Place-making around high-speed railway stations in China

The rapid expansion of the High-Speed Railway (HSR) network in China generates leapfrog urbanization on the urban periphery in the forms of ambitious blueprint plan around the mega hubs. Nevertheless, most of the station areas and spatial extension lack "place quality". The place-making process of such HSR-new-towns is treated as a multi-actor arena, in which dilemmas are solved under particular institutional arrangement. This research pursues the "how" question in relation to the power games among government, market and civic actors, as well as the way they impact the spatial outcome. It unfolds the decision-making process of four collective action problems: location choice, spatial and infrastructural integration, functional diversity, and sustainability. It argues that even under the government-led, pro-growth rational in China, the variations of institutional arrangement can subsequently contribute to achieving specific place quality in HSR megaprojects. Three cases are investigated: the Wuhan Yangchun- lake new sub-center around the Wuhan Railway Station, the Nanjing South New Extension around the Nanjing South Railway Station, and the Shanghai Hongqiao Business District around the Hongqiao Integrated Transport Hub.