From a Special Economic Zone to a Smart Sustainable City: The Power of Strategic Spatial Planning in Shenzhen

Nested in a centrally driven political hierarchy, planners in Shenzhen, China's first Special Economic Zone, have an onerous task in steering the city's spatial developments. They must refer not only to higher-level plans in formulating its development strategy, but also use planning to regain control of a city with vested land interests (former farmers with collectively owned land and state-owned enterprises who have been 'zone builders' from day one) in order to ful fil its role as the country's pioneering, sustainable, low-carbon, and high-tech city. The paper argues that while strategic spatial planning is quintessential to the wellbeing of people, place, and planet, one has to understand its potential and constraints through implementation and grounded evolving practices shaped by, among others, historical, economic, political, and governance factors.