by citizens and research and development institutions and backed by local governments are early on the other. This backed up by a local and examples of those loosely arranged self­ transnational policy on the part of local organized cross-over cooperatives between and regional governments in the so-called various interests around a mutual objective. ELAt area (the Eindhoven-Leuven-Aachen In addition, other arrangements also emerge, triangle), which aims to enhance technical which are initiated and directed by a specific innovations so as to become the smartest stakeholder interest, backed up by involved region in Europe, and if possible the world shareholders. These arrangements also have a (Brainport, 2012). These Triple Helixes are

Figure 4. Overview of the Clay & Peatland, Greater Kempen Area and the Eindhoven-Leuven-Aachen triangle (ELAt) of the Eurodelta. (Source: Drawing by author)

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