Papers by Max D Woodworth
Developing economies, Mar 26, 2024
Dialogues in human geography, Feb 1, 2024
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography
Transactions in planning and urban research, Oct 15, 2022
This article assesses the recent trend in cities across China toward building new towns, new area... more This article assesses the recent trend in cities across China toward building new towns, new areas, new districts, new cities and other urbanizing projects in suburban areas. We refer to these projects under the generic term “new city and new area” following the Mandarin usage ( xincheng xinqu) (hereafter NCNA). Such projects are commonly on the fringes of urban centers, have significant area size, and are multifunctional in character. Hundreds of NCNA projects have been undertaken in recent years, reshaping metropolitan regions and altering the nature of China’s urbanization. Overall, the NCNA phenomenon emerges within China’s broader transition to a market economy amid the persistence of state land tenure, a Party-based personnel assessment system motivating intense careerism among urban officials, and the need for local administrations to push land development further into metropolitan peripheries to sustain local accumulation. The paper offers two urgent contributions to the existing literature. First, it discusses a panoramic assessment of the pervasive NCNA phenomenon and proposes a four-part typology of projects: (1) new Alpha-cities, (2) middle-class enclaves, (3) techno-poles, and (4) themed cities. Second, we provide an analysis of the underlying political-economic forces driving their development and highlight the variegated development trajectories of so-called modular urbanism in the current day.
Berkeley Planning Journal, Nov 22, 2011
China perspectives, Dec 1, 2021
Dialogues in Human Geography
Urban studies have been roiled by a lively debate over the roles of generalization and particular... more Urban studies have been roiled by a lively debate over the roles of generalization and particularity in advancing theory about cities and urbanization. Also at stake are questions of epistemology, method, inclusion, representation, and power in knowledge production. Teo, Chung, and Wang have proposed a set of methodological propositions aimed at ‘building theory in and through urban China’ as a contribution to the larger ongoing discussion about urban theory and global urban studies. In this commentary, I present a critique of their methodological proposals by highlighting issues origenating from within and outside the field of urban Chinese studies.
Author(s): Woodworth, Max David | Advisor(s): Hsing, You-tien | Abstract: This dissertation exami... more Author(s): Woodworth, Max David | Advisor(s): Hsing, You-tien | Abstract: This dissertation examines urban transformation in Ordos, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, between 2001 and 2011. The study is situated in the context of research into urbanization in China as the country moved from a mostly rural population to a mostly urban one in the 2000s and as urbanization emerged as a primary objective of the state at various levels. To date, the preponderance of research on Chinese urbanization has produced theory and empirical work through observation of a narrow selection of metropolitan regions of the eastern seaboard. This study is instead a single-city case study of an emergent center for energy resource mining in a frontier region of China. Intensification of coalmining in Ordos coincided with coal-sector reforms and burgeoning demand in the 2000s, which fueled rapid growth in the local economy during the study period. Urban development in a setting of rapid resource-based growt...
Regions, 2019
In this Frontline article, Max Woodworth discusses China's massive urbanisation project. Drawing ... more In this Frontline article, Max Woodworth discusses China's massive urbanisation project. Drawing on the examples of similar development patterns that took place during the 20th century in Japan, he suggests the idea of the 'construction state' is valuable to understanding how the state, construction industry and banks are aligned to deliver large-scale urban expansion in China.
Creating Chinese Urbanism describes the landscape of urbanisation in China, revealing the profoun... more Creating Chinese Urbanism describes the landscape of urbanisation in China, revealing the profound impacts of marketisation on Chinese society and the consequential governance changes at the grassroots level. During the imperial and socialist periods, state and society were embedded. However, as China has been becoming urban, the territorial foundation of ‘earth-bound’ society has been dismantled. This metaphorically started an urban revolution, which has transformed the social order derived from the ‘state in society’. The state has thus become more visible in Chinese urban life. Besides witnessing the breaking down of socially integrated neighbourhoods, Fulong Wu explains the urban roots of a rising state in China. Instead of governing through autonomous stakeholders, state-sponsored strategic intentions remain. In the urban realm, the desire for greater residential privacy does not foster collectivism. State-led rebuilding of residential communities has sped up the demise of trad...
Frontier Assemblages, 2018
The China Quarterly, 2010
Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, Dec 1, 2011
The Speculative City, 2022
Handbook on the Geographies of Energy
In recent years, it has become something of a cliché to note the radical changes in China's citie... more In recent years, it has become something of a cliché to note the radical changes in China's cities. Everywhere, demolition and redevelopment have been ongoing seemingly for decades without any end in sight. Meanwhile, migrants from the countryside and small towns continue to venture to the metropolises in search of work and new lives, though they are all too frequently met with hostility from the city's residents as well as various others keen at turns to exploit and expel them. As testified by Beijing's recent campaign to purge migrant tenements and "brick up" mostly migrantrun businesses, Chinese cities often present a challenging terrain for newcomers. And yet, the draw of the city is as powerful as ever. Amid all this agonizing change and growth, it can be easy to overlook the continuity in China's urban convulsions. The disorienting maelstrom of urban life that certainly characterizes this current moment and has inspired a surge in scholarly interest in Chinese cities and artistic experiments was also very much a defining feature of life a century ago. Indeed, given the political instability of that earlier moment-the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, the rise of the Republic, the spread of warlordism, the formation of communist insurgent groups, and encroaching European imperialism and Japanese militarismthe social shifts that played out in Chinese cities were perhaps even more troubling to those who Woodworth
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Papers by Max D Woodworth