Transforming Macau: planning as institutionalized informality and the spatial dynamics of hypercompetition

摘要

This paper examines the crucial years between 2002 and 2012 when land enclosures, reclamation works, and architectural production transformed the urban landscape of Macau. Building on the literature on urban informality, I first analyze how planning as institutionalized informality unmapped the city of Macau through a complex medium of neoliberal ethos, technical rationality, and geopolitical calculations. Then, I show how the casino concessionaires remapped the city in a highly competitive milieu by tracing how they maneuvered to secure relative locational advantage. This analysis shows the importance of framing mapping and unmapping as a simultaneous dialectical process so as to render the creative-destructive dynamic of capitalist urban transformation. It also suggests how we can further the analysis of urban planning as an informalized practice and institution.