The Transformative Impact of Capital and Labor Mobility on the Chinese City

This paper is concerned with the spatial impacts of China's modernization, focusing on the liberation of two major factors of production: (1) the mobility of capital, both domestic and foreign, and its penetration into the Chinese mainland; and (2) the expansion of personal mobility, most obviously manifested in a massive rural to urban population transfer during the past two decades. I will examine the extent to which these two interrelated phenomena have helped to transform human lives and landscapes in China's cities. Although the new mobility of labor and capital has been a feature of economic growth in many different parts of China, the pace of activity has been quickest and the results most dramatic in and around the major cities along the coast, especially in the south. For that reason, much of the discussion here emphasizes what has occurred in the southern part of Guangdong Province, and particularly the cities of the Pearl River Delta (PRD). [Key words: capital, labor, mobility/migration, Chinese cities.]