Urban Governance Transformation Under the Background of Ecological Civilization Construction

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Eco-Politics and Global Climate Change

Part of the book series: Environment & Policy ((ENPO,volume 65))

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Abstract

The ecological spatial regulation strategy with the eco-redline (ECR) as its core policy constitutes one of the key contents of the Chinese ecological civilization system. How to implement this policy by local governments, whether the state ecological regulation requirements can be incorporated into the existing city management model is the key to ensuring the effective implementation of the ECR. Drawing on discussions of ecological governance theory, ecological spatial regulation and management research, and local and regional regulation and governance theory, this article proposes a conceptual model of “localized eco-state reconstruction”, with the expectation to explain city and regional governance transformation under the restriction of state ecological spatial regulation policy. The main aim of the research is to understand the ways in which cities achieve both economic and social development through governance restructuring under the ECR. Based on qualitative research, the article finds that the implementation of eco-redline at city and regional scale, the core design factors, and the strength of ecological regulation of the ECR is shaped by various forces originating from the factors such as the stock of regional ecological resource, local growth and management model, the green governance capacity of local governments, the degree of marketization in ecological conservation and local social governance ecology. The way of practices is best understood as the power of the city government to balance forces and demands placed on it. The case studies show four currently emerging modes of localized urban management in China: “strong constraints-transformation development model”, “strong constraints-progressive transformation model”, “weak constraint-alternative development model” and “weak constraints-conservative development model”. In this context, city and regional governance transformation can be promoted through four types of strategies: ecological transformation development strategy, ecological progressive transformation development strategy, ecological alternative development strategy and ecological conservative development strategy.

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The views and/or claims/or data expressed in this chapter are solely authors’ own or based on literature survey and are not necessarily linked with their affiliations, editors of the book, reviewers of the chapter or the publisher.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by [Shenzhen Academy of Social Sciences] under Grant [number SZ2022B019]; [Natural Science Foundation of Province, China] under Grant [number 2023A1515011350], and [National Natural Science Foundation of China] under Grant [number 52278071].

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Correspondence to Lin Dan .

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Dan, L., Yan, L. (2023). Urban Governance Transformation Under the Background of Ecological Civilization Construction. In: Tripathi, S., Bhadouria, R., Singh, R., Srivastava, P., Devi, R.S. (eds) Eco-Politics and Global Climate Change. Environment & Policy, vol 65. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48098-0_8

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