| Summary: | The development of market socialism in China has contributed to a spatial
economic transformation characterized, among other things, by the apparent capacity to
rapidly industrialize without transferring large numbers of people into big cities. The
most striking element of this transformation has been the phenomenal growth and
spatial proliferation of industries in particular areas of the Chinese countryside. The
conventional wisdom of existing theories of development, industrialization, and
urbanization does not adequately explain the emergence of these relatively productive
regions.
This thesis examines the key patterns and underlying processes and mechanisms
which must be accommodated in a new analytical and conceptual framework for
understanding rural transformation and the wider spatial economic restructuring in
China's lower Yangzi delta. The overall objective is to explore the theoretical
implications of the local character of regional change through an evaluation of a
hypothetical model of mega-urbanization. The model situates the emergence and
specific patterns of industrial production within a complex network of interactions and
interrelationships embedded in overlapping administrative and institutional structures
which are themselves largely tied to the circumstances of particular places.
The resulting investigations are based upon an analysis of regional and local
level statistical and other documentary sources, numerous interviews, field observations,
and a survey questionnaire of rural enterprises which was part of a detailed case study
of one county level area in the lower Yangzi delta. Two central findings are revealed.
First, the patterns and underlying processes and mechanisms of regional development
in the delta are fundamentally linked to intensely localized exigencies and opportunities
within the wider Chinese space economy. Second, external economies, the dynamics of
agglomeration, and the role of large cities and other exogenous forces, while significant, were less important in the delta than were endogenous forces.
The details of these findings are incorporated into a revised model of mega-urbanization
which highlights the critical processes and mechanisms which underlie the
patterns observed, what establishes these processes and mechanisms, and what
stabilizes and reproduces them. The thesis concludes by suggesting an agenda for the
creation of appropriate planning and management responses for the lower Yangzi delta
region.
|
|---|
