2026 Theses Master's

State-Led Center-Making or Market-Led Decentralization? Explaining Chengdu’s Southward Development

Li, Hengyu

This thesis examines Chengdu’s southward development and asks whether it is better explained by state-led center-making, market-led decentralization, or a phased interaction between the two. Since the 1990s, and more clearly from the 2000s onward, Chengdu’s urban growth has shown a strong southward orientation, especially around the High-Tech Zone and Tianfu New Area.

The study uses a qualitative case study design, combining process tracing, document analysis, and six semi-structured interviews. It focuses on three questions: when southward development became a clearer governmental project, what mechanism best explains it, and how residents experience its everyday effects.

The findings suggest that Chengdu’s southward development is best understood as a phased hybrid process. In the earlier stage, policy platforms, planning, and corridor infrastructure played the main role in opening and structuring the southern direction. In the later stage, land allocation, market activity, and implementation dynamics helped reinforce and stabilize it. The study also finds that the effects of southward development have been uneven in everyday life. Overall, the thesis argues that Chengdu’s southward development is a staged and uneven process shaped first by policy and platform governance and later reinforced by market and implementation dynamics.