Assembling the Chinese City: Production of Place and the Articulation of New Urban Spaces in Wuhan, China
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Assembling the Chinese City: Production of Place and the Articulation of New Urban Spaces in Wuhan, China William S. Buckingham A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2014 Reading Committee: Kam Wing Chan, Chair William Beyers Matt Sparke Dan Abramson Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Geography © Copyright 2014 William S. Buckingham University of Washington Abstract Assembling the Chinese City: Production of Place and the Articulation of New Urban Spaces in Wuhan, China William S. Buckingham Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Kam Wing Chan Department of Geography Studies of China’s urban development largely rely on a handful of metanarratives, appealing for their concision, but failing to account for the spatial specificities of the Chinese city. These narratives are founded on structural capitalist explanations of place- making including neoliberal urbanism, market transition, new institutional economics, urban entrepreneurialism, and various discourses surrounding the “world” or “global” city. The resulting strands of China-based urban studies reveal, at best, a partial understanding of the dynamics shaping contemporary Chinese cities. This dissertation seeks to reinterpret the production of the Chinese city through assemblage theory and articulation. Assemblage identifies the multitude of diverse and interweaving sociopolitical relations that construct an identifiable, if dynamic, urban imaginary. However, assemblage has been criticized for its inability to incorporate power relations into its networks. I argue here that assemblage is useful in understanding the various ways actors interpret, imagine, and inhabit the city. Articulation then becomes useful in explaining how those ideas are implemented through a framework of power relations. In the case of China, multiple ideologies and cultural logics inform the understanding of cities. However, these ideas are articulated through the primary technologies of rule the PRC has employed since its founding: the dual structure and the Leninist, top-down, spatial hierarchy. Rather than dismissing these as institutional relics of Maoism, this dissertation argues that they are foundational tools for the party-state’s governance of society that transcend the historical eras of Maoism and post-Maoism. The first half of the dissertation deconstructs the metanarratives of neoliberalism and market transition, and examines the continued importance of the dual structure. The second half shows how the Chinese city is assembled and articulated through practices of place production in Wuhan, the largest city in central China. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ................................................................................................................ iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................... v Chapter One Introduction: Encountering Chinese Cities ......................................................................... 1 1.1 Encountering Chinese Cities ..................................................................................... 1 1.2 Urbanizing China: Literature Review ..................................................................... 12 1.3 Theoretical Framework: Assembling an Articulation ............................................. 38 1.4 The Case Study: Wuhan .......................................................................................... 55 1.5 Structure and Methodology of the Dissertation ...................................................... 70 1.6 Conclusion: Wuhan Emergent ................................................................................ 78 Appendix 1 .................................................................................................................... 82 Chapter Two Uncorking the Neoliberal Bottle: The Confines of Neoliberal Critique for Interpreting Urban Change ................................................................................................................... 85 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 85 2.2 Neoliberal Critique and the Geography of China's Development ........................... 88 2.3 Urbanization as Primitive Accumulation or "Accumulation by Dispossession” .. 101 2.4 Neoliberalism in Chinese Intellectual Debates ..................................................... 107 2.5 The Limits of Accumulation by Dispossession..................................................... 111 2.6 Uncorking the Neoliberal Bottle ........................................................................... 117 2.7 Conclusion: Assembling China’s Transformation beyond Scale .......................... 119 Chapter Three The Dual Structure: Disassembling China’s Market Transition ..................................... 126 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 126 3.2 The "Holy Trinity" through the Ages: Mechanisms and Operation of the Dual- Structure ...................................................................................................................... 135 3.3 Mobility and the Hukou System: Change and Continuity ................................... 141 3.4 Mobility and Entitlement Distribution: Beyond the Hukou System ..................... 144 3.5 Changes in the Trinity ........................................................................................... 148 3.6 Localization of Hukou Control ............................................................................. 156 3.7 Entitlement Changes: Why does the Hukou still matter? ..................................... 160 i 3.8 Hukou Conversion, Rural Citizenship, and the Creation of China's "Villages-in-the City" ............................................................................................................................ 165 3.9 Conclusion: The Dual-Structure, Chengzhongcun, and Rural-Urban Dynamics in the City ........................................................................................................................ 174 Chapter 4 Schizophrenic Cities: Chengzhongcun, Global Cities, and the Production of Informality ......................................................................................................................................... 175 4.1 Introduction: The Persistent Myths of Marginality ............................................... 175 4.2 Does China have Slums? ...................................................................................... 179 4.3 Urbanization, the State, and the Emergence of Chengzhongcun: Spatial Hierarchy and Spatial Patterns ..................................................................................................... 190 4.4 Global Cities, Global Slums: World Cities Discourse and Informal Imaginaries ..................................................................................................................................... 199 4.5 Conclusion “In but not of the city”: Beyond Ambiguity, Incompleteness, and Transition .................................................................................................................... 215 Chapter 5 Wuhan Articulated: Policy Mobility and the Production of Place in The Assemblage of Wuhan’s Three Towns .................................................................................................... 220 5.1 Introduction: Mr. Digging around the City and Da Wuhan .................................. 220 5.2 Interpretations of Chinese Space ........................................................................... 225 5.3 Visions of the Municipality: Assembling and Promoting Da Wuhan ................... 233 5.4 The City Assembled: How History Shapes Urban Development in Wuhan......... 238 5.5 Articulating Wuhan: Building the New Central Business District ....................... 255 5.6 Conclusion: Paradox Cities ................................................................................... 267 Chapter 6 Assimilating the Periphery: Territorial Politics and Rural-Urban Integration ................ 269 6.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 269 6.2 Interpreting Chinese Spaces: Desakota and Spatial Determinism ....................... 270 6.3 Territorial Politics and Land Regimes .................................................................. 276 6.4 Expanding Wuhan: Centers, Peripheries, and Rural Urban Integration ............... 284 6.5. Conclusion: Rural-Urban Integration and the Dual-Structure ............................. 303 Appendix 2 .................................................................................................................. 307 Chapter 7 Appropriating Rights: Chengzhoncun Transformation ................................................... 309 7.1 Introduction: Debt and Development .................................................................... 309 ii 7.2 Gaizao: The Transformation of Chengzhongcun .................................................. 312 7.3 Wuhan’s Redevelopment Plan: Aggressive ‘Marketization’ of the Village ......... 319 7.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 341 Chapter 8 Conclusion: Assembling an Articulation