ABSTRACT

A reading of the preceding case studies offers the opportunity for a closer dissection of the process of the production of urban space in China than has been presented. But before we proceed to this synthesis we need to make some general comments on scale theory and the difficulties of scaling up data from the local level to regional and national levels that is often regarded as a central problem of social science research. In China it must be also emphasized that most of the research on scale has been focused on the reverse process of scaling down particularly with respect to fiscal and administrative decentralization. To begin with, it should be made clear, that when we use the concept of scale we are following Neil Smith’s suggestion “that specific geographical scales can be conceived of as platforms for specific kinds of social activity.”2 Thus this idea of territorial scale includes the entire spectrum of human activities at the level of individuals, households, neighborhoods/villages, localities, regions, nations and the global scale. Central to our arguments concerning the production of urban space is the view that these different platforms reflect the constructed reality of the people, institutions and social practices that occur in these platforms that follows Lefebvre’s triad of factors that produce urban space discussed in Chapter 2. Of course we recognize that these “platforms” are not spatially bounded and are linked through networks of political power, informational flows, kinship and economic transactions that leap-frog and fluctuate in intensity within and between these levels. Perhaps a more useful way of explaining the concept is by using the concept of a “domain,” which carries with it the idea of political power and obligation being tied in a network that operates at the level of different platforms. The most complex research task is establishing how changes operating in one domain cause changes in another domain – for example the effect of world energy prices on the ability of national

governments to deliver income improvement at the village level. Efforts to establish this connecting chain of causation are complex and often result in researchers focusing upon in situ change within one domain. By explaining what occurs in one domain the relationship to the other domain becomes clearer.3