Social areas in Beijing

Cities in the Western world have been subjected to a spatial process that essentially reflects rules of the market economy. People with ‘might’, defined in terms of money, have priority access to better residential locations. This allows a larger measure of personal preference to sway on residential location, and has ushered in the secondary factors of family or life–cycle effects as well as individual perception and choice regarding what is an acceptable neighbourhood and acceptable distance for commuting. Some parallel work has been done in socialist and Third World cities in the 1970s and 1980s which provides evidence of divergence from the original construct. Yet due to lack of good quality and sufficient data and general lack of interest in the social geography of cities there was little work done in China. Up to 1990, Chinese cities had combined the characteristics of socialist central planning, and characteristics of Third World cities of low level of economic development and limited ability of city governments in improving urban housing. Based on the latest 1990 Census, we study the social areas of Beijing of 1990 and the dynamics behind their formation. In particular, we shall highlight the impacts of the housing supply situation and allocation under central planning and the interrelationship between these and the conventional social areas dynamics. The Opening and Reform after 1978 has introduced new dynamics in China's urban social space. The 1990 census netted out some evidence of these new factors. However, their real impact may only be more adequately measured by the coming census in 2000. Limited by the census data, our examination has excluded the latest situation (after 1990). In spite of the use of the Shevky and Bell construct the purpose of the present study focuses on understanding the social geography of contemporary Chinese cities, and provides a useful historic and ideological dimension for comparative studies for related key concepts in urban and social geography.     

Something more to Xiaoying's pain

This short article concentrates on various representations of Xiaoying, a seriously injured survivor of the Zhili Toy Factory fire of 1993 in Shenzhen, China. Visual materials including a music video by the Hong Kong band, Noise Cooperative, TV documentaries by Radio Television Hong Kong and Phoenix TV, and written literary reports, such as ‘Bloody Tracing: a Recent Report on the Victims of the Zhili Toy Factory Fire in Shenzhen on November 19, 1993’ by academic researchers are analyzed. This is my close reading of a single exploited rural woman's story of pain and my understanding of her constraints: global capitalism, destructive modernization, and gender hierarchy. Xiaoying's painful experiences also prompt questions about the future of rural society.     

我国城市群重大发展战略问题探索

进入新世纪以来,具有区际意义的城市群发展出现了多元化全方位的时空变化,合作与竞争并存,发展与制约同时存在。信息网络化、产业集群化与重大基础设施一体化日益成为人类经济活动、文化科技交流和民众居住生活的重要内容,同时也成为城市群日趋完善的新动力和新机制。科学发展观、城乡统筹、城市现代化和国际化以及人与自然环境的和谐发展等均已成为我国城市群重大发展战略和建设目标,也是加快我国城镇化现代化的重大举措。为此,对我国城市群区域内产业集聚、城乡统筹、紧凑空间组织、可持续发展等问题的发展战略与建设目标进行综合性、系统性的深入研究,将具有重大的社会实践意义与科学性的创新求索和重要的学术价值。     

Global TransPark: New Competitiveness for Hong Kong and South China Based on Air Logistics

Economic globalization in the past two decades has led to a fast pace of growth of many economies in Asia Pacific, and impacted on the region's growth in air cargo. This paper discusses the future of airport infrastructure and its effect on regional competitiveness in the form of a new type of airport — Global TransPark (GTP). It identifies China's need to forge such a critical infrastructure in the New Economy, and that South China is its best location. The Hong Kong Extended Metropolitan Region (EMR) in South China stands out among competitive regions in Asia in terms of geopolitical and institutional setting under ‘One Country, Two Systems’ as the best general location for Asia's first and potentially largest GTP. Forging a GTP will promote the EMR's overall competitiveness and hastens its economic restructuring. The paper then discusses the advantages of Zhuhai Airport as the site of the potential GTP which will also incorporate the other four nearby airports within the EMR. The GTP is also a new challenge for intra-EMR cooperation in terms of customs and tariff, air rights, ground handling, and land and water transport coordination between its airports and respective local governments.