Governability, Borders and urban Citizenship: Investigating practices and impacts of spatial differentiation on the governance of mega-urban development in the PRD

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The research project focuses on the selective use of different governance modes in the Pearl River Delta mega city region. We claim that the drawing of boundaries and differentiated governance are either explicitly or implicitly used to ensure the governability of this massive-scale, highly dynamic and very diverse urban region. By analyzing various types of, in different ways, bounded places of work and residence, this project will build up a typology of governance modes. Conceptually, the analysis will focus on the identification, characterization and explanation of processes of spatial inclusion and exclusion and of different forms and degrees of informality and self-organization tolerated or even encouraged in different geographical units. The understanding of both spatially differentiated governance and the role of informality and self-organization in the urbanization process will be gained from ¿top-down¿ and ¿bottom-up¿ investigations. This thorough analysis will contribute not only to the understanding of governance in transitional China but crucially to the general issue of governability of mega city regions.