Compact Mega

: Scenarios for the Interplay between Urban Megaprojects and Megaregional Planning Strategies

Abstract

This thesis investigates the interplay between urban megaprojects and megaregions through the academic fields of regional design and strategic foresight. The field of urbanism – including regional design – is poorly equipped to explore uncertain and volatile futures systematically. Conversely, the field of business management, particularly strategic foresight, offers an extensive and in-depth knowledge base for using scenarios to shape corporate strategies. This knowledge base is examined in this thesis in order to unpack the dynamics and ambitions of relevant actors and build scenarios to discuss plausible futures. Hence, the aim is to innovate the use of scenarios in urban and regional design to advance the ability of these fields to tackle the complexity of megaregional development. The geographical focus lies on the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (China).

The two major theoretical building blocks for this thesis are the Compact City and mega-regionalization. The Compact City is widely used as an urban design and planning concept. However, it is insufficiently defined to deal with the complexity of contemporary urbanization processes. Mega-regionalization is a promising theory that reveals this complexity, showing how the benefits of urban concentration lead to enormous multi-scalar and multi-layered compositions that expand far beyond conventional city cores. The thesis argues that urban megaprojects are not only the prototype of contemporary urban compaction but also a crucial link between megaregional planning strategies and physical development. Therefore, the megaregion megaprojects interplay is proposed as the suitable basis to discuss the ambitions and dynamics that drive urban futures – Compact Mega.

Date of Award	8 Jul 2024
Original language	English
Supervisor	Joern Henning Buehring (Chief supervisor), G Bruyns (Co-supervisor) & Evert Meijers (Co-supervisor)