Path Dependency vs Neoliberal Urbanism: Comparative Governance of urban Redevelopment of Collective Farmland in Chinese and Russian Cities

The objective of this paper is to contribute with empirical evidence and conceptualization of the impact of both socialist “path dependency” effects and governance patterns during the neoliberal reforms over the last 30 years on urban farmland redevelopment in Russian and Chinese largest cities. Using the examples of St. Petersburg and Guangzhou, the paper examines governance principles which have led from the same/comparable specific starting point to different results of urban redevelopment of former socialist collective farmland. While neoliberal modernization effects during urban redevelopment of former socialist farmland brought the internationally common urban built environment both in Chinese and Russian metropolises, path-dependent governance models introduced substantially different business, social and administrative structures. In the St. Petersburg farmland redevelopment case, globalizing neoliberal impacts overruled specific “path-dependency” ones in political, legal, economic urban institutions, and both impacts were equally important for the transformation of urban social practices and structures. In Guangzhou, case path dependency specificity turned much more pronounced in political and social practices and structures, while neoliberal and “path-dependency” impacts were probably of equal importance for legal and economic structural transformations. While Russian radical transition model made business the main driver of such redevelopment, diminishing the role of local self-governance and enhancing the role of public activism, under Chinese gradual transition model local administrative and social self-organization played the key role controlling and even overruling interests of business actors.