Site planning and guiding principles of hi-tech parks in China: Shenzhen as a case study

Recent institutional changes, marketization, and globalization have combined to bring about rapid economic growth in contemporary China. One of the direct outcomes is the rapid expansion of large cities and the recurring birth of new cities from small towns and rural villages. Clustered construction cranes are popular scenes in many Chinese cities. One of the noticeable city landmarks is the specialized economic development district, such as a hi-tech park, industrial park, commerce park, high-standard apartment complex, and designated port district. Along with the development of these new types of urban blocks, the Chinese policies and practices of urban planning and city design have been dramatically reshaped. This paper, on the basis of our participatory observation of the planning process of the Shenzhen Silicon Peak Software Ecological Park, examines site planning and design of hi-tech parks in China. The paper discusses the seven principles guiding the development of hi-tech parks, and the four implementation strategies directing planning and design practices. It also illustrates the adoption of GIS techniques, the new eco-community planning approach, and the classic Chinese cosmologyöharmonious wind and water ( feng shui )öthrough the case study. The paper concludes with discussion of the changes of Chinese values and practices of urban planning in the context of hi-tech parks in the transitional period. DOI:10.1068/b32064 ôCorresponding author. The goals of introducing hi-tech parks in China are quite similar to those enacted in Taiwan (Lin, 1997), Japan (Cutler, 1989), the United Kingdom (British Council, 2002), the United States (Drescher, 1998), and many other nations (Cabral and Dahab, 1998; Moulaert, 2000). The development of hi-tech parks in China is an expected outcome of governmental efforts to open up its economy and modernize its technology and industry under the pressure of increasing economic globalization (Castells and Hall, 1994). A growing literature has been reported on the socioeconomic and political incentives and outcomes of China's hi-tech park development in recent years (Fang, 1996; Fang et al, 2002; Gu and Zhao, 1998; MacDonald and Deng, 2004; Sigurdson, 2005a; 2005b; Walcott and Xiao, 2000; Xia, 2001; Zhang et al, 2003). This paper is based on a real project, the Shenzhen Silicon Peak Software Ecological Park site plan (referred to as Shenzhen Software Park in the remainder of the paper), in which the first author played a significant role in the field survey and site planning. The preliminary report of the Shenzhen Software Park planning project was reviewed and recommended by a panel of eleven expertsöcoming mainly from the Hi-tech Department of the National Development and Reform Commission of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Engineeringöon 8 October 2001. The Shenzhen Software Park site plan was accepted as a successful grant completion by the Shenzhen Land and Resources Management Bureau on 23 January 2002. The final report was published by China Construction Industry Press in March 2002 (Fang et al, 2002). This paper reexamines our participatory experiences in planning the Shenzhen Software Park. In section 2 we analyze the planning principles and strategies of hitech parks, which is a little-exposed research area, from the actual practices and procedures of planning and designing the Shenzhen Software Park. We also evaluate traditional Chinese values and their influences on current hi-tech park planning practices. In section 3 we present the planning and design practices in the Shenzhen Software Park site plan project and provide our analysis of how the planning principles were actually implemented in practice. Moreover, we illustrate the technical methods that we used to collect the data, and to design the Shenzhen Software Park. We conclude in the final section with a discussion of urban planning practices with regard to hi-tech parks during the current transitional period from our own perspectives. We also point out the lessons as well as the challenges for Chinese urban planners and city architects in planning and designing hi-tech parks. 2 Planning principles of hi-tech parks Growing economic globalization goes hand in hand with an increased sensitivity to economic autonomy, indigenous technical innovation, and national pride (Moulaert, 2000). Under the pressures of changing business environments, cities have been motivated to advance themselves over rival cities (Hall and Pfeiffer, 2000; Harvey, 1989). In response to the intensifying competition, many city authorities around the world are taking initiatives of developing large-scale construction projects, such as sport facilities, new transport systems, international airports, recreation parks, conference and exhibition centers, etc. Such development strategies are termed by some scholars as a new economic policy or new urban politics (Cox, 1995; Moulaert, 2000). Hi-tech (science) parks, for instance, can be seen as a kind of large-scale urban development project. In China, because of a long-delayed desire for creating economic miracles and catching up with modern technologies, it is expected that hi-tech parks will produce technological superiority and economic prosperity. Therefore, developing hi-tech parks in coastal open-door cities and other large cities, supported with special fiscal incentives 2 C Fang, Y Xie