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Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism The role of planning

of strict regulations established in statutory plans, and potential tenants have constructed a new path toward
political leaders, various local government authorities, industrial land reuse, temporarily bypassing the current
and departments must come together to discuss project- planning system through institutional innovation and
specific controlling policies for each proposed adaptive restructuring. This institutional restructuring leads to
reuse project. This process allows local government the increased discretionary power of local government
officials to significantly increase their discretionary power officials and eventually turns industrial land reuse projects
over development control. Consequently, because granting into responses to policy and market forces.
such permissions is often viewed as making exceptions
for proposed industrial land reuse projects, those projects 5.3. Relations between planning-led redevelopment
preferred by the local government, especially by the and practice-led redevelopment
political leaders, are more likely to receive approvals. We suggest that in Shanghai, an alternative redevelopment
However, this also involves substantial transaction costs in model has emerged for industrial land: a formal planning-
cultivating good relations with local government officials led approach involving demolition and relocation,
and political leaders, and such projects are exposed to and an informal practice-led approach of incremental
higher political risks compared to planning-led land regeneration without demolition. In the former approach,
redevelopment ones. Political decentralization provides land redevelopment adheres more to urban planning on
government agencies like the Shanghai Economic and land controlled by the local government, while in the latter
Information Committee with greater capacity to promote approach, the type of urban redevelopment is not regulated
local economic development through these loopholes. in urban planning.
Third and related to the above, to obtain exceptional These two approaches coexist in the practice of industrial
permission from the local government, the proposed redevelopment in Shanghai, which is coordinated by
industrial land reuse projects must comply with the local informal rules rather than standing in conflicts.
government’s social and economic development plan. The planning-led redevelopment holds a higher
Evidence of this can be seen in the inclusion of the “three priority of implementation than practice-led
unchanges” policy in the “The Eleventh 5-year Plan of redevelopment. Informal redevelopment is a tentative
Development of Shanghai Creative Industry Plan” issued by approach before formal redevelopment is enacted. Subject
the Shanghai Municipal Government in 2005. As a result, to specific circumstances, informal redevelopment can
the current industrial land reuse projects in Shanghai are be replaced by the formal one legitimized by urban
overwhelmingly dominated by creative industrial parks. planning. The invention of the “three unchanges” policy

Therefore, it can be argued that the practice-led shows respect for formal urban planning while the
redevelopment approach and its associated institutional informal redevelopment is underway. If a decision is
establishment in Shanghai encourage redevelopment made for formal land redevelopment, the informal use
projects in response to policies while capturing land values will most likely be paved away, regardless of the success
in market dynamics. Tertiarization has been incorporated of the businesses. One typical example is Red Town in
into the national development agenda with the issuance of Shanghai; after 10 years of successful development of
the Tenth 5-Year Plan (2001–2005) by the State Council. the industrial site into a cultural landmark of Shanghai,
In terms of industrial redevelopment, “withdrawing Red Town did not survive demolition according to
secondary industry and promoting tertiary industry” urban planning (He, 2019b). In the informal approach,
has been applied and clearly stated in the master plan of when a tenant signs the contract to rent the space, it
Shanghai (1999–2020). Economic restructuring, rather is clearly stated in the contract that, even though a
than economic growth, has been given higher priority. In contract is signed, the land may still be taken back by the
urban redevelopment, the government has more goals than government for land redevelopment according to urban
just land revenue generation, such as heritage conservation planning before the term of the contract ends (Interview
and employment creation, to respond to the new mandate in October 2022). The tenants are aware that the use of
of the central government (Wu et al., 2021). such space is temporary.

Overall, the observed practice-led industrial A government officer from planning authorities argued
redevelopment approach in Shanghai reveals the conflict that, in the long run, all the sites would be redeveloped
between the local government (or at least a large part of according to urban planning (Interview in October
the local government) and the planning system regarding 2019), i.e., informal redevelopment replaced by formal
how industrial sites shall be used. The local government redevelopment. Observation shows that the two approaches
and other stakeholders such as developers, landholders, will continue to coexist. In Shanghai, the first generation

Volume 5 Issue 4 (2023) 11 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0433