Handbook on China’s Urban Environmental Governance

Edited by Fangzhu Zhang, Professor and Fulong Wu, Bartlett Professor of Planning, Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, UK

‘The collection provides a comprehensive picture of environmental governance in China. [...] University libraries in China should add the book to their collections to give young researchers food for thought on how to save the environment for future generations. Journalists in the Western media and writers for scientific journals who report how little China is doing to respond to global warming should learn from the many experiments in environmental governance that this book shares.’

• Contents:Preface xvii 1 China’s urban environmental governance 1 Fangzhu Zhang, Fulong Wu and Yining Liu PART I CONTEXTS, PERSPECTIVES AND POLICY CHANGES 2 China’s eco dreams and green reality 26 Austin Williams 3 Indigenous literary perspectives on green governance grassland management policies in China 41 Robin Visser 4 When an entrepreneurial government hammers out a plan for sustainable growth: a sustainable urban experiment story in China? 54 Yang Fu and Xiaoling Zhang 5 Resilient city planning and practices in China 69 Guofang Zhai and Yuwen Lu 6 The applicability of environmental governance theories to China 93 Xidong Cao and Li Yu PART II GOVERNMENTALITY: EXPERIMENTS AND DISCOURSES 7 Farmland preservation and watershed management in China: a perspective of local entrepreneurial leadership in the party-state mechanism 115 Shiuh-Shen Chien 8 Carbon governmentality in Chinese cities 128 Le-Yin Zhang 9 The politics of climate experimentalism in China 144 Kevin Lo 10 Climate transformation through experimental governance: the case of the low-carbon city pilot program in China 156 Zhilin Liu, Jie Wang and Yunzhu Chen 11 Urban sustainability experiments in China: plural approaches for transformation 169Linjun Xie, Ali Cheshmehzangi, Mengqi Shao, Yuxi Zhang and Faith Chan12 Eco and low-carbon, smart and sponge: potential and delusion in realising environmental benefits from sustainable city branding 186Martin de Jong and Li Sun13 Greening Chinese cities? Denaturalizing the ‘good’ of environmental discourses in China’s urban planning system 201Jiang Xu and Mengzhu ZhangPART III POLITICAL ECOLOGIES: ECO-CITIES AND CONSERVATION14 Eco-cities in China: national initiatives, local implementation and livelihood transitions 227I-Chun Catherine Chang15 Political ecologies of urban–rural conservation planning and resettlement 243Jesse Rodenbiker16 Negotiating urban sustainability on the ground: China’s greenway development as land politics 257Calvin King Lam Chung and Jingya DaiPART IV WASTE MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNANCE17 China’s environmental governance transition: a new paradigm for waste management 272Yuchen Yang, Will McDowall and Fangzhu Zhang18 Towards an inclusive circular economy: wise-waste city network in China 291Xin Tong19 Sustainable waste management: the influences of government capacity in the greater China region 304Natalie W.M. Wong, Lin Peng and Chin-chih Wang20 From state entrepreneurialism to state-led ecological civilisation: changing dispositifs of governing e-waste metabolism and ‘cyborg’ urbanisation in China’s e-waste cities 323Kun Wang, Junxi Qian and Shenjing He21 Ecological civilization, anti-incineration activism and the rolling out of ‘compulsory waste-sorting’ programs in Chinese cities 340Shih-yang Kao PART V LOW-CARBON ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITION22 Green industry development and urban sustainability transitions in China’s latecomer cities: the case of Dezhou 355Zhen Yu and David Gibbs23 Green building in China: governance and promotion of sustainability 369Yu Zhou and Tianchen Zhou24 Urban transition governance in China’s new era of ecological civilization: opportunities and challenges 387Ping Huang, Linda Westman and Xiyan Mao25 Integrated transit and sustainable urban development: case studies of metro and HSR stations 403Yun Song and Biyue WangIndex 417