A new conceptual framework and case analysis of rural environmental cross-boundary governance in megacities of China

Abstract

With the rapid urbanization and industrialization in China, cross-boundary pollution has emerged as a critical issue, particularly affecting villages in border regions. This study constructs a new conceptual framework for cross-boundary governance from four dimensions: space, stakeholder, scale, and function. Wanshi Village, located on the border of Shanghai and Jiangsu Province, is a typical case of multi-scale and multi-stakeholder superposition. There are four pairs of mismatches between Wanshi Village and Huaqiao Town: nature and administration, village and city, agriculture and industry, and locals and migrants, which makes it difficult to solve the environmental pollution problem. Wanshi has undergone three shifts of environmental governance: informal environmental resistance, top-down policy implementation, and intergovernmental cooperation. It reveals that China's cross-boundary environmental governance mainly relies on the government, and the influence of nongovernmental actors is very limited. Neither the top-down governance model nor the regionally decentralized governance model is sufficient to address cross-boundary issues. The case of Wanshi Village reflects the multiple contradictions between responsibility and power, development stage and administrative level, economic development and environmental protection in cross-boundary regions under the orientation of regional competition and city-centered social development, which is of great significance for reflecting on cross-border environmental governance.