Commercial Redevelopment and Regional Inequality in Urban China: Xining's Wangfujing?

An American urban geographer specializing in China explores whether a commercial and urban redevelopment model successful in Beijing (Wangfujing) can be transferred to a more remote region of the country (Qinghai Province), and whether the potential benefits outweigh the costs of dismantling the traditional commercial core of the relatively large provincial capital of Xining, with one-half million inhabitants. The Xining project is investigated in the contexts of globalization, secondary globalization, and the diffusion of urban planning and development practices in China. The biases in Chinese planning practice toward methods employed in large eastern cities are considered in light of global trends toward neoliberalism and the new regionalism. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I31, O18, R58. 2 figures, 83 references.