Shenzhen

Abstract

As China’s first Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to spur economic growth after the near collapse of the socialist centrally-planned economy in 1980, Shenzhen has transformed the agriculture-based Bao’an County into a 21st century metropolis housing over four million people. The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SSEZ) was built through demolishing native villages and the territorial spaces on which it now stands have undergone incessant pressure to restructure: agricultural land was first razed to give way to an industry-led SEZ which itself has been reconfigured since the 1980s as a result of internal and external changes. The physical growth and restructuring of the city reflect the imagination and bold experimentation of the government and urban planners who had no prior experience of planning for the growth of the invisible hand in a fledgling socialist market economy. This paper argues that while socio-economic and spatial planning have played an important and exploratory role in Shenzhen’s breathtaking growth from an outward processing SEZ to an aspiring world city of the 21st century, the city needs to work harder to establish an effective development control system.