Zhuo, Wang, "Urban Planning Reform in China. A Comparative Study of City Planning in Chongqing and Halifax"

Economic reform has been a slogan in China for a decade. Urban economic reform has been aimed at encouraging a market-led economic institution so as to provide a greater potential for the country's urban development. In the meantime, the transition of the economic regime has had an impact on Chinese city planning practice. The key issues of current Chinese urban planning are tied to the conflict between traditional socialist planning concepts and the emergence of a democratic, market-defined planning theory and practice.

The fundamental differences between centralized socialist economic planning and capitalist market-oriented economic systems are apparent in the treatment of urban development issues. While in China the planners, for example, advocate functional zoning to ensure the compatibility of land use types, Canadian planners adopt zoning by-laws and other land-use planning approaches to shape urban development. It is argued in this study that China's centralized economic planning system plays a distinct role in generating a non-democratic system of city planning the most intractable barrier to city planning reform. The city planning system of Chongqing in China and a brief look at Canadian city planning specifically in the city of Halifax are considered in order to understand the prospects and challenges in front of China's present city planning system.

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This document was last modified on January 3, 2001.