Recent Progress of Human Geography in China : Retrospect and Prospect

Japanese Journal of Human Geography 59-6（2007） Recent Progress of Human Geography in China : Retrospect and Prospect Yanwei CHAI, Shangyi ZHOU, Yunlong CAI, Yan ZHANG, Liping WU and Guilan WENG I Introduction After the economic reform in the late 1970s, there were a great socio-economic transition and rapid urbanization in China, which have profoundly influenced human geography studies in China. China’s urban socio-economic transition started with the building of a market economy system, and has been promoted by the internal force of social-economic transition and the external influences of globalization and regionalization. Therefore, the socio-economic and institutional transitions work together and construct new forms of urban space1）. However, the urban transition towards a market economic system is not final ; it is an ongoing process, in which new and old mechanisms, internal and external forces interact with each other, which continually forms new urban spaces2）. Gradually, Chinese scholars realized the limitations of traditionally empirical, scientific geography. Human geography, which paid most regard to the interaction of the ‘human’ and the ‘physical environment’ in the past, began to pay more attention to the interaction between the ‘human’ and the ‘social environment3）’. Similar to the transition of human geography in Western countries in the 1970s, human geography in China gradually joined the trend in Western countries after decades of exploration4）. However, different from its Western counterpart, human geography in China has its special characteristics : it is ‘project-oriented’, that is, the primary goal and driving force of the discipline’ 5） s development is to meet the demands of national social-economic development. Therefore, human geography in China emphasizes addressing the major issues in national social-economic development, providing national urbanization strategies, coordinating regional and urban-rural relationships in the process of urbanization, and contributing to the building of a harmonious society. In the context of globalization and socio-economic transition, human geographers in China, especially urban geographers and economic geographers, paid more attention to the sustainable development of cities and regions, and have achieved great progress. Recently, with the trend of ‘cultural turn’, the importance of studies on cultural factors and cultural globalization has gradually been recognized. Meanwhile, with more concerns about the quality of life, more and more tourism geography research has been launched, and lots of progress has been achieved. Accordingly, in this paper the authors provide a review of human geography in China from the following perspectives : urban and regional development, cultural globalization and ‘cultural turn’, improvement of quality of life, and tourism development. Review of Chinese economic geography can be found in earlier literature6）, so it is not included in this paper. In the following section the authors summarize the progresses of urbanization studies in Chinese human geography in the ― 2 ― Recent Progress of Human Geography in China（ CHAI et al.） 473 context of globalization and socio-economic transition, with regards to urbanization, urban spatial restructuring, and urban social problems. China’s urbanization has entered into an accelerating period in which it takes on new characteristics, has new mechanisms, and forms new spatial patterns. Studies of urban space have shifted their perspectives from physical to social and behavioral space. Meanwhile, the object of study has also emphasized much more the social significance of improving daily life instead of economic growth7）. In the third section, progress on cultural geography against the background of cultural globalization and cultural turn is reviewed, including the expansion of cultural landscape studies with symbolism analysis, the deeper analysis of cultural realm or region, and study of cultural spaces affected by the ‘new cultural geography’. In the fourth section, summaries of tourism geography in China are closely related with its application from a spatial perspective. In the last section, several future research directions are highlighted and some suggestions are advanced for the discipline’s development. II Urbanization studies in the context of globalization and socio-economic transition （1） Diversiﬁ ed and in-depth research on urbanization China’s urbanization has a more complicated background and experienced more pressure of transition than other countries due to its more rapid urbanization process8）. As a result, both opportunities and challenges exist in Chinese urban studies. First, Chinese geographers should strengthen research on theory and methodology. Second, we need to solve problems confronted in the process of urbanization with updated theories and methodologies. Urbanization studies in China fall into four categories : new characteristics of urbanization, dynamic mechanisms of urbanization, urbanization policy, and the spatial pattern of urbanization. （a） New characteristics of Chinese urbanization ① Fast development and regional diversity of urbanization In 1990s, the process of China’s urbanization accelerated. While the levels of regional urbanization still follow an order of decreasing from the Eastern to Middle and Western regions, the gap between the Eastern and Western regions was increasingly widening. In addition, the pattern of urbanization was ‘high speed in the Eastern and low speed in the Western region’ in the 1980s and it changed to ‘high in the South and low in the North’ in the 1990s. Although the urbanization process is synchronous throughout provinces, there are differences in development speed, which was caused by two reasons : the accumulative effect of national strategies and policies on urbanization, and the differences in mechanism and geographical conditions for urban development9）. ② New spatial forms of urbanization Along with the growing number and scale of cities and constructing of inter-city rapid transit, new spatial forms of cities and regions have come into being. Metropolitan areas, urban agglomerations, and urban belts will gradually take the place of single cities as major forms of urban spatial patterns. Recently, scholars have paid more attention to urban agglomeration areas in the context of globalization and in the world system. Accordingly, some new terms, such as 10） 11） 12） ‘Extended Metropolitan Regions’, ‘Global City-Region’, ‘Mega-city Region’, and ‘Megalopolis Corridor13）’ have been coined. ③ Sustaining suburbanization In recent years, large cities in China have experienced a continuing suburbanization in terms of ― 3 ― 474 人文地理第59巻第 6 号（2007） form, scale and intensity. ‘Forced’ suburbanization has weakened while ‘voluntary’ suburbanization has increased Residential suburbanization and industrial suburbanization are increasingly apparent, while commercial and seasonal suburbanization is just appearing. With the differentiation of social classes, villas and townhouses are distributed geographically adjacent 14） to the ‘economical and comfortable housing’ mainly for low-income people. In addition, new commercial spaces such as shopping malls have emerged in suburbs15）. ④ New problems of urbanization In recent years, due to the excessive construction of development zones, university towns and occupation of low-cost farming land, the urban built-up area has rapidlysprawled in some large cities. Since reform and opening up, together with foreign direct investment（ FDI）, the dispersion of large cities and rural industrialization （the development of township and village enterprises, TVEs） and constrained by the rural-urban dichotomy of the management system, a new kind of transitional region, known as a ‘peri-urbanization region’, has emerged in some rural areas with good location or development basis, which is characterized by mixed rural and urban land uses and rapid change of social and economic structure16）. After China entered the rapid urbanization stage, due to the fast spatial expansion of large cities, the adjustment of administrative divisions, the construction of some large projects, etc., some other problems of urbanization began to emerge, which resulted in the disintegration of most rural communities in suburbs, the emergence of a new group of poor farmers who lost their land, and the increase of urban villages17）. （b） Dynamic mechanisms of urbanization In 1980s, the driving force of China’s urbanization included changes of industry structure, developments in the improvement of science and technology, the impact of regional or national economic development, institutional and policy restructuring, national planned investment, initiative development and decentralization of large cities, rural urbanization, foreign investment, etc. Ning has put forward the idea that diversified mechanisms of urbanization have taken the place of the single or dual mechanisms since the 1990s18）. Moreover, a more concentrated urban development model took the place of the decentralized town-and-village-enterprises-initiated development model. Based on different dynamic mechanisms, three modes can be identified : 19） bottom-up urbanization ; top-down urbanization ; foreign investment-initiated urbanization. Based on international comparisons of economic development and urbanization level, most Chinese urban geographers argued that the urbanization level in China was lagging behind and discussed the reasons for the delays from economic,

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