Global Change and China’s Clusters: The Restructuring of Guangzhou’s Textile District.

Abstract

Economic globalization has increasingly exposed nations, regions, and cities to strong local competition and inter-city rivalry. This is also the case in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) of South China. As a highly dynamic gro-wing mega-urban region, it has a longstanding reputation as China’s economic powerhouse and as the “fac-tory of the world”. Once a pioneering area of market economy reforms, the PRD nowadays faces fierce com-petition with other major metropolitan areas such as Beijing-Hebei-Metropolis and the Yangtze Delta Region, including Shanghai. This calls for constant adaptation of urban development strategies, which nowadays progressively aim at economic restructuring from labor-intensive manufacturing towards knowledge-intensive and service-oriented industries. The ascent along the value chain is particularly apparent within economic clusters, which are a long-established feature of China’s local economy. However, despite the restructuring of the economy, there is still scope for an “upgrading” of existing clusters even when they seem to represent low value-added economic sectors. The Zhongda textile cluster in Guangz-hou is a fascinating showcase example for this phenomenon. Not only is the textile manufacturing and trading sector re-establishing its role in the city, but it has even proven possible to conduct the restructuring process in situ in a densely-populated and completely built-up area. This paper will focus on the restructuring process as it took place over time in both economic and spatial terms. In the process, it will also reveal how global and local forces interplay in shaping the physical as well as the economic re-development of this cluster.

Keywords

• China
• Guangzhou
• Textile District
• Upgrading
• Restructuring
• Urban Governance