Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- 1 Robert Park in China: From the Chicago School to Urban China Studies
- 2 “Bewitched by the History Behind the Walls”: Robert Park and the Arc of Urban Sociology from Chicago to China
- 3 Moral Order in the Post-Socialist Chinese City: Generating a Dialogue with Robert E. Park’s “The City”
- 4 Learning from Chicago (and LA)? The Contemporary Relevance of Western Urban Theory for China
- 5 From Chicago to Shenzhen, via Birmingham: Zones of Transition and Dreams of Homeownership
- 6 Urbanization and Economic Development: Comparing the Trajectories of China and the United States
- 7 The Handshake 302 Village Hack Residency: Chicago, Shenzhen, and the Experience of Assimilation
- 8 Beijing Ring Roads and the Poetics of Excess and Ordinariness
- 9 Pathways to Urban Residency and Subjective Well-Being in Beijing
- 10 A Study of Socio-spatial Segregation of Rural Migrants in Shenzhen: A Case of Foxconn
- 11 The Anxious Middle Class of Urban China: Its Emergence and Formation
- 12 Conclusion: Everyday Cities, Exceptional Cases
- Index
10 - A Study of Socio-spatial Segregation of Rural Migrants in Shenzhen: A Case of Foxconn
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 April 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- 1 Robert Park in China: From the Chicago School to Urban China Studies
- 2 “Bewitched by the History Behind the Walls”: Robert Park and the Arc of Urban Sociology from Chicago to China
- 3 Moral Order in the Post-Socialist Chinese City: Generating a Dialogue with Robert E. Park’s “The City”
- 4 Learning from Chicago (and LA)? The Contemporary Relevance of Western Urban Theory for China
- 5 From Chicago to Shenzhen, via Birmingham: Zones of Transition and Dreams of Homeownership
- 6 Urbanization and Economic Development: Comparing the Trajectories of China and the United States
- 7 The Handshake 302 Village Hack Residency: Chicago, Shenzhen, and the Experience of Assimilation
- 8 Beijing Ring Roads and the Poetics of Excess and Ordinariness
- 9 Pathways to Urban Residency and Subjective Well-Being in Beijing
- 10 A Study of Socio-spatial Segregation of Rural Migrants in Shenzhen: A Case of Foxconn
- 11 The Anxious Middle Class of Urban China: Its Emergence and Formation
- 12 Conclusion: Everyday Cities, Exceptional Cases
- Index
Summary
Many years ago
He took his luggage
Entered this
Glorious city
Daring and energetic.
Many years later
Holding his own ash in hand
He stands at
Crossroad of the city
Feel lost
“Urban Farmer” by Mr. Lizhi Xu (1990–2014)
Introduction
“The city, in short, shows clearly the good and evil in human nature. This fact majorly justifies the view of making the city a laboratory or clinic in which human nature and social processes may be conveniently and profitably studied.” (Park,1915: 612)
Cities such as Chicago or Shenzhen can be “laboratory specimens”, amenable to measurement, dissection, experiment, and other contrivances (Gieryn, 2006: 10). In this study, we examine the socio-spatial segregation of migrants in Shenzhen, the laboratory of post-reform China's marketoriented and open-door policies. Similar to Chicago in the early 1900s, Shenzhen has experienced a tremendous transformation from a rural area in the 1970s to a globalizing city in the early 21st century, with the accumulation of millions of migrants. Nevertheless, as stated by Latour and Woolgar (1986), the modality of “laboratory” is largely constructed and contextualized. From a comparative perspective (Robinson, 2005), Shenzhen's socio-spatial landscape in the 21st century could by no means be the same as that of Chicago 100 years ago. Today, “time-space compression” has become prominent, along with the flow of capital, investments, and products on the global scale; regions or cities of the global South such as Shenzhen have become the hotspots of growth and migrant accumulation. Based on this, Shenzhen is undergoing the concomitant impact of globalization, migration, and urbanization—the speed, scales, and effects of which are far beyond that of Chicago in the early 1900s. Moreover, the making of Shenzhen is largely a state-led experiment, to explore new ways of China's market-oriented reform, and against a specific context of urban–rural dualism.
Park focused on two issues, migration and segregation, which are still the dominant forces underlying the development of cities in the early 21st century. In China, according to the 2014 national survey, there are more than 274 million migrant workers, and the urbanization of rural migrants has become a national strategy.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The City in ChinaNew Perspectives on Contemporary Urbanism, pp. 185 - 206Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2019