Urban entrepreneurialism and mega-events in transitional urban China : a case study of Expo 2010 in Shanghai

Abstract

Fordism-Keynesianism gradually transited to neoliberalism during 1970s economic recession in capitalist society, shifting urban governance from managerialism to entrepreneurialism. At the same time, China’s 1978 political-economic reform has led to a rapid development and a profound urban transformation characterized by globalization, neo-liberal decentralization and marketization over the past thirty years. To sustain the development and further promote the transformation, mega-events as one of those entrepreneurial policy programs are increasingly favored and widely used by city policy makers. Adopting urban entrepreneurialism as the theoretical perspective, this research explores mega-events, aiming to resolve two debates concerning urban entrepreneurialism and mega-events in the context of China: whether mega-events are effective and sustainable ways for China’s urban development in entrepreneurial city discourses and whether Chinese cities and their local states are entrepreneurial in nature in mega-events? It then takes Shanghai Expo 2010 as the case, focusing on how the Expo as entrepreneurial city action impacts on Shanghai’s urban transformation and how different stakeholders behave in the Expo development. Analysis of the case provides some findings resolving the debates.

First, through landscape reconfiguration, spatial restructuring and new sources provision, Expo 2010 effectively transforms Shanghai city within a short time, showing entrepreneurial city qualities in diminutive spatial scale. However, it fails to improve social life except those who under high media exposure and is powerless to impress the world as China has little voice in the Western mainstream media. Moreover, while Expo 2010 generally benefits sustainable development by using energy saving technologies in Expo Park, by creating “Shanghai Mode” rehabilitation for affected communities and by preserving industrial and cultural heritage for future creative industry development, it still negatively impacts general urban living and causes exorbitant investment.

Then, entrepreneurial governance is manifested in Expo operation as municipal government unites various stakeholders to ensure the smooth progress of the event, a process explicable by both urban regime and growth machine models. The private sectors are encouraged by municipal government to join Expo market as sponsors or developers and are mobilized interests triggered by Expo opportunities. Civil communities play auxiliary roles that must be united by government to achieve long-term growth. Urban planners are important inter-mediators among stakeholders in Expo, serving municipal government for urban growth. Although “Local Developmental State” model exhibits at municipal level as “development” represents the primary legitimizing principle of the state above those of individuals and the plan-rationality suppresses the market rationality, the “Entrepreneurial State” model can better interpret the nature of government in terms of coordination and partnership in Expo 2010. The government start-ups commercially operate in financing, investment attraction and land development, actively cooperating with private, foreign capitals and other social forces.

These findings imply that the event-led restructuring is overall effective for the transformation of urban order from traditional industries to flexible leisure consumption, from monocentric city to polycentric mega-city region, consistent with the tide of postmodern city. They also imply that the operation of Expo by municipal government is entrepreneurial in nature, corresponding to the emerging neo-liberalization with Chinese characteristics.