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LEARNING TO ADAPT: CAN ECO-DEVELOPMENT PROMOTE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY IN CHINESE CITIES?
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Abstract
Abstract Body
With the global promotion of sustainable development, developing countries have sought to innovate their urbanization strategies. China is leading a pro-environmental movement in the developing world by experimenting with nature-based solutions for decarbonization, climate adaptation, and green growth. It has built some of the world’s most ambitious eco-developments featuring eco-cities, low-carbon cities, Sponge Cities, ecological restoration, and a green economy. These eco-developments have allegedly integrated some of the world’s most innovative ideas in environmental planning and design. They have been conceived as model cities that would grow in harmony with nature and could be replicable in other developing contexts. Building on the interplay between worldviews and local politics of green transitions, this study examines some of China’s highest-profile eco-developments to assess their conception of an ecological future and their sociopolitical impact. Assessing China’s so-called “ecological” transformations in city-making, this paper sheds light on accelerant factors for environmentally sensitive, socially responsible planning and governance in developing contexts. Many critics condemn China’s eco-cities as mere greenwashing or eco-branding, attributing their failures to the inherent contradictions underlying a green-utopian ideal and a technocratic approach to eco-modernization. This research acknowledges the limitations of these eco-developments caused by systemic issues in China. However, tracing the evolution of China’s eco-development, this study finds that despite the failures, eco-developments are China’s innovation incubators. These places continue being the demonstration sites for green technologies and low-carbon transitions. They are also the testing ground for innovative policies that promote environmental governance and climate adaptation. Trial-and-error through these eco-developments educates decision-makers about ecosystem services, environmental governance, and climate adaptation. Such processes normalize eco-environmental mindsets among officials, experts, and citizens, which further enables institutional learning, promotes environmental policy, reshapes city politics, and forges pro-environmental social networks. Therefore, experimenting with eco-development has played a crucial role in institutionalizing sustainable development in China while facilitating pro-environmental transitions in local cultures and sociopolitical systems. These places are standard setters, demonstrating China’s “statecraft” in engineering new territories, new ecologies, and new societies. They symbolize state legitimacy and facilitate the power expansion of “Global China.”