A Small Entrepreneurial City in Action: Policy Mobility,Urban Entrepreneurialism,and Politics of Scale in Jiyuan,China |
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Authors: | Shenjing He Lingyue Li Yong Zhang Jun Wang |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Urban Planning and Design, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road,Hong Kong SAR, China and the University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Institute of Research and Innovation, Shenzhen, China;2. Department of Urban Planning, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, 200092, China;3. School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, UK;4. Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China |
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Abstract: | This research details the mundane practices of policy mobility and entrepreneurial endeavour in Jiyuan in relation to the city's changing administrative position, and is one of the first attempts at understanding how entrepreneurial policies are mobilized, mutated and diffused in a small inland Chinese city. We interpret Jiyuan's evolving development strategies and trajectory through two interrelated conceptual lenses—policy mobility and urban entrepreneurialism—bridged by an analysis of the politics of scale. Over the past three decades, governance strategies in Jiyuan have evolved from policy imitation, during the germination of urban entrepreneurialism, to policy mutation and diffusion, under the amplification of entrepreneurialism, as the city has moved up the administrative levels and urban hierarchy. Policy mobility and urban entrepreneurialism in Jiyuan, involving a multi‐scalar process, are being shaped by the interactions between the city, the region, the central state and global capital under the confluence of globalization and marketization. The ‘successful’ story of a small entrepreneurial city tells a new tale that can inform wider contexts by painting a fuller portrait of the evolution of an entrepreneurial city across different scales and time and bringing cities hitherto ‘off the map’ back into the picture of urban entrepreneurialism against the backdrop of globalization. |
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Keywords: | entrepreneurial city policy mobility politics of scale administrative hierarchy small city Jiyuan China |
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