The governance dilemmas of urban shrinkage: Evidence from Northeast China

While existing research has deepened our understanding of global urban shrinkage, studies on the governance of urban shrinkage in China remain deficient. Based on extensive field research in Suihua, in Northeast China, and applying an institutionalist perspective, this study explored two critical challenges faced by Chinese political institutions concerning their governance of urban shrinkage. First, the absence of well-articulated opinions and clearly defined policies of the central government render the governance of shrinking cities uncertain and over-dependent on the personal position of the shrinking city's immediate superior. Second, the local economic development path of China's shrinking cities often depends on land transactions and pollution-intensive industries, which appear not only to be the main cause of the worsening urban shrinkage, but also the biggest source of locally-generated income. As a result, re-industrialization as the apparently ideal strategy for local development in Northeast China undermines the local government's attempts to counter urban shrinkage.