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| CAPITAL, POWER AND SPACE: DECODING “PRODUCTION OF SPACE” |
| YIN Jie1, LUO Xiao-long2 |
1. Department of Urban Planning and Design, College of Landscape Architecture, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China;
2. Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China |
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Abstract Since the opening and reform in 1978, the triple-processes of globalization, decentralization and marketization have become a vital driven force behind the transformation of China. Such triple-processes have not only significantly changed China's production mode, but also caused the restructuring of social and institutional relations which are pillars of space formation and evolution. In this research, each one is analyzed respectively from their affected objects, forms and effects. Normally, capital primarily affects on the production of figurative physical environments. The primary circuit of capital creates the spaces of production and circulation, as well as the spaces of exchange and consumption. In such process, capital produces spaces just as necessary conditions for the "production in space". The second and the third circuit of capital are engaged in producing urban built environment, mainly expressed as development of housing, infrastructure and other public services, such as schools and hospitals. In such process, physical space itself is the direct aim of production. On the other hand, political power, the other key force, generally affects the production of abstract political-institutional space. This process is discussed from the following three aspects: place marketing and promotion of the cities, creation of new governance scalar of the regions, and the administration division adjustment in the metropolitan areas of China. They are all examples regard to how the institutional spaces have been produced by political power. In this paper, the process of producing the physical environments are called "production of space(Ⅰ)", and the process of producing the institutional spaces are called "production of space(Ⅱ)". After the production of new social and economic spaces, power is re-shuffling to fit into the new order. While respecting for the classical theory of Lefebvre, this paper attempts to recode the "production of space" theory with space producing practices in the real world, and to provide a Marxist political-economic perspective on the study of urban and regional space reconstruction in China.
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Received: 25 December 2011
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2012, Vol. 27 
