Abstract:

Promoting intensive urban development is key to addressing the problems of extensive urban expansion and inadequate governance of existing urban areas. By reviewing representative international cases and undertaking a cross-national comparison grounded in an analytical framework of “goals-institutions-practices, ” this article unpacks the governance logic of intensive urban development. It then identifies five representative governance mechanisms: Germany’s baseline-constraint model, centered on legal controls and ecological compensation; the Nordic inclusive-sharing model, centered on public participation and welfare provision; Japan’s guidance-and-adjustment model, centered on location optimization and flexible inducements; the United States’ market-incentive model, centered on fiscal and tax incentives and property-rights innovation; and Singapore’s administrative-integration model, centered on two-tier planning and state ownership of land. The analysis finds that effective alignment between institutional instruments and contextual factors constitutes the key to governing existing urban areas. To advance intensive urban development with Chinese characteristics, strategic goals should shift toward inclusive and compact development; institutions should combine firm baseline constraints with flexible incentives; practices should incorporate differentiated adjustment and orderly shrinkage; and governance structures should rebuild mechanisms for pluralistic consultation. Taken together, these measures can reconcile spatial efficiency with social justice.

Key words: intensive urban development, governance of existing urban areas, governance mechanisms, analytical framework of “goals-institutions-practices”