Kerrie L. Macpherson

Bio: Kerrie L. Macpherson is an academic researcher from University of Hong Kong. The author has contributed to research in topics: China & City centre. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 3 publications receiving 54 citations.

The head of the dragon: The Pudong new area and Shanghai's urban development

Abstract: In April 1990, Premier Li Peng officially sanctioned the proposed development of the “Pudong New Area” (Pudong Xinchu) in the most advanced economic centre of the country — the Shanghai municipality. The plan, grand in conception and bold in design, will be the linchpin in revitalizing Shanghai proper, and in anchoring the future development of the entire Yangzi River region spanning most of the Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi provinces. Pudong, described by Lin Tongyan as a “treasure land unique in the world” comprises a 350 square kilometre land mass between the east bank of the Huangpu River, Shanghai's main water arterial, and the East China Sea. Yet historically, it has remained comparatively undeveloped though it lies in close proximity to Shanghai's city centre. The plan (in the words of its boosters) represents the final materialization of the “long cherished scheme of Pudong development” which “further demonstrates the determination of the nation to open a wider door to the outside world”. I...

Designing China's urban future: The Greater Shanghai Plan, 1927–1937

Abstract: Among the world's greatest cities — New York, London, Paris and Tokyo — Shanghai ranks as a singular phenomenon. Its survival in the face of a startling expansion and rise to prominence, within a scant 140 years, was based on the melding of Chinese and foreign efforts to lay down its urban infrastructures and in ‘planning’ its future. Yet, since 1949, these efforts, particularly the Greater Shanghai Plan of 1927, have been ignored in the literature or dismissed as aberrant. However, the origins and objectives of the Plan were anything but an aberration. Founded solidly on decades of intense efforts to create a Chinese municipality that would parallel the achievements of the foreign settlements, the Plan's objectives went beyond mere imitation. For the Plan called for the redevelopment of the port as well as the creation of a new city centre that would be an irrefutable statement of Shanghai's, and therefore China's, determination to challenge and exceed the urban standards and prosperity of the foreign se...

The Transformation of the Urban Planning System in China from a Centrally-Planned to Transitional Economy

Abstract: The dominance of ideology, state control and economic planning on urban planning and development in China is rapidly diminishing after economic reforms in 1978. With the declining role of state enterprises in the economy and investment in cities, the introduction of housing and land reform, and the opening up of Chinese cities to foreign investment, the state and centrally-planned economy have less significant role to play in influencing the development of cities. Past urban planning practices, which were legitimized by the socialist ideology of planned growth, are now fundamentally challenged. Economic reforms have triggered reorganization of the economy and society on which urban planning operates. Decentralization of decision making, market-led urban development initiatives, retreat from socialist ideology, deregulation and increase in the number of actors and conflicts of interests in land development have challenged fundamentally the practice of urban planning. The deficiency of the conventional urban planning system has been recognized. The enactment of the 1989 City Planning Act is a major milestone that tries to re-establish and formalize the urban planning system in China to meet the challenges. But, there are still many deficiencies of the urban planning system in dealing with the rapidly changing socio-economic environment. Some of these deficiencies can be traced to the legacies of past planning practice and some are deficiencies of the City Planning Act. Experiments are taking place in Chinese cities which aim to provide better guidance to urban planning and development control from a centrally-planned to transitional economy. These include urban district plans, detailed development control plans and zoning. From a broader examination of current global challenges that confront urban planning in various countries, it can be seen that the problems in China stem from the reorganization of state and market in urban planning. Urban planning in China is now at a crossroads. The urban planning system needs to undergo both institutional and philosophical reforms, such as the setting up of an urban planning commission, making the detailed development control plan statutory, setting up an independent planning appeal system, better coordination between development control and land leasing, increase in public participation, training of planners and strengthening of professionalism, in order for it to achieve its role in guiding urban development into the 21st century.

Internal structure of chinese cities in the midst of economic reform

Abstract: Socialist ideology, state control, and economic planning played significant roles in shaping the internal structure of Chinese cities before the adoption of economic reforms in 1978. They led to an internal structure of Chinese cities that is quite different from that of Western cities, with mixed land use and social areas formed mainly on the basis of the locations of work places. Post-1978 economic reform has brought market mechanisms to Chinese cities, and their internal structure now is undergoing rapid change. Urban planning and development control in guiding these changes is urgently needed.

Research on Chinese urban form: retrospect and prospect

Abstract: In the last 10 years, research on Chinese urban form has grown rapidly both in China itself and in other parts of the world. At the same time Chinese cities have undergone unprecedented growth and transformation, presenting great challenges for the comprehension and management of urban landscape change. In planning future urban morphological research during this period of exceptional flux, an important first step is to take stock of past research, especially that of the recent past. Hitherto research on Chinese urban form across a range of disciplines, including architectural history, urban planning, archaeology and urban geography, has tended to be descriptive and has contained scant comparison, either of findings or methods, with that on towns and cities in other parts of the world. Future research on Chinese urban form can benefit from exploring the efficacy of urban morphological concepts and methods that have been developed and applied elsewhere in the world, especially Europe.

Speculative Modern: Urban Forms and the Politics of Property in Colonial Hong Kong

Abstract: Author(s): Chu, Cecilia Louise | Advisor(s): AlSayyad, Nezar | Abstract: This dissertation traces the genealogy of property development and emergence of an urban milieu in Hong Kong between the 1870s and mid 1930s. This is a period that saw the transition of colonial rule from one that relied heavily on coercion to one that was increasingly "civil," in the sense that a growing number of native Chinese came to willingly abide by, if not whole-heartedly accept, the rules and regulations of the colonial state whilst becoming more assertive in exercising their rights under the rule of law. Long hailed for its laissez-faire credentials and market freedom, Hong Kong offers a unique context to study what I call "speculative urbanism," wherein the colonial government's heavy reliance on generating revenue from private property supported a lucrative housing market that enriched a large number of native property owners. Although resenting the discrimination they encountered in the colonial territory, they were able to accumulate economic and social capital by working within and around the colonial regulatory system. Meanwhile, the growing stake of Chinese capital in Hong Kong's economy was perceived as a threat by local British and European residents, who tried to maintain their privileges via discriminatory legislation.A central goal of this study is to elucidate how particular forms of urban development predicated on opportunism and a "liberal governmentality" came to be consolidated within a racially divided, highly unequal, but nevertheless upwardly mobile, "modernizing" colonial city. By focusing on speculative building practices and the changing administrative framework that sought to regulate urban forms and social norms, this dissertation aims to illustrate some of the inherent contradictions in colonial development between the liberal, laissez-faire ideology that propelled capitalist expansion and the exclusionary impulses that clung to a hierarchical spatial order. Although this bifurcated milieu helped legitimized different rules for different peoples, it also opened up new channels for cultural and political negotiations. The examination of the competing discourses about the city and its development in Hong Kong's early period also provides a crucial explanatory framework for the so-called "Hong Kong economic miracle" in the postwar era and the prevalence of speculative property activities that continues to the postcolonial present.