Crisis urbanism in resource-based cities

Abstract

Resource-based cities, shaped by cycles of extraction and decline, offer critical insights into crisis urbanism. In Northeast China, these cities show a conjunctural urban crisis following compressed urbanization. The crisis gives rise to a counter-narrative of chrono-politics that intersects with spatial, statal, and epistemological dynamics. During the initial golden age, responsibility of crisis governance is rescaled downward to mining enterprises; while after resource depletion, this urban-scale crisis has been rescaled to the level of national politics in China. However, such rescaling did not result in the central government assuming primary responsibility for governance; rather, it adopted a supervisory role. Ultimately, China's experience reveals the limits of reparative urbanism centered within the city, highlighting the inadequacy of urban-scale interventions in addressing structurally produced extractive crises.