Top-down, bottom-up and beyond: Governance perspectives on urban resilience and environmental justice in the people’s republic of China

Abstract

This chapter addresses how environmental governance arrangements affect urban resilience and environmental justice in the context of an industrializing city in China. This chapter indicates that certain aspects of top-down management approaches can have a positive impact on responsiveness to environmental pressures, and that certain forms of co-production strategies can contribute towards adaptive and innovative capacity. This chapter also finds that low levels of procedural justice have a negative effect on environmental justice in terms of distribution of environmental risks. Regarding the relationship between urban resilience and environmental justice, the findings suggest that socio-economic interests often are prioritized at the expense of both, but also that increased procedural justice may contribute to capacity to create urban resilience.