Speculative urbanism and the making of university towns in China: A case of Guangzhou University Town

Habitat International 44 (2014) 422e431

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Speculative urbanism and the making of university towns in China: A case of Guangzhou University Town Zhigang Li a, *, Xun Li b, Lei Wang c a

Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China c Institute for the Development of Central China, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China b

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Available online

In the last decade, over one hundred university towns have been constructed in China, housing and employing millions of students and teachers. However, very little is known about the reasons behind this phenomenon, or the impact of this massive wave of construction. Based on an ethnographic survey in Guangzhou University Town (GUT), one of the most representative cases, we find that the construction of a university town is driven by ‘chameleon’-like land-centered speculative urbanism in post-reform China. Against the backdrop of China's recentralized land use regime, local governments utilize a variety of projects such as the ‘new city,’ ‘eco-city’ or ‘university town’ to generate land-related profits. Building a GUT requires the cooperation and collaboration of a variety of stakeholders, from local states and local banks to universities and the local communities, to create an efficient coalition. The construction of the GUT is a de facto state-led project. In sum, the rapid construction of university towns in China is indicative of the land-centered speculative urbanism at the heart of post-reform China. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Speculative urbanism China University town Guangzhou

Introduction China has achieved a remarkable economic success in the last three decades. Specifically, China's urbanization ratio has risen from just 18% in 1978 to above 50% in 2012 (Wu, Zhang, & Webster, 2013). The country is transforming from a traditional rural society to an urbanized and modern society (Logan, 2008). Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, together with Hong Kong and Taipei, are competing against each other to become ‘Asia's world city’ (Derudder et al., 2013). In order to interpret the rise of urban China, various theories such as the developmental state, entrepreneurialism and neoliberalism have been identified as underlying the remarkable growth (Harvey, 2005). There is a tremendous spatial transformation across the country (Wu, 2007). Principally, after 2000, over 100 university towns have been built across China, not only in large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but also in small cities such as Kunshan, Langfang, etc. (Ye, Chen, Chen, & Guo, 2014). Very little, however, is known about the mechanisms and the impacts of these specific constructions. Why has China built so many universities towns and in such a short time? What is the role played by the

* Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (Z. Li), lixun23@ 126.com (X. Li), [email protected] (L. Wang). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.08.005 0197-3975/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

governments? What are the impacts of such constructions on local communities? To answer these questions, this study will use Guangzhou University Town (GUT), one of the most representative cases, to examine the modality of making university towns across Chinese cities. Through a series of ethnographic fieldwork and surveys conducted during 2006e2013, we sought to decipher the specific political-economic reasons underlying the GUT project, to examine the roles played by various stakeholders such as local governments, and to evaluate its resultant impacts upon local communities. In the following sections we will proceed by outlining a theory of ‘speculative urbanism’ and highlight its relevance to recent urban transformations and the construction of university towns in China. The modality in construction of university towns differs to other contexts; rather, there are unique political-economic dynamics at play, as the speculative urbanism stimulates the entrepreneurial states at the local level to appropriate lands and thereby generate extra revenues. Then we interrogate the functions of various levels of governments and institutions such as provincial, city, district, sub-district, and villages in the process of building GUT, evaluating the impacts and outcomes. Discussions and conclusions upon the project will be further discussed in the final section.

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University town and speculative urbanism in post-reform China Along with the legendary cases of ‘university towns’ or college towns such as Oxford and Cambridge, the existence of university towns and the presence of educational institutions that pervade the economic and social life of cities has long been an inspiring topic covered by a plethora of literature. There are two types of university towns. One is the original or old type: in European cities, for instance, university towns are often hundreds of years old, having been founded before or around the Industrial Revolution. Such university towns as Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Leuven, Ghent, Heidelberg, developed not only into the center of higher education, but also the core of political, cultural and social dynamics. The second type, referring to the new type of university towns, are mainly built in the United States around 1900, this saw the development of hundreds of university towns in peripheral areas far from large cities, acting as a conduit for new institutions to serve growing student populations (Gumprecht, 2003). The distinction between the two types of university towns lies in their relation to the city or towns: in Europe universities emerged organically in locations where scholars and students gathered over time; in the US, however, large-scale settlements came after the emergence of universities. Different to the European model, many colleges in the US were founded before significant urban development had taken place. Later, this model of university town has been adopted worldwide, whereby the university town has become a typical facet of urban models (Adendorff & Donaldson, 2012; Lafer, 2003; Weber, 2001). Along with the acceptance of the notion that modern education is key to the rise of economy and society, most developing countries have prioritized the development of a modern system of higher education. Countries such as China also take the construction of university town as an important tool to support high-level education and cultivate much needed high-level intellectuals. In the first decade of 21st century, above 100 University towns have been built across China. These universities are largely built in populous provinces and their large cities, especially the developed coastal regions in the Eastern China such as Zhejiang, Guangdong and Fujian provinces (Table 1). Most of these university towns located a short distance from the central city. The size of university towns varies, ranging from the largest, Guangzhou University Town (4300 ha) to the smallest, South University Town of Shenyang City (180 ha). Furthermore, the scale of their student enrollments is diverse, ranging from 20,000 to 250,000 and the levels of investment involve ranges from RMB 800 million Yuan (about US$170 million) to RMB 30 billion Yuan (about US$4.8 billion) (Table 1).

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Why then has China built so many university towns, and in such a short space of time? The answers are multi-faceted. On the one hand, the building of university towns is attributed to the increasing demand for a highly skilled labor force needed to satisfy China's ascendant economy, this is particularly reflected by the sudden expansion in university enrollment after 2001 (Fig. 1), thus making clear the connection between the building of university towns to increases in student enrollment to Chinese universities post 2001. Due to the national policy set by the Education Ministry in 2000 to sustain and bolster China's upgrading industries, almost all Chinese universities expanded their enrollment quotas (Fig. 1). The total enrollment of universities went from just 597,000 in 1989, to 1.59 million in 1999, 3.20 million in 2002, and 5.04 million in 2005 (Lin, 2013). Given that most campuses of Chinese universities are located within the old central areas of large cities, problems of overcrowding and space deficiency are severe. Constructing University towns therefore becomes an ideal choice. Secondly, the building of university town also represents a strategy used by local states against the recentralized land use controls. On the one hand, differing to the leasing of land for commercial uses that requires the auctioning of land, the leasing of lands for educational use can utilize the method of negotiation, an approach more attractive to land users. Moreover, against the context of strengthened land use controls, it is relatively easier to obtain the agreement of the central governments for lands utilized for educational purposes. As such, the underlying reason of making university towns is attributed to the efforts of local governments to generate extra finances from lands. That is, the impact of university towns on surrounding communities engenders not only an increase in revenues for the city directly, but also serves to raise the value of land in surrounding areas. Almost every Chinese city witnessed an expansion of its built-up areas during last decades. What is the theoretical implication of this mass production of urban space? A number of theoretical frames have been applied to interrogate the production of space in postreform Chinese cities (Wu, 2007). Thomas J. Campanella, for instance, noted six features of urban development in China: speed, scale, spectacle, sprawl, class segregation, and sustainability, and links them to the rise of an unprecedented urban revolution (2008). It has been asserted that the formation of territorially based entrepreneurialism is a major force in post-socialist Chinese cities such as Shanghai, where entrepreneurial projects allow the state to tap into the market while maintaining its political legitimacy (Chien, 2013b; Wu, 2003). Zhang examined the case of Shanghai and identified a pro-growth coalition between local government and developers (Zhang, 2002). Zhu (2004) asserted that the new

Table 1 Selected university towns in China. Name

Province/municipality

Areas (ha)

Students (10,000)

Investments (100 million yuan)

Year of planning/ construction

Xianlin University Town Changzhou University Town Songjiang University Town Chongqing University Town Beijing Jili University Town South University Town Jiaonan University Town West University Town Fuzhou University Town Shenzhen University Town Guangzhou University Town

Jiangsu/Nanjing Jiangsu/Changzhou Shanghai Chongqing Beijing Liaolin/Shenyang Shandong/Qingdao Shanxi/Xi'an Fujian/Fuzhou Guangdong/Shenzhen Guangdong/ Guangzhou

3400 667 300 2000 200 180 2500 4000 2000 1200 4300

10 6 17 20 2 10 5 10 10 25 15

50 25 25 100 8 40 57 85 30 14 300

2002 2002 2000 2003 2000 2000 2004 2001 2001 2000 2002

Sources: data obtained from Shangguan, 2005, A study of the present conditions and the models of college town development in our country (Chongqing University, thesis); and other news sources; compiled by the author.

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Fig. 1. University enrollment increase, 1991e2008. Source: Educational Statistics Yearbook of China, 2009.

institutional arrangement of land development rights is behind the proliferation of the construction of new Chinese cities. On the one hand, the authoritarian regime of China has been highlighted as the driving force behind this rise in urbanism, mainly as the central government and its one-party system are seen to operate as the central organ in the organization of key issues in economic development, such as strategic sector developments, spatial planning, and land use (Xu, Yeh, & Wu, 2009). The key to understand China's recent rise lies in the understanding of its stateled spatial production (Hsing, 2010). Conversely, it is asserted that China's success should be attributed to nascent neo-liberal style reforms, the main feature being decentralization, within which local states gain incentives to pursue and maintain rapid levels of economic growth (Cai & Treisman, 2006). Harvey (2005), for instance, took China as a nascent case in his review of neo-liberalism history. He and Wu (2009) examined the process of urban redevelopment in Shanghai that legitimize and support the operation of land market. With a case study of Xintiandi, a major property-led redevelopment project in central Shanghai, He and Wu (2005) identified a growth coalition joined by the real estate developers, city government and district governments. Despite decentralization and recentralization as manifestations of either neoliberal or authoritarian practices being attributed to China's urban growth, the reality is one where the dynamic interactions between market and state are far more complicated (Chien, 2013a; Wu, Yeh, & Xu, 2006). Wu (2010), for instance, argued that the rise of neo-liberalism in China is not only conditioned by the development of a market society, it is also conditioned by the continuing involvement of the state in all spheres of activity. As such, the theories of neither decentralization nor recentralization can fully interpret the mechanisms of recent urban transformation in China. Such theories as ‘growth coalition’ (Logan & Molotch, 1987), ‘urban entrepreneurialism’ (Wu, 2003), or ‘neoliberalism’ (Harvey, 2005), that successfully applied to interpret the spatial production in the market economy or Western cities, can only be partially applied to the Chinese cities. Instead, the production of urban space in China tends to be driven by a hybrid political-economic milieu; that is, it is simultaneously subject to the effects of both market and governmental interventions. To further interrogate the remarkable expansion of the built-up areas in

Chinese cities, we should shift from such grand narratives as neoliberalism to the practically existed process of urban space production. As such, this study will contribute to the literature by articulating the modality and the local contexts against which such projects as university towns could be implemented at the local levels. A close examination upon the making of university town is the key to further improve our understanding of the dynamic process of recent urbanization in China. We argue that China's recent urban spatial production is largely the result of a speculative urbanism, i.e. local states create new space in the hope of making profits, however this also involves a high risk of failure. It suggests recent urban transformation in China is linked to the highly remunerative challenge of transforming rural economies into urban real estate. Land speculation and dispossession of those being marginalized on land upon which new urban space is built, is the main business of government (Xu et al., 2009). Thereby, 'speculative urbanism' may be used to describe current land development regime in Chinese cities. First, speculative urbanism highlights the complicated relations between the central and the local governments during the rise of urbanism. It suggests the concomitant impacts of both decentralization and recentralization. Though the local states have been authorized freedom to implement such projects as university towns, the process is often experimental and it is under a high risk of being overruled by the central governments. Second, it indicates the ambitious of the local states to make profits that include both monetary income and political capitals to achieve successful promotions. Against the context of an intensive competition among the local officials to obtain promotion, such glorious construction projects as university towns is de facto a platform for the local leaders to exhibit their ability of management or governance. In details, the local state is a major engine of this speculative urbanism. Walder (1995) suggests that against the existence of a so-called ‘local state corporatism’, the Chinese local state has been strongly involved in business matters, yet these efforts are supervised and regulated by the central government. Zhou suggests that China's government should be understood as at the head of an outsourcing system that covers various levels of territorial administrative units (Zhou, 2009). The financial reform in 1994 paved the way for China's ‘federal financial regime’, which stimulates the local

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states compete against each other to achieve growth (Jin, Qian, & Weingast, 2005). Most of the local governments have achieved great financial competence meaning they can maintain and (re) produce the necessary infrastructure and spaces. Land lies at the center of this politics; in particular land becomes the most important source of local revenues, thereby defining the behavior and actions of local governments. For instance, between 2001 and 2003, in Shaoxing, Jinhua and Yiwu, three prosperous cities in Zhejiang Province, the revenues originated from the selling of land use rights amounted to 60% of the total government income (Zhou, 2009). Second, the development of land-centered speculative urbanism can be divided into three periods. Between 1984 and 1991, a new land market was materializing at the same time when a landcentered speculative urbanism appeared. Starting in 1984, Shenzhen, the primary experimental field of China's burgeoning market, obtained financial support for its urban constructions through the selling of land use rights. Later Economic and Technological Development Zones at state-level had been set up in the cities of Dalian, Qinhuangdao, Ningbo, Qingdao, Yantai, Zhanjiang, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Nantong, Lianyungang and Fuzhou. In 1986 Shanghai's two zones Hongqiao and Minghang joined the group. These areas were conferred as special economic zones, enjoying policy advantages such as tax break or exemptions, as well as receiving great support in the maintenance and management of facilities, so that they successfully became the major accumulation of investments. The next period, contemporaneous with Deng Xiaoping's 1992 southern excursion, China's shift in direction towards marketization, was further confirmed by an outpour of land marketing and new urban space production. Between 1992 and 2003, the decentralization of both fiscal and management power stimulated the entrepreneurial efforts of local states to repeat the success of statelevel development zones. A plethora of development zones appeared from the southeast coastal cities to inland cities taking total number of such development zones increased from just 117 in 1991 to 2700 in 1992 (Cartier, 2001). These were sanctioned by different levels of judicial approval, from central government, province and city to town and county, with sizes ranging from a medium-sized city to a few parcels of land. All these development zones sought to achieve the same target: Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), modern economic sectors, high-tech industries, and so on. It is impossible, however, for so many places to grasp the investment to the same extent at the same time. In order to attract investors, development zones would compete against each other by granting lands to investors at lower prices, through direct negotiations rather than through an auction, this resulted in the loss of land values, and led to an overflow of problems such as malignant competition, land speculation, and illegal construction. The investment excesses have come to destabilizing the regional economy and resulted in the financial disaster in the late 1990s. For instance, in June 1998 the Hainan Development Bank, the main banker to the Hainan provincial government, was forced to close after a spectacular property bubble burst (Cartier, 2001) As a result, the central government actively sought to clean up and rectify problematic development zones. First, the right of land leasing has been recentralized with the right on the expropriation of large-scale lands now firmly under the control of the central government. At its extreme, applications for building new development zones or expanding zones were entirely disapproved. In 2003, a total of 6015 sites, covering a total of 35,400 km2 lost their identities as development zones (Wu & Le, 2009). Accordingly, the fever of development zones stopped. In Beijing, for instance, the number of development zones decreased from 470 to 28, when 1500 km2 of lands were removed from the list of development zones (Wu & Le, 2009). Nevertheless, the speculative urbanism was

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sustained. Beginning with Pudong New District of Shanghai (Wei & Leung, 2005) and, followed by Binhai New District of Tianjin in 2006, Chongqing, Chengdu, ChangshaeZhuzhoueXiangtan, and Wuhan in 2007, and Shenyang in 2010, became the pilot zone for a new but comprehensive reforms in China. To legitimate their landcentered profit seeking, local states started to invent and resort to various types of ‘chameleon’-like projects, such as ‘new city’, ‘ecocity’ or ‘university town’. Chien (2013b), for instance, asserted that the building of Chinese eco-cities is driven by ‘land-speculationoriented local entrepreneurialism’. These eco-cities may generate not only more local extra-budgetary revenue, but also social conflicts as opposed to sustainable development. In Suzhou, Yang and Wang (2008) identified a ‘specific mode of governance’ in the ‘Development Zone Fever’ and highlighted the impacts of ‘the party-state's promotion system’ in China. They found that this model of development is not necessarily helpful for local financial conditions and it results in the displacement of peasants and the loss of land resources. It is against this context that the number of university towns built across Chinese cities multiplied. However, several key issues remain to be explored: how do various levels of the governments interact? What are the considerations of the local governments when build university towns? How entrepreneurial is the local government? What are the effects of such constructions? What are their impacts upon local communities? etc. In the following section, Guangzhou University Town (GUT), a typical case, will be examined to understand the dynamic processes of university town constructions, specifically focusing on the role played by various levels of local government, and the impact upon local residents. Fieldwork was conducted in GUT in October 2006, June 2007, June 2009, May 2012, and June 2013, including over 60 interviews with local villagers, students, planners and officials, covering all the ten universities and the four villages within the town. In addition we utilized additional data sources including newspapers, government documents, and statistical data to examine the process. A case study: Guangzhou University Town Guangzhou, or Canton, the capital city of Guangdong Province, is a city with a rich history dating back over two thousand years (Fig. 2). Located at the center of the prospering Pearl River Delta (PRD), it has always been the center of economy, politics, culture and education of south China (Xu & Yeh, 2003). In 2000, however, large amounts of state-owned enterprises moved out of high-price central Guangzhou, industries relocated to the state-level Guangzhou Economic Development Zone in the north suburb, and others to PRD cities such as Shenzhen which were becoming increasingly competitive. Guangzhou needed an urgent effort to maintain its competitive advantages. It is against this context that Guangzhou decided to build a university town. As early as the first part of the 1990s, local scholars and planners started to discuss the demand for and the possibility of building a university town for Guangzhou. In 2000, in order to stave off competition from neighbors as Shenzhen, the construction of GUT became the concerned of the government. Similar to other Chinese universities, most students in Guangzhou live and study within the campus. Saying this, when Guangzhou began to enlarge the scale of its university student enrollments in the earlier 2000s, there was a high demand to seek extra space. Meanwhile, Guangzhou adjusted its administrative boundaries to obtain new lands for future development. This was as its high-density central areas could not provide the large amount of cheap land required to improve public facilities such as universities. Rather, suburban areas such as Panyu and Nansha become the major destination of new buildings and constructions (Fig. 2). In order to connect the central city and

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Fig. 2. The location of Guangzhou University Town.

the southern suburbs, Xiaoguwei Island and its surrounding areas e one site between the central city and Panyu District, were chosen as the sites of GUT. With a total land area of 43.3 km2, the plan of GUT was composed of two parts divided into two phases of construction: the first part is Xiaoguwei Island, with an area of 18 km2 with construction equaling 7.16 million m2, inclusive of ten universities together with public facilities such as libraries, museums, hospitals; the second part, facing the south bank of Xiaoguwei island, is planned to hold a total area of 95.3 km2 for over 20

universities, though this next stage has yet to be materialized (Interview, 2013). The location of GUT is carefully considered: its north neighbor, Guangzhou Island, for instance, is developing into Guangzhou's major biological technological R&D center, Guangzhou International Bio-island. Moreover, Changzhou Historical and Cultural Preservation Zone, a tourist destination, is in the east, while a populous commodity-housing community, Luoxi Island, exists in the west. The whole region thus provides an advantageous environment for high-tech industries, well-educated elites, and

Fig. 3. The map of Guangzhou University Town.

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related institutions (Fig. 3). Historically, Xiaoguwei was a quiet island for above 10,000 peasants of such villages as Shuishi, Lianxi, Guolang, Nanting and Beiting, after the construction of GUT, however, everything on the island will be changed. The implementation of the project In order to implement the project, various levels of local states joined together and composed a project-oriented regime: this included, from high to low, Guangdong provincial government, Guangzhou city government, Panyu District government, township governments such as Xinzhao Town, and Xiaoguwei Street Office. We highlight the ‘boosterism’ underlying the behavior of various levels of the local governments that sustains speculative urbanism. In details, the construction of GUT faced several challenges. Firstly, it faced difficulties legitimizing the project in terms of its lands use so that the project faced a potential problem of being rejected by the high-level governments. According to China's Land Management Law, the use of any farmland above 35 ha must receive the direct approval of the State Council (i.e. the central government), while the scale that can be legitimatized by the province and city is far smaller. In order to keep the power of approval within the hands of local governments, in 2003 the farm lands on Xiaoguwei, amounting to about 1000 ha, was divided into 39 parcels, each smaller than 35 ha, in order to circumvent the central government and apply to the provincial government (by Interviewee 2007). In fact, other university towns also adopted such a strategy in order to receive legitimation for similar projects. In Nanjing, the construction of Xianlin University Town and Pukou University Town together involve a total land of about 600 ha, which was divided into 17 parcels so as to get the approval of the provincial government (Interview, 2007). Secondly, the construction of GUT involved a total input of above RMB 30 billion Yuan (USD 4.8 billion). Where did this investment come from? Of course, universities are unable to afford such huge levels of funding, as such the construction of GUT was supported by a variety of investments and funders. The major investors were local governments, both provincial and municipal (told by Interviewee 2012). First, the Guangdong Provincial Government invested about RMB 14 billion Yuan (US$2.2 billion) for the construction of campus buildings for universities such as Sun Yat-sen University. Second, Guangzhou Municipal Government invested about RMB 11 billion Yuan (US$1.8 billion) to build essential infrastructure such as a water-heating system. Thirdly, the universities, whose direct investment is limited, invested about RMB two billion into the construction of other buildings (Lin, 2013). Each of the university plots, for instance, is administratively allocated directly to universities, rather than through the usual method of land auctions, thus rendering cheaper land prices. According to a report by the Ministry of Land and Resources of the PRC, about 84% of the land in use by university towns of China has been administratively allocated. In addition, the Guangdong provincial government acted as the financial guarantor when universities sought bank loans. In our case, from the total investment of about RMB 11.7 billion Yuan (US$1.9 billion) by the ten universities, RMB 7.5 billion Yuan (US$1.2 billion) was collected through bank loans (Lin, 2013). It is evident that local banks played a very active role in the collation of investments. Such a huge amount of bank loans therefore threatens the future development of university town, specifically paying off the loans is almost impossible; even the annual interest on the loans already exerts significant pressure on universities. To guarantee high-speed construction, specific institutional arrangements were set up for the GUT project. The construction of GUT can be traced back to August 2000 when Guangzhou Planning Bureau began to look for the site for GUT, with 12 sites around the

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central city considered. On March 2, 2001, Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee, the main institution for managing the city, selected Xiaoguwei as the site for GUT. Later, on Dec 24, 2001, permission was obtained from Guangdong Provincial Government. Meanwhile, the design stage of GUT commenced and in late 2001 a conceptual plan was confirmed. Then on February 27, 2002, the Provincial Leadership Committee for GUT project, headed by the leaders of both Guangdong province and Guangzhou, was set up. In June 10, 2002, the construction of GUT began simultaneously with the beginning of the demolition of Xiaoguwei and the relocation of its villagers. On January 21, 2003, Zhang Dejiang, the late provincial head, visited the construction site and declared the opening date of GUT to be September 1, 2004, signaling the need for high-speed construction of GUT. Thereby, one day after Zhang's visit, on January 22, 2003, the GUT Management Office, headed by Lin Shushen, the late mayor of Guangzhou, was set up by Guangzhou Municipal Government to directly control the process of construction. Together with planners, engineers and other officials from about 130 companies and institutions, above 100,000 construction workers amassed on the island (Lin, 2013). Simultaneously, detailed planning, design, and construction happened nearly at the same time at an unusually high speed. As such, the construction of GUT is clearly a state project: various levels of local governments have been involved, experienced specialists of various fields have been grouped, and a firm coalition between the state and the market has been built. Two specific committees, headed by top governmental officials of both provincial and city level, have been set up to organize and coordinate the construction, signaling a temporary but important arrangement to guarantee the success of the project. Demolition, relocation and reconstruction The tough task of the demolition and relocation of villages on Xiaoguwei Island were allocated to Panyu District government. As mentioned, the demolishing and relocation started at June 10, 2002, however due to the resistance of some villagers, the speed of the demolishment and relocation was by no means quick compared to other projects in China, lasting until the end of November 2003. Nevertheless, it is still a big ‘achievement’ as a total of 14,000 original residents were relocated during this time. In order to implement the demolition and relocation, a variety of strategies were utilized by Panyu District (by Interviewee 2007). Before the demolition, a new community, namely Guwei New Village (GNV), was built in the north of Panyu District in Xinzhao Town, a place very near to Xiaoguwei Island, to accommodate the relocated villagers. GNV, includes a total of 1008 villas, 2208 apartments, schools, nurseries, clinics and other facilities, involving a total investment of RMB 78 million Yuan (US$12.5 million), villagers can buy houses here at a low price, about RMB 1200 Yuan (US$192)/m2 (Interview, 2012). As the main investor for this community was the municipal government, the district government used its lands to support the project. The creation of this community has guaranteed the future accommodation of relocated villagers and thus becomes a major stimulation for the success of relocation. Moreover, the district government is responsible for the negotiation with both the villagers and the village committees, the de facto managers of the villages. On April 16, 2004, a hearing was organized by Panyu Land Resources and Housing Administrative Bureau to negotiate with villagers and their representatives about the specific terms of the demolishment and relocation, this is the first hearing for such an issue in Guangzhou (Interview, 2007). Accordingly, each of the relocated households received compensation of about RMB 270,000 Yuan (US$43,206), representing the highest compensation package when juxtaposed with similar

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relocations in the city. In order to guarantee the implementation of this project in such a short space of time, the governments found it necessary to make great concessions and appease the villagers (Interview, 2007). As a result, above RMB 4.4 billion Yuan (US$700 million) was dedicated to this demolishing and relocation. Nevertheless, this compensation has not been put into private hands; rather, the collectives, i.e. the Village Committee, manage most of it whilst each villager just earned RMB 30,000e50,000 Yuan (US$4800e8001); a number of interviewees convey their anger and unease about such arrangements. In order to stimulate the swift relocation of villagers, flexible policies were also applied. If a given household agreed to move out of Xiaoguwei before the imposed deadline for demolition and relocation, each of its members will earn a bonus of RMB 20,000 Yuan (US$3200), plus a discount of RMB 600 Yuan (US$96)/m2 when they purchase their new homes (Interview, 2007). Another problem was the need to consider the future of the village collectives and the lives of landless farmers. Historically, these collective committees played a major role as the main welfare provider and facility maintenance for its villagers. In order to sustain the development of a collective economy, the government negotiated with the village committee and decided to allocate a proportion of land to the village committees for future usage, this amounted to about 15% of the total expropriated land. As such, a total of about 3.2 million sq. m land in Xinzhao Town were expropriated further and given to the six village committees for collective use, meaning that the rent earned from the land was to be directly used by the committees or its villagers (Lin, 2013). In fact, it was also decided that a shopping mall should be built on this land as it is estimated that a huge amount of rent can be collected through such means. Moreover, the government purchased both medical and endowment insurance for the now landless villagers, though this was financed mainly from the demolition and relocation fund (Interview, 2007). With this aspect of welfare secured for old villagers, men above 60 and woman above 55 were in place to earn RMB 450 Yuan (US$72) per month to maintain a basic life (Interview, 2008). Nevertheless, given the high cost of demolition and relocation, only two villages have been totally demolished (Interview, 2007), whilst parts of four villages (Beigang, Shuishi, Nanting, and Beiting) are

Fig. 4. The landscape of the university campus in Guangzhou University Town. Source: http://www.gcpo.com.cn (visit 2014-07-30).

left untouched. In contrast to the well-maintained modernist and post-modernist style buildings of GUT, these four villages later became enclaves marked by a relatively disordered landscape (Figs. 4e6). Impacts and results Though parts of the main construction lasted until the end of 2005, most of the constructions have been completed before the proposed deadline of September 1, 2004. As a mega-project, GUT saw the construction of hundreds of buildings together with two hundred kilometers of roads. In particular, these took place in just 27 months (June 2002eSeptember 2004), a very short space of time. Nevertheless, the construction of GUT has been ongoing, with various other facilities such as the Guangdong Science Center, gymnasiums built for the Asian Games in 2010, and other public buildings being built on the island. The island has been divided into thirds by three circle lines: Inner Circle Line (ICL), Middle Circle Line (MCL), and Outer Circle Line (OCL) (Fig. 3). The ten universities are built at the area between MCL and OCL, while other facilities such as gas stations, gymnasiums, museums, bookstores, and so on are built in the area between the MCL or ICL. The underlying ideology driving decisions is the desire to provide a shared system of infrastructure or facilities for the universities, in order to cultivate communications among various universities and thereby to transform the traditional segregated spatial structure of Chinese university campuses. In addition, a middle axis has been built along the subway (L2 in Fig. 3). Specifically, the lands on the axis, from the north to the south, were left to for commodity housing projects or estates (see Fig. 3). All the buildings of the campuses have been carefully designed: for example, the buildings of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, designed by famous Chinese architect, Zhu Wenyi, are painted red, and their balustrades are carefully designed to be notable, and to create a unique landscape. By August 2004, a total of 143 buildings had been built, the total area of which equals to 2.3 million m2. Furthermore, a 186 km long transportation system has been developed and the area of newly built facilities reaches 8.6 km2. In September 1, 2004, around 40,000 students entered GUT to becoming its new residents. The number of students has

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Fig. 5. The landscape of the real estate in Guangzhou University Town. Photo by author, 2014e06.

Fig. 6. The landscape of the villages in Guangzhou University Town. Photo by author, 2014e06.

been steadily increasing in last years and reaching about 150,000 in 2013 (Lin, 2013). Within the shadows of the shining campuses, four villages (Beigang, Shuishi, Nanting, and Beiting) have become identifiable enclaves surrounded by modern buildings (Fig. 6). Above 6000 villagers still live and work in these villages. On the other hand, a total of 2906 households, about 10,000 residents, have been relocated into GNV, signaling the beginning of a new life for them. Nearly half of the landless farmers have no formal jobs, meaning they must find an alternative means to make a living, most villagers decided to rent their houses to strangers who worked in the campuses (Interview, 2007). The rent they received is by no means high: for one family, they can earn about RMB 1000 Yuan (US$160) to RMB 1500 Yuan (US$240) per month (Interview, 2012). Furthermore, a number of women chose to work on bead threading, in order to earn extra income. Moreover, with the help of the Street Office, selected villagers were employed as service workers for the campuses, mainly in low-end professions such as weeding, cleaning, and guarding (Interview, 2013). Moreover, thousands of migrants, students, and businessmen arrived in the villages to open 's amongst others shops, restaurants, hotels, studios, Internet Cafe (see Fig. 6). These villages thus become the major site for providing middle or low-end services for universities. In fact, this is as a result of the delayed development of service sectors in GUT. Except for several shopping malls built in the university plots, very few formal or high-quality service facilities can be found or built in recent years, such that the villages filled the vacuum by acting as the main sites for service infrastructure. Accordingly, in order to procure more rent, the height of buildings increased, and the width of streets narrowed in the villages (Fig. 6). A remarkable process of densification can thus be identified. In this sense, all these four villages can be understood as so-called urban villages (chengzhongcun in Chinese), entering into the same trajectory of development as other urban villages (Hao, Sliuzas, & Geertman, 2011). For the ten universities, they now faced a new problem, namely that of transportation between GUT and the old central city, where most teachers live (Interview, 2013). On the one hand, very few housing space can be found on the island to accommodate teachers

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as prior to 2009, no commodity housing had been built on the island. On the other hand however, GUT is now linked with the central city through subways, though it is still a long commute. The teachers of Sun Yat-sen University, for instance, need to take a bus for 3e4 h every day to travel around 60 km, from the central city to GUT. Moreover, the bus service between GUT and the central city is also far from satisfactory. This is also a problem for students, as a large number of them require a frequent transportation between the central city and GUT. Moreover, a highly expected real estate boom took place in GUT (Fig. 5). In late 2007, two estates on its axis (Fig. 3) were auctioned in order to build commodity housing, with the prices of these lands soon attracted the attention of the whole city. In December 2009, for example, five plots with a total of 66,208 m2 land were auctioned for a total price of RMB 1.92 billion Yuan (US$300 million) with the average price as high as RMB 9276 Yuan (US$1484) (Zhang, 2013). This was more than the cost of any other plots in the city, thereby indicating that the land of GUT has become very competitive in the local land market. In this way, a total of 23 plots have been auctioned off in order to build commodity housing in GUT demonstrating the success of the aim of the local government to acquire profits through this speculative construction (Interview, 2013). Discussion and conclusions In post-reform China, urban land use planning has replaced economic planning as the main vehicle of state intervention in the local political economy. Since the 1990s, land rents have become one of the most important sources of local state revenue. Development projects, especially high-profile ones such as high-tech parks, special economic zones, high-rise clusters or gigantic new cities, are all built by local states. This paper is focused on the construction of the University Town, a specific local project, in which local governments liaise and fraternize with various agencies to ensure and sustain high-speed land-centered growth. Through the investment into public infrastructures such as university towns, high-speed railways and so on, the local states not only improve their competitive status, they also maintain the circulation of burgeoning capital. The considerations for the building, and especially the location of the university towns is often linked to a specific strategy for a spatial restructuring of the city. In our case, the location of GUT is a strategically important site for to link the central city and the south such as Panyu and Nansha District, so that the construction of GUT reveals the intention of the municipal government to distribute important resources towards the south, with the hope that it will act as an accelerant to attract investors to the region. Along with a number of flagship projects such as Guangzhou South Railway Station and the Asian Game Village, GUT is used as a landmark to show the ambition of the city to create a new future. In China, local leaders are not elected locally by the people but are selected by the upper level of government on the basis of their economic performance. As such, local officials do their best to utilize their territories in order to achieve accelerated growth, granting them the political capital to draw the attention of the upper level of government thereby increasing their chances of obtaining a promotion. Zhang Dejiang, formerly the Party Committee Secretary of Guangdong province, was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister of China in 2008. Lin Shushen, formerly the Mayor of Guangzhou, was also promoted to be the Governor of Guizhou Province in 2006. It seems that the GUT project represents a major achievement in their roles, despite the economic success of GUT is not very evident. Against the backdrop of a competitive promotion regime, local officials strive to use their territories to create fortunes, cultivate

high-quality laborers, and develop better facilities to attract investment. With this territorial politics, innovation and learning of locally initiated models such as building university towns therefore become very important. As argued by Chien (2007, 2013a), these projects could be selectively institutionalized, evolved or adopted by the central state and the attitude of the central government is decisive, as it can choose to connive, adopt, or reject such innovations. In our case, for instance, in order to push the de facto implementation beyond the de jure central regulations, a number of illegal actions have been recorded: namely, the tricks played by the local states to get the permission of land use, the unusually high speed of construction, and the over-active role played by the local states in securing bank loans. Wen Jiabao, the late Prime Minister of China, visited GUT in 2005 to talk with students and praised GUT's beautiful scenery, this can be taken as a symbol of the connivance of the central government to the GUT project. However, not every university town project has had such good luck. Also in 2005, according to a report of the National Audit Office, the illegal operations of nine university towns including that of Nanjing, Zhuhai, Langfang, and Hangzhou have been revealed, leading to the halting of construction. After reform the power over land use was largely decentralized in China, defining the purpose of land use and assigning land-use rights became primarily local government decisions. Local governments exerted the main influence on the pricing and transfer of land-use rights. As a consequence, massive amounts of farmland have been expropriated, as industrial and commercial land use constitute a major source of local government revenue. Differing to the traditional model of selling lands to investors, it is the local states that paid for most of the construction of GUT, and though the universities also paid in part, they did not directly engage in any industrial or commercial use. On one hand, the building of GUT is in alignment with China's national strategy of developing the country through science and education, so that to a certain extent it can be connived by the central government, however facing the challenge of an enlargement of the number of students, GUT acted to rectify the practical problem of space and facility shortages for universities. On the other hand, against the context of enhanced regulations by the central government upon land use, it is the ‘speculation’ used by the local states to further improve its investment environment in terms of qualified labor forces, eyecatching constructions, and high-quality environments. In our case, the middle axis of GUT has become the major site of real estate investment in recent years, with prices among the highest of all estate plots in Guangzhou. That said, through the building of university towns, the local government successfully exaggerates the values of the land in its surrounding areas, in order to stimulate then grasp land profits. In sum, a land-centered speculative urbanism is central to the construction of university towns. It has been found that the speed of construction is seen as the highest priority, leading to great conflicts. Negotiations are utilized, creative approaches marked by flexibility are been applied, while the local villagers and their communities have been marginalized. The objectives of building GUT include solving the shortage of university space with an increasing enrollment, and speculating on land by circumventing central regulation. Also it includes the objectives to achieve promotion for local officials through the implementation and resultant social effects of such mega-projects. However, all these three facets are speculative. For instance, GUT is lucky as it obtained the connivance of the central government to implement the project. However, not every project can have such good luck, as presented by the halting of the construction of other university towns. Even risky problems include the repayment of the bank loans by the universities, and these loans have already become a major burden

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threatening the development of the universities. For instance, The Oriental University Town in Langfang, near Beijing, owed over RMB 2 billion Yuan (US$320 million) to both banks and private investors, leading to it being rendered financially bankrupt (Chen, 2010). In around a decade, hundred thousands of students and teachers have converged into university towns, leading to an evident increase of land price which has been identified. High-quality facilities have been constructed, and thousands of the middle-class have moved into newly constructed estates. The construction of university town underlines the rise of a land-centered speculative urbanism in Chinese cities. It represents a de facto local state project featured by a pro-growth strategy, the coalition of various levels of local states, and the deprivation of local communities. Alike other cases, GUT has witnessed a great increase in the housing prices of its surrounding areas, to the extent that a so-called ‘university town economy’ has been widely referenced. In Hangzhou, for instance, seven of the top ten estates in terms the number of properties sold are located within the region of Hangzhou University Town (Interview, 2013). Investors and residents are attracted to the surroundings of the university towns, so that the price of both land and housing of the surrounding area increase. However, the project is by no means without problems. Local residents such as displaced villagers are largely marginalized, whilst the profit and livelihood of landless farmers is not fully guaranteed. Even the provision of facilities and the infrastructure of university towns are far from perfect, for example, the transportation between the university towns and the central city has often been criticized, and this becomes a major problem for both teachers and students, specifically in the case of Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou. Few opportunities for training or internships can be found in or around university towns for students, as most neighboring lands have been used for real estate investments rather than industrial or high-tech sectors. Such cases indicate the potential problem of ‘land-centered speculative urbanism,’ and the dangers that it will further contribute to the already crisis-rooted real estate market in Chinese cities. Acknowledgments This research is supported by Chinese National Natural Science Foundation project entitled the incorporation of new immigrants in the large cities in China (41422103, 41271163) and a major project of Chinese National Science Foundation (41130747). It is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (3161396), one The Ministry of Education Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences Planning Fund (12YJAGJW007), and a Key Project of Philosophy and Social Sciences Research of Ministry of Education (11JZD028). We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and Dr. Zhu Qian of University of Waterloo for their invaluable comments. References Adendorff, A., & Donaldson, R. (2012). Knowledge-based service industry in a South African university town: the case of Stellenbosch. Development Southern Africa, 29(3), 418e433. Cai, H. B., & Treisman, D. (2006). Did government decentralization cause China's economic miracle? World Politics, 58(4), 505e535. Campanella, T. J. (2008). The concrete dragon: China's urban revolution and what it means for the world. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

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