Knowledge-based urban development in Wuhan, China

Knowledge-Based Urban Development (KBUD) has now become a fashionable term both in terms of urban policy making and academic study. This is the case not only in post-industrial cities in developed countries, but also in cities which are still in the process of industrialisation in developing countries. In responding to this, urban development policies have been redirected in recent years to enhance and to build on the strengths of cities’ knowledge resources regardless their state of development. Meanwhile, studies into KBUD have attracted interest that links interests of planners, economists, geographers, and other social scientists. Nevertheless, in many cases the term is confused by a plethora of competing, implicit, and unarticulated assumptions that have resulted from different interpretations by various disciplines. From perspective of economic geography, this paper distinguishes two successive forms of KBUD i.e. technolopoles and knowledge city. It focuses on institutional innovations – the development of Science Park, the most common form of KBUD across the world, and highlights the changing role of university in the creation of urban innovation network and fostering knowledge environment. The paper puts this background into the Chinese context, the largest developing country in the world, which has managed successfully a fast growing economy following a unique industrialisation strategy over the last three decades. Recently, China has responded positively to the rising globalised knowledge society by reoriented its economic centred development strategy to which they would call the “Scientific Development Concept” where development is being made rely more on the use of all types of knowledge. Taking Wuhan, the largest city in central China, as a case, this paper highlights two reciprocal themes: knowledge environment and knowledge synergy in Wuhan in general and the development of the East Lake High-Tech Development Zone (now nationally known as “Optical Valley of China”, the Chinese version of Science Park) in particular. Specific attention is paid to the changing role of universities, which are transforming from purely teaching institutions into entrepreneurial ones guided by central government, in knowledge synergy activities in the process of the development of China’s Optical Valley. The review of China’s national program on High and New Technology Industrial Development Zone reveals that it is the integration of high-tech industrial complex, science park, technopolis, and science city elsewhere in the world. In the early stage of the program, it failed to develop a systematic policy framework, which made the program less in favour at city level than that was expected. The change of policy from 2000 onward, however, have reoriented the program to follow the knowledge city approach, which paid more attention to create high quality of knowledge environment, though, there is still a lack of interactive relations between government, academia, industry, and public. Findings from the