ABSTRACT
Since its nomination to host the 2008 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, Beijing has developed rapidly. The city has benefitted from considerable investment and experienced extensive social change as a result of its preparations to host the Games. This chapter explains the major infrastructural and socio-economic developments that have taken place in Beijing and its surrounding region over the past five years. The chapter charts Beijing’s progress toward a ‘post industrial’ service-based economy and reveals how becoming an Olympic host city has assisted China’s capital to affirm its twenty first century status as a ‘global city’.
