City profile: Suzhou - a Chinese city under transformation

Lei Wang a*, Jianfa Shen a, Calvin King Lam Chung b

a Department of Geography and Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

b Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, UK

* Corresponding author. Tel: +852 5495 7588.

Email addresses: wanglei.kim@gmail.com (L. Wang), Jianfa@cuhk.edu.hk (J. Shen), calvin_chung64@hotmail.com (C. Chung).

Acknowledgement

The paper is based on research funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China 41329001. Thanks due to anonymous referees for their constructive comments.

Suzhou is located at the center of lower Yangtze River Delta (YRD). With a history of more than 2,500 years, it has been transformed from a famous national commercial city in history to a vanguard of globalization known as a modern industrial city in contemporary China. It was not until the reform and opening in 1978 that the traditional spatial structure of the city was jeopardized. It has become an industrial base of Shanghai and relied on foreign direct investment and foreign trade remarkably through a new industrialization path of constructing development zones at various levels. Paralleling economic growth, it has exhausted massive agricultural land and caused rampant urban sprawl because spatial planning was not effective in development control. However, spatial planning does play an important role in the conservation of the ancient city which made Suzhou another model in the country. Lastly, some issues and challenges ahead in planning and governance are also discussed.

Introduction

Suzhou is located in the west of Shanghai and in the center of lower YRD. With the Yangtze River to its north and Tai Lake to its southwest, its total area is 8,487.7 km2 (Figure 1). The municipality is dotted by a number of hills along the Tai Lake in the southwest, the highest one of which is the Qionglu hill (342 m). Elsewhere, the whole municipality is quite flat, being only two to three meters above the sea level. Suzhou is famous for its livable environment, developed economy and delicate Chinese classical gardens. With an urban history of 2,500 years accumulating a large number of famous historic sites, buildings and stories, the city is protected in the list of Chinese Famous Historic and Cultural City. Moreover, it is also privileged by beautiful natural and human landscapes, such as the scenic belt along Tai Lake and waterside townships.

Suzhou was recognized nationally as a leading commercial hub and grain production base in history. In modern China, Suzhou was forced to open and suffered ups and downs, as one forefront of struggles. However, in contemporary China, as one of the vanguards of globalization

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in the country, it has transformed into an industrial city. Along its way of industrialization and globalization, Suzhou has been extensively documented in the literature, with respect to its socio-spatial attributes of information and communication technology (ICT) industry clustering (Wei et al., 2013; Wei et al., 2011), path of industrial upgrading (Ma and Fan, 1994; Wei, 2002; Wei et al., 2009), as well as local economic and spatial governance responses (Chien, 2008, 2013; Luo et al., 2011; Yang and Wang, 2008). However, there is lack of a comprehensive introduction of Suzhou’s transformation and the roles of spatial planning in recent development. Particularly, the expansion of development zones also shows how the city has embarked on economic globalization.

Adding to those Chinese cities such as Hong Kong (Cullinane and Cullinane, 2003), Macau (Tang and Sheng, 2009), Shanghai (Wu, 1999), Shenzhen (Ng, 2003), Guangzhou (Xu and Yeh, 2003) and Qingdao (Zhang and Rasiah, 2013) which have been documented already, Suzhou, as an ancient city now has declined into a secondary city in the Chinese city system, shows some differences in its development trajectory towards modernization and urbanization. This profile primarily focuses on the city proper of Suzhou, while also discusses the whole municipality when relevant. It firstly introduces the city’s historical development, followed by a detailed discussion on the socio-spatial transformation since China’s open door policy in 1978. Then, the role of spatial planning in development control and ancient city conservation is also investigated. Some remaining issues and challenges are discussed in the last part.

Figure 1 The location of Suzhou (F9, F11 and F13 in the map represent the locations of Figure 9, Figure 11 and Figure 13)

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Source: By authors

Historical development

Like many other ancient Chinese cities, Suzhou as an urban entity was born out of military needs (Chen, 1995). It was built in 514 BC by Helü, the king of Wu, with the name of Dacheng. By the late Qin dynasty (221 - 207 BC), a county government unit was established in Suzhou. Located with excellent conditions of subtropical climate and water network, Suzhou developed a highly productive sector of rice cultivation. It has been always regarded as one of the richest places in history. It developed rapidly as many people migrated from the Yellow River Basin to the south during the politically-unstable Eastern Han Dynasty (25 - 220 AD). However, Suzhou’s golden age of development did not arrive until the Sui Dynasty (581 - 618 AD), when the city was linked to other major Chinese cities to its north after the completion of the Great Canal (an old trade artery connecting Beijing and Hangzhou). It soon became a gateway of grain transportation from East China to North China.

Subsequently, Suzhou had become one of the national economic centers of trade, textile industry and handicraft industry (Chen, 1995). For example, the Suzhou-style embroidery produced in the city has been famous for centuries. Various elegant private gardens were built by the leading merchants and retired officials during the Song dynasty (960 - 1279 AD). The private garden construction reached its zenith during the Ming-Qing period (1368 - 1840 AD). As the Chinese old saying goes, “in heaven is paradise; on earth are Suzhou and Hangzhou”. Representing the Chinese garden’s highest level of artistic merit, nine Suzhou classical gardens were added to the World Heritage List.

However, the geographical advantage of Suzhou was eroded when Shanghai was forced to open to foreign traders after the First Opium War (1840 - 1842). Afterwards, supported by the influx of overseas capital, Shanghai replaced Suzhou as China’s national economic center. In 1895, the imperial government also opened Suzhou as a result of its defeat in the Sino-Japanese War (1894 - 1895). A barren site in front of the south gate of the Suzhou city wall was leased to Japan for industrial and commercial uses. The site soon developed into a cluster of cotton mills and commercial facilities due to its proximity to the Great Canal, which resulted in a urban form very different from that of the traditional family-based and low-density one within the city wall (Chen, 2003). The flood of foreign capital, on the one hand, undermined the foundation of the conventional silk and textile industries based on small scale production; on the other hand it introduced modern technologies to and fostered the ascend of modern capitalism in China (Chen, 1995). However, just after a decade, the city’s economic center was relocated to the north. The new center was served by the Suzhou-Shanghai section of the Shanghai-Nanjing railway after its opening in 1906, a time when railway began to override the canal with its efficiency to dominate the inter-city transportation market in China.

Suzhou developed rapidly during the First World War (1914 - 1918) and it was the birthplace of Chinese modern industry (Chen, 1995). However, owing to subsequent turmoil caused by

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Japanese invasion and occupation (1937 - 1945), and civil war (1945 - 1949), Suzhou’s development experienced up and downs. Meanwhile, the tourism industry emerged as a new economic sector in the city because Suzhou is rich in tourism resources and endowed with livable environment (Chen, 2003). On 27 April 1949, Suzhou was taken over by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Under the centrally planned economy, Suzhou’s economy was primarily dominated by people’s communes, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and collectively-owned enterprises after the completion of the Three Great Reconstructions (san da gaizao), a central government campaign to nationalize or collectivize sectors of agriculture, handicraft production and capitalist industry and commerce in 1956. Like many commercial cities at that period, Suzhou was forced to abandon its balance between the three basic economic sectors and adopt an industry-dominated economic structure. Further economic disruption was brought by a series of political struggles from the early 1960s to 1970s and the retreat of national economic development to inland regions. However, it is worth to mention that some commune-run enterprises emerged in the 1970s, facilitated by business networks and human capital brought by urban youth who relocated to Suzhou from Shanghai under the ‘Down to the Countryside Movement’ (shangshan xiaxiang) (Wei et al., 2009). This interpersonal tying-up of Suzhou and Shanghai would continue to make crucial contribution to the booming of township and village enterprises (TVEs) in southern Jiangsu in the 1980s.

It was not until the reform and opening in 1978 that the city began to experience the most rapid economic growth and spatial reconfiguration ever. In particular, the boom of local state-led TVEs defined the Sunan mode of industrialization (Ma and Fan, 1994). In 1985, YRD was designated by the central government as an open economic region to attract foreign investment, and Suzhou was reopened to the world. The city’s economic growth and upgrading intensified as the opening advanced later on in the region, marked by the establishment of Pudong New Area in Shanghai in 1992. At the same time, the development of TVEs fell into problems because of unclear property right of collective ownership, mismanagement, low efficiency and corruption (Ho et al., 2003; Wei et al., 2009). Along with the privatization of TVEs and large inflow of FDI during the 1990s, Suzhou shifted away from the orthodox Sunan model to an export-oriented one in the late 1990s, concentrating on the development of technology and capital intensive industries (Wei, 2002). Spatial development in Suzhou subsequently became a complicated process within which interplayed by the role of the state, local development conditions and foreign direct investment (Wei, 2002; Yang and Hsia, 2007). At the turn of the century, the city scaled new heights in terms of its economic openness. In this context, Suzhou municipal government has introduced a series of innovative policies to facilitate the city’s competitiveness and globalization. It has formed a prototype of spatial division of labor with “research and development in Shanghai, while production in Suzhou” (Wei et al., 2011).

Administrative structure

Within China’s five-tier hierarchical urban system, Suzhou is right at the middle rung as a prefecture-level city. It is administratively less powerful than the provincial-level (e.g. Beijing

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and Shanghai) and sub-provincial level cities (e.g. Nanjing and Hangzhou), but superior to county-level cities and counties. According to the “city administering county” system, introduced in 1983, a prefecture-level city or its superior counterparts is endorsed with administrative leadership over several nearby county-level cities or counties (Zhang and Wu, 2006). In addition to the central city proper, Suzhou municipality governs five county-level cities: Kunshan, Wujiang, Changsu, Taicang and Zhangjiagang (Figure 1 and Table 1). These cities were strong economic bodies even in individual terms: all of them were amongst the top 10 in the list of Top 100 Powerful Counties in China, and Kunshan has stayed at the top place since 2004 (Wang, 2013). Their robust performance contributed to Suzhou’s seventh place on the list of China’s most competitive cities out of 294 cities at the prefectural level or above (Ni, 2013).

Spatio-economic division of labor is obvious in Suzhou. The city proper is home to two important industrial zones: Sino-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park in the west, and Suzhou New and Hi-tech Development Zone (SND) in the east. Comparatively speaking, SIP attracts more large transnational corporations, while SND tends to accommodate small and medium sized domestic companies. An education zone is being built along Jinji Lake, where overseas universities (e.g. Liverpool University) are invited to open branches jointly with reputed universities in China. Zhangjiagang, located in northwest of the city and next to the Yangtze River, is driven by port-oriented industries, such as equipment manufacturing and oil refining industries. Changshu is another port city, which also engages in the development of new materials, manufacturing of biopharmaceutical products and production of automobile parts. The following downstream city is Taicang. It is a traditional agricultural area of Suzhou municipality. The new energy industry, specializing in the innovation of photovoltaic devices and offshore wind power equipment, is quite developed in this city. The ports of these three cities are managerially integrated by Suzhou municipal government under the uniform name of Suzhou Port. Wujiang, located to the south of Suzhou city proper, is very famous for its beautiful waterside township. Tourism is the pillar industry of the city. Compared with the other four county-level cities, Wujiang is most integrated with the city proper regarding spatial planning and infrastructural development. Kunshan, located between the city proper and Shanghai, is the richest city in Suzhou municipality. It is nicknamed “small Taipei” hosting a cluster of Taiwanese enterprises. The city has developed a strong ICT industry, specializing in such areas as personal computer and software manufacturing.

Table 1 Administrative structure and socio-economic development in Suzhou, 2012

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Region GDP(billion RMB)

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level (%)

Land area (km2)

Number of sub-district (jiedao)

City proper 472.65 4167.1 82.72 1649.72 36Wujiang 132.15 1287.4 64.16 1092.9 1Changshu 187.02 1507.1 64.05 1094 2Zhangjiagang 205.06 1241.8 64.00 772.4 0Kunshan 272.53 1638.9 69.88 864.9 0Economic development and restructuring in the reform period

Suzhou has been undergoing rapid economic growth since the reform and opening. From 1980 to 2012, the municipality’s average annual economic growth rate is about 19.83% (Figure 2). Suzhou had the largest GDP output in Jiangsu province over the last decade. Its fortune has not been stable though, fluctuating with China’s key politico-economic shifts. The first peak was in 1986 when YRD was designated as an open economic region in China. The following low ebb was in 1990 because of the 1989 political turmoil. Afterwards, the city’s GDP growth rate peaked at an astonishing 70.4% in 1993, driven by the establishment of Pudong New Area in Shanghai. Afterwards, because of its increasingly diversified economic structure, GDP growth was much more stable with a small peak in 2003 when China joined the World Trade Organization.

Secondary industry is the major sector of Suzhou’s economy (Figure 3). Since 1980, its contribution to Suzhou’s GDP has stabilized at around 60 percent. Its leadership has however been challenged recently by the tertiary sector, whose expansion was much encouraged by the municipal government. The GDP contribution of the tertiary sector broke the 40 percent mark in 2011, whilst that of the secondary sector is narrowing its majority claim. This trend is very likely to continue as Suzhou advances its economic upgrading program. Meanwhile, the primary sector has been ever shrinking. As of 2012, it only contributed to 1.6 percent of Suzhou’s GDP. One reason for this, not surprisingly, is the loss of arable land to urban sprawl (see next section for details).

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Figure 3 The evolution of industrial structure in Suzhou, 1952-2012Data source: Suzhou Statistics Yearbook, 1996, 2001 and 2013

Suzhou’s development has been fuelled by economic globalization. FDI in Suzhou has skyrocketed since YRD was designated as an economic open region in 1985. The cumulative FDI between 1990 and 2012 reached USD 101.97 billion (Figure 4). Since 2003, the city has

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surpassed Shanghai in terms of its FDI inflow, and consistently ranked one of the top three FDI destinations among Chinese cities. Moreover, as of 2013, 146 of the Fortune Global 500 firms have established their branches in Suzhou (SSB, 2014). Suzhou’s economy has been heavily export-oriented and its degree of dependence on foreign trade reached 3.19 in 2007. As a result, the city was badly hit by the global financial tsunami in 2008, which then saw a plummet of its GDP growth rate by 13 percent-point (Figure 2). To prevent further downturn, Suzhou has echoed the central government’s strategy to expand domestic demand, such as improving transportation infrastructure of expressways, subways and high speed railways, and promoting urban consumption (e.g. the ‘domestic appliances to the countryside’ program). This has succeeded lately in stabilizing the city’s growth rate at around 15 percent.

That Suzhou has concentrated a large number of FDI does not necessarily mean that the city would be better off, at least for two key reasons. First, studies have showed that linkages between foreign and domestic firms are critical in the spillover of FDI and related local development (Williams, 2005). In Suzhou, foreign firms usually operate their businesses as branch plant-like subsidiaries, most of which having not established close linkages with local firms (Wei et al., 2009; Liao and Wei, 2013), such that the city has sparsely enjoyed knowledge transfer from foreign firms. Moreover, having no leading universities or national-level research centers, Suzhou has rather weak capacity of research and development (R&D). Second, as Wei (2010) pointed out, there exists technological, structural, institutional and spatial mismatches between foreign and domestic firms which prevented their interaction. Foreign firms tend to concentrate in national development zones, SIP in particular, to establish their own exclusive production network, while domestic firms prefer to locate in the inner city and provincial-level development zones (Wei et al., 2013). Put alternatively, locational choice of foreign firms is primary influenced by the place-specific preferential policies offered by national development zones. These two reasons constrain knowledge spillover and disadvantage Suzhou in terms of its embedding in transnational corporation, long term indigenous development, as well as industrial upgrading in the global market. Therefore, it is important for Suzhou government to adjust its industrial policies and build human infrastructure so as to promote local firms to embed in the production system of foreign firms and foster indigenous innovation capacities. Indeed, Suzhou has recognized the problem of weak local R&D and made effort to enhance local innovative capacities (Wei et al., 2011; Wei et al., 2009). For instance, under the promotion of Suzhou municipal government, several research centers and branches of famous universities and institutions of domestic and overseas have been established in Suzhou recently. In general, Suzhou is struggling to transform itself from a manufacturing city towards an innovative city.

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Figure 4 The development of foreign trade economy in Suzhou, 1990-2012Data source: Suzhou Statistics Yearbook, 1996, 2001 and 2013

The expansion of development zones and urban sprawl

The creation of economic development zones is commonplace in developing countries as a strategic mean to stimulate economic growth by attracting FDI and developing export-oriented economy (Cartier, 2001). There is no exception to China, where both national and local states have enthusiastically established development zones in various types and with different preferential policies. This mode of economic development is found remarkably fruitful in promoting economic and technical development in China (Yang and Wang, 2008). In this regard, Suzhou’s highly successful experience of running development zones as locomotives of growth has been imitated by many cities in the country.

In 1985, Kunshan established China’s first local government-sponsored development zone. Before that, development zones in the country were designated and funded by only the central government in the first ranked cities, such as Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen. Kunshan’s development zone later was accorded national-level status in 1992 due to its extraordinary success in industrial development – even then without national support its economic output had surpassed that of its many national-level counterparts (Chien, 2007). As such bottom-up experiment continued, several development zones created in Suzhou during the 1990s were instead sponsored by the central government at the outset. The most famous one is SIP, established in 1994 as a collaborative effort between the Chinese and Singaporean governments. With an area of 70 km2, it currently accounts for no less than 20% of total GDP in Suzhou municipality. In the east of the city proper, there is another important development zone, the Suzhou New and Hi-tech Development Zone. It was constructed in 1990 with an aim to nurture the city’s hi-tech industrial sector. It has also attracted 34 higher education institutions

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strategically linked with the sector (Yao et al., 2009). As time goes by, the two development zones have been transformed from merely pro-growth industrial zones into comprehensive urban complex to undertake more functions, such as housing and commerce (Luo et al., 2011). These development zones are privileged by the central government in terms of the administration powers of project approval and foreign affairs, which enable them to attract foreign investment through offering such preferential policies as cheap land leasing and infrastructure services, as well as bank loans, customs, import quotes, exchange control and project approval limits (Chien, 2007, 2013; Wei et al., 2009). Most well-known is a preferential tax policy which includes waiving profit tax of new businesses during their first two years of operation, and offering tax reduction by 50% off for another subsequent three years (san mian liang jian wu). In order to facilitate foreign investors to establish their businesses, Suzhou is also one of the first cities in China to establish one-stop service center for enterprise registration and other related administrative procedures.

Inspired by Kunshan, local governments across China rushed to set up their own development zones in the early 1990s, a trend later termed by scholars as the “development zone fever” (Cartier, 2001; Yang and Wang, 2008). Suzhou was no exception to this trend and, given Kunshan’s encouraging lesson, more development zones have been initiated by various level of government in Suzhou municipality. As of 2012, Suzhou has 11 national-level development zones and 6 provincial-level ones (Figure 5). Offering different preferential policies in terms of land rent and taxation, these development zones are the main sites for Suzhou to attract footloose capital at home and abroad and the engines to drive the city’s economic growth. In 2012, they generated a total financial revenue of RMB 1,662.05 billion, accounting for 64.88 percent of that of the municipality. In addition, they contribute to 85.55 percent of the city’s FDI and 88.20 percent of its total export and import.

Suzhou’s economic enthusiasm is also reflected by the total area of development zones at provincial and national level, which has expanded more than five times from 1994 1, in an accelerated manner especially after 2000 (Table 2). This is but one illustration of contemporary Suzhou’s centennial practice of growing economy through spatial expansion or, to be exact, urban sprawl. Until 1916, urban development in Suzhou was primarily concentrated within the city wall (Figure 7). In 1958, the city wall was tore down to expand the city’s transportation network and develop industries, leaving only three city gates behind. After the establishment of various development zones, urban development extended to all corners of Suzhou city proper. Not uncommon to contemporary Chinese cities, urban sprawl like that in Suzhou has come under academic scrutiny for the specifics of its emergence. It is argued that the rampant land use conversion reflects a land-centered accumulation model promoted by local governments (Lin, 2007). Various ‘growth coalitions’ are formed by local political elites and entrepreneurs in land

1 The number of development zones of provincial and national levels in Suzhou increased over times, because development zones are evaluated and promoted by central and provincial governments. The paper traced back the land area of provincial and national development zones in 2012.

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development (Zhu, 2004). For Suzhou, apart from economic growth and urbanization, the entrepreneurial strategies of Suzhou government play an important role in breaking the traditional spatial structure of the city (Luo et al., 2011).

Infrastructure demand for a burgeoning economy fuels Suzhou’s urban sprawl further, since land leasing is a critical revenue source for Suzhou government to fund infrastructure construction. The ratio of land revenue to local budgetary revenue has been high, ranging from 0.41 to 0.84 (Table 2). Urban built area in Suzhou city proper increased from 28.62 km2 in 1980 to 329.29 km2 in 2010 by 11.51 times (Figure 8). Correspondingly, urban population has only increased by no more than 3 times. Such disproportional growth of built area over population suggests a low intensity use of land resource. Meanwhile, along with the rampant expansion of urban land, much unregulated urban development was conducted by various agents, including governments at various levels, private developers and local villagers. The overall result is a highly heterogeneous landscape at the outskirt of the city, where factories are juxtaposed with urban villages of the underprivileged and luxury apartment buildings and villas (e.g. Figure 9). Such chaotic land development further challenged the city’s urban management.

Figure 5 The total business revenue of development zones in Suzhou (RMB billion), 2012Source: Sketched by authors with data source from Suzhou Statistics Yearbook 2013

Table 2 Area of development zones in Suzhou municipality (km2), 1994-2012

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1994 1998 2002 2006 2010National level 50.66 56.3 102.74 170.1 348.24

Table 3 Land revenue and local budgetary revenue in Suzhou municipality, 2003-2010

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Land revenue (billion RMB) 8.92 26.65 28.26 30.97 27.09 54.56

Local budgetary revenue (billion RMB) 21.96 31.68 40.02 54.18 66.89 74.52

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Figure 6 Landuse and zoning of Suzhou Industrial Park Source: the website of Suzhou Industrial Park http://www.sipac.gov.cn.htm

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Figure 7 Urban sprawl in Suzhou city proper, 1916-2010 (refer a and b for framed area’s past development)

Source: Sketched by authorsData sources: maps in 1916 and 1957 are from Suzhou Planning Bureau and other data derived from

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Figure 9 Different human landscapes along Xuyang Road (along west Yangcheng Lake) in Xiangcheng district, Suzhou: (a) golf club and course in the north end; (b) urban village in

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the east; (c) luxury villa area in the west; (d) rural community under demolition in the eastSource: Taken by L. Wang

The roles of spatial planning in Suzhou’s development control and ancient quarter conservationAs an ancient city, Suzhou has experienced a series of physical planning effort for military purpose and public administration. In 1927, the first attempt of modern planning in the city was conducted by the municipal government of the Nationalist Party primarily to improve the city’s transportation and initiate urban renewal in the inner city. The first master plan of the city under the People’s Republic regime was formulated in 1959, as a Soviet style blueprint using an approach combining republican and early PRC (Chen, 2003). It also established four industrial zones in the suburban area (exterior of the northwest corner of ancient quarter).

It is not until the post-reform period that the old spatial structure of Suzhou is completely changed due to rapid spatial expansion. Before reform, Suzhou’s spatial development was primarily governed by economic plans from the central government. Central ministries used local land at their disposal, while local governments could not reap any benefit from it. In the post-reform period, economic and land use administration has been decentralized to local governments. This move subsequently facilitated local officials’ ambitions on economic development (Wu et al., 2007). In addition, given now local governments are now responsible for funding local infrastructures, land use right transfer becomes, as we earlier highlighted, a critical source of official financing to fund local socio-economic development (Table 3). Consequently, local government-led urban sprawl has been emerged in Suzhou.

However, considering the rapidly shrinking supply of arable land and, consequentially, worries of food security, the central government attempts to enhance land use efficiency, control urban sprawl, and maintain the national balance of arable land at no less than 1.8 billion mu (1.2 million km2) (State Council, 2004). The central government controls land supply through land use planning in order to conduct development control. Institutionally, land use planning regulates land quota, and urban master planning regulates how such quotas are used spatially. The problem is that land use planning and urban master planning are taken charge by different ministries (or their local bureaus) respectively, such that urban master plan does not necessarily follow land use plan (Xu, 2008). Besides, both are implemented by local government rather the central government. Specifically in Suzhou, both are undertaken by the municipal government in three planning cycles since the reform and opening (Figure 10), but using different approaches and with different focuses.

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Figure 10 Three planning cycles of urban master plan and land use plan in Suzhou since the reform and opening

Source: summarized by authors, based on websites of Suzhou Planning Bureau

As a policy area devolved to the local states by the City Planning Act, urban planning, with urban master plans as its key output, is practiced with greater attention to local concerns. In Suzhou, it is analogous to strategic spatial planning, as an instrument to legitimize and project local officials’ visions on economic growth and land development (Figure 10). For example, in the latest round of urban planning, the urban master plan positioned Suzhou as: a) national historical and cultural and tourist city; b) national high-tech industrial base, and c) an important central city in YRD (Suzhou Municipal Government, 2010b). In contrast, land use planning, whose emphasis is on land resource maintenance, is subject to top-down influence (Xu and Yeh, 2009). Suzhou’s land use plan is obligated to comply with land resource targets, notably the maximum extent of built-up area and the minimum extent of agricultural land to be conserved, set out by upper-level governments. In contrast to the urban master plan, the latest land use plan in Suzhou paid more attention to foster a livable environment and boast land use efficiency. It aspired the city to become: a) a developed area dominated by advanced manufacturing industry and high-end service industry; b) a city enshrining human-nature harmony, and c) a tourist hotspots underpinned by history, culture and modern civilization (Suzhou Municipal Government, 2010a). The discrepancy between urban planning and land use planning reflects the contrasting attitude between, respectively, the local state and the central government over urban development. While the former is eager to expand for economic sake, the latter seeks to reinforce a more prudent and sustainable manner of land consumption (Wang and Tang, 2005; Wang, 2009).

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Figure 11 Planning for “the Gate to the East” in the new CBD in Suzhou Urban Master Plan (2007-2020)

Source: Suzhou Planning Information Center, http://www.digitalsz.cn/index.asp

Despite their contrasting positions, both types of plans end up with the same ill fate of failing to promote their desired, rational pattern of development. For example, in Suzhou Land Use Plan (1997-2010), only 125.55 km2 of arable land could be used for development by 2010, while some other 3,093.16 km2 must be preserved. However, a 2005 survey found that the actual conversion was threefold of the planned extent (377.02 km2), while only 2,453.45 km2 of arable land was preserved. Obviously, there was an explosion of the urban built-up area in Suzhou in the early 2000s (Figure 8). A similar failure was also observed in the implementation of Suzhou Urban Master Plan (1996-2010). While the planned built-up area in Suzhou city proper for 2010 was 171.6 km2, in reality it reached 329.29 km2 in 2010 (Figure 8).

Currently, Suzhou government is undertaking its third round of spatial planning in the post-reform era. Reconciliation of zoning proposals made under the city’s urban master plan and land use plan has yet been made (Figure 12). With the two types of spatial planning sponsored by different levels of government, the conflict implicates their contested arena in land development in Suzhou. Suzhou’s case could be explained by the current situation of land development in urban China as land development has become the most important resource for municipal government to capture local revenue and promote economic growth (Lin, 2007; Liu and Lin, 2014). It is because the appointed cadres system based on the performance in economic development has facilitated local careerist officials’ ambition in pursuing GDP growth in their term of office (Chien, 2007; Yang and Wang, 2008). Even though the central government controls

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land quota of planning, it relies local government to implement spatial plans. Subsequently, it is the local officials who violates local spatial plans and accounts for the problems of urban sprawl (Long et al., 2007; Wang and Shen, 2014; Wang, 2009).

Figure 12 Zoning in Suzhou Urban Master Plan (2007-2020) and Land Use Plan (2006-2020) in Suzhou city proper

Source: Sketched by authors, based on Suzhou Urban Master Plan (2007-2020) and Land Use Plan (2006-2020)

Although its role in halting urban sprawl is not successful, spatial planning in Suzhou has been valued as an important tool to protect its ancient quarter. Established for 2,500 years, the ancient quarter of Suzhou is the city’s cultural center. Nowadays, it occupies 14.2 km2 and accommodates about 11,400 residents per square kilometer. It is a colossal ‘living museum’ with numerous historic sites, such as the Humble Administrator's Garden (Zhuozheng Yuan), Tiger Hill (Hu Qiu), Lingering Garden (Liu Yuan), Hanshan Temple (Hanshan Shi) and Cates of City Wall.

Historical conservation has been one of the most important themes of spatial planning in Suzhou. The city’s urban planning bureau is responsible for a two-tier conservation planning of the ancient quarter. At the first tier, a master plan is prepared to stipulate broad-brush control of the spatial structure of the ancient quarter. Attention is given to such macro-scale matters as land use distribution and layout of road and river networks. At the second tier, regulatory detailed plans are formulated to prescribe the functions of every land plot and building. Embedded in urban planning, conservation planning of the ancient quarter has also been conducted for three times in Suzhou since 1978.

In general, the ancient quarter is protected for a crisscrossing system of water networks and bridges, accompanied by a ring of moat. It embraces a ‘double chessboard’ pattern with settlements all fronting streets and backed by streams (Chen, 2003). Some measures are adopted to implement the conservation planning of the ancient quarter. First, key street and building, such as Pingjiang Road (Figure 13) and its folk houses and traditional shops, are preserved in their

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original forms. Industrial development is strictly forbidden in order to protect the environment and landscape. Second, the plan conducts urban renovation for those buildings that have been damaged or been added some informal constructions recently. Third, it improves the public facilities in the ancient quarter, such as laying drainage and natural gas pipelines, and adding tourist centers, toilets and parks. Beyond such physical-oriented efforts, the government also seeks to retain the quarter’s indigenous residents and the traditional arts they practiced, thereby also conserving the intangible qualities of the ancient quarter. Employment in traditional handcraft workshops and commercial shops of food and special snack are provided for local residents. This contrasts the practice of many other Chinese cities where residents of their ancient precincts are evicted to make way for tourism development (e.g. converting their home into hotels and shops). Both the tangible/biophysical and intangible/human constituents of the ancient quarter are preserved in Suzhou.

Despite all these planning efforts, the ancient quarter is not free from threat. For instance, although the first ring expressway was opened in 2005 in Suzhou, located in the geographic center, the ancient quarter is still a confluence point of large amounts of traffic running across the city. Aggravated by the influx of tourists, traffic congestion remains a severe problem in the ancient quarter. It is necessary for urban planning to continue its currently primitive attempt in restructuring the city’s road network to divert traffic away from the quarter.

Figure 13 A peaceful corner of the Pingjiang RoadSource: taken by L.Wang

Issues and challenges ahead

Developed for 2,500 years, Suzhou has undergone successive rounds of transformations, in both economic and spatial terms. The same can be said for many other Chinese cities, but what makes it a peculiar case is that its recent transformation has been driven by bottom-up initiation of

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development zones and its success in the protection of historical sites in the ancient quarter. The city has made obvious progress in transforming itself from a manufacturing city towards an innovative city, many efforts are also needed to enhance the city’s indigenous innovation capacities. Meanwhile, like other Chinese cities, its rapid economic growth has also resulted in serious problems in managing its spatial expansion. As some researches have pointed out (Luo et al., 2011; Yao et al., 2009), the rapid GDP growth in Suzhou was at the expense of inefficient resource consumption, environment degradation, as well as relatively meager government expenditures on social development. Given the overarching priority of sustainable development, Suzhou needs to rethink its pro-growth strategies with due respect to their multifarious implications on the city’s natural and social resources.

First of all, the mode of land development in Suzhou ought to be revised. Land available for urban development is almost used up in Suzhou city proper (CAUPD, 2007). Foreseeing such constraint, Suzhou government secured the central government’s approval in 2001 to expand its city proper (392.3 km2) by annexing the Wu County (1,238 km2). Yet, the incessant construction of development zones within Suzhou city proper to lure investment has consumed lots of land and this has involved encroachment of lots of arable land, and reclamation of wetland and rivers (Yao et al., 2009) The excessive expansion of urban land needs to be reversed by enhancing land use efficiency on the existing built-up area. Unfortunately, the capacity of development control, as the key instrument to deliver such change, is compromised by the conflicts between land use plan and urban master plan, which neither agree on the extent nor the distribution of new development. Coordination of these two types of planning should be strengthened by the Suzhou government to rejuvenate the claim of its planning arm to rational spatial development. Sharing the same feel of the urgency of reworking its spatial planning repertoire, the central government initiated a basket of policies to enhance the authority of spatial planning on urban development control in 2006, such as reforming municipal-level planning institution for planning coordination, and formulating national spatial planning framework to integrate local development plans (Wang and Shen, 2014). More recently, there also discussed about a reform on the evaluation system of cadre promotion in the Third Plenary Session of 18th Communist Party Congress in 2013 to cool down GDPism and promote sustainable development. More time is needed before we can judge whether these initiatives will bring Suzhou with a restructured spatial planning system and development philosophy to halt its urban sprawl.

Secondly, there is obvious room for improvement for Suzhou in its realm of environmental protection. Some township-level development zones are still accommodating highly polluting industries, such as small factories in gold plating, smelting and chemical engineering. To aggravate the problem, many townships have little financial capability to operate sewage treatment facilities, and industrial sewage is discharged directly into rivers and lakes (Gao, 2005). This poses, perhaps more worried by the entrepreneurial officials in the city over such other concerns as water security and ecological balance, a significant threat to the scenic network of water bodies upon which Suzhou develops its competitive edge in tourism and livable urbanism.

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Finally, a wide range of social challenges awaits the government of Suzhou to tackle along its way to achieve good governance. Like many other Chinese cities, Suzhou suffers high societal costs for its rampant urban sprawl (Yang and Wang, 2008). One example is the emergence of a new vulnerable group, ‘land-lost farmers’, whose farming plots are resumed in successive rounds of land grabbing. Dispossessed of their main source of livelihood, i.e. land, these farmers were usually forced to move to the urban area, where they bitterly struggle to establish a new life owing to their limited education background and a deficit of job training programs (Zhang et al., 2012). Another problem is corrupt practices in land development process. Capital gains by the government from rapid land commodification in Suzhou do not always translate into greater investment in social infrastructure. Rather, as widely reported by the mass media, some officials in charge of land development (e.g., former Suzhou vice-mayor Jiang Renjie and former vice-secretary of CCP in Suzhou Industrial Park, Du jianhua) had taken advantage of their political power to conspire with developers to divert the gains to their pockets (Song, 2005; Wang, 2014). In 2013, a notorious corruption of Ji Jianye, the former mayor of Nanjing (2009-2012) and the former governor of Kunshan (1997-2001), was found having huge dirty deals with a private company called Suzhou Gold Mantis Construction Decoration in land development and local project construction (SCMP, 2013). Obviously, corruption is a big challenge ahead for Suzhou to establish good governance.

Beyond the land economy, widening inequalities among Suzhou’s workforce has been under the spotlight. According to the sixth national census in 2010, Suzhou accommodates more than four million migrants from all over the country. Due to their de jure status as residents elsewhere under China’s household registration system, these migrants are not considered when Suzhou prepares social and spatial plans to meet the needs of its population. The disproportionally small amount of support they received for their sweat in Suzhou’s prosperity is not only a problem of social justice, but also a source of socio-political instability.

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