Top-down intergovernmental relations and power-building from below in China's urban redevelopment: An urban political order perspective

From the perspective of urban political order, this paper focuses on the top-down intergovernmental relations and bottom-up grassroots power building in China’s urban redevelopment. Based on the detailed case study of Enning Road in Guangzhou, the paper explores the distinctive features of the “socialist pro-growth coalition”, the way in which grassroots power has been built to counterbalance the pro-growth coalition, and the factors that give impetus to regime transition. Finally, we conclude that: (1) the distinctive features of socialist pro-growth coalition lie in the unique intergovernmental relations; (2) the media plays a key role in grassroots power building to counterbalance the growth-oriented coalition; (3) transition of governing arrangements is the response of internal actors to external intergovernmental relations.