ECONOMIC-REFORMS AND SOCIALIST CITY STRUCTURE - A CASE-STUDY OF GUANGZHOU, CHINA

This paper examines the impact of the 1978 economic reforms on the socialist nature of the Chinese city, using Guangzhou, one of the most open cities in China, as a case study. Despite a reorientation of Guangzhou's role as a trade center and port, labor is still predominantly engaged in the secondary sector with a strong emphasis on heavy industry. Tertiary activities have only recently attained an equivalent level of importance during the early Communist period and exhibit a noticeable dearth of the more advanced forms of tertiary activities, such as finance, insurance, and real estate. The spatial structure of the city of Guangzhou has developed according to a State-approved Master Plan with socialist influences and has evolved into three interdependent linear clusters separated by agricultural land and linked by west-east-running highways and railroads. Residential differentiation is based on occupation types which are related to the land use in the city. The city planners continue to practice the socialist method of planning, including standardization, city-size control, and application of the neighborhood unit concept. The economic system of the city is still firmly based on public (state sector) production. Guangzhou exhibits the characteristics of a city in transition from a planned system to a market-oriented economy and highlights the political-ideological conflicts of urban development in post-reform China.