Tracing the links between infrastructure-led development, urban transformation, and inequality in China’s belt and road initiative
Tracing the links between infrastructure-led development, urban transformation, and inequality in China’s belt and road initiative
In this paper, I explore the links between infrastructure-led development, urban transformation and inequality in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). I theorise the BRI as a spatial fix to the overaccumulation problems of Chinese capitalism and I pay particular attention to the role of urbanisation. By drawing on postcolonial geographies, my goal is to offer a relational analysis of divergent trajectories of socio-spatial urban change driven by BRI projects in Athens, Colombo and London. My key argument is that urban transformation driven by the BRI signals the emergence of a new form of infrastructure-led, authoritarian neoliberal urbanism. This engenders both new urban formations and new urban politics that, despite variegated expressions across different contexts, are reconfiguring urban space and are transforming the social geography of each city by creating, facilitating or exacerbating spatial fragmentation and social segregation.
831-858
Apostolopoulou, Elia
e30e62ad-7e3c-4744-9929-261187c19b04
7 December 2020
Apostolopoulou, Elia
e30e62ad-7e3c-4744-9929-261187c19b04
Apostolopoulou, Elia
(2020)
Tracing the links between infrastructure-led development, urban transformation, and inequality in China’s belt and road initiative.
Antipode, 53 (3), .
(doi:10.1111/anti.12699).
Abstract
In this paper, I explore the links between infrastructure-led development, urban transformation and inequality in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). I theorise the BRI as a spatial fix to the overaccumulation problems of Chinese capitalism and I pay particular attention to the role of urbanisation. By drawing on postcolonial geographies, my goal is to offer a relational analysis of divergent trajectories of socio-spatial urban change driven by BRI projects in Athens, Colombo and London. My key argument is that urban transformation driven by the BRI signals the emergence of a new form of infrastructure-led, authoritarian neoliberal urbanism. This engenders both new urban formations and new urban politics that, despite variegated expressions across different contexts, are reconfiguring urban space and are transforming the social geography of each city by creating, facilitating or exacerbating spatial fragmentation and social segregation.
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Antipode - 2020 - Apostolopoulou - Tracing the Links between Infrastructure‐Led Development Urban Transformation and
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Accepted/In Press date: 2 November 2020
e-pub ahead of print date: 7 December 2020
Published date: 7 December 2020
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Local EPrints ID: 490582
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/490582
ISSN: 0066-4812
PURE UUID: dbdf881e-6375-439e-bd3a-c2ec51fa5ccc
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Date deposited: 30 May 2024 16:54
Last modified: 01 Jun 2024 02:08
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Author:
Elia Apostolopoulou
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