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Path Dependency, Central-Local Dialectic, and Structure and Agency: How Has Yuhang Transformed from the Rural to the Urban?

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Chinese Cities in the 21st Century

Abstract

This chapter presents a deep description of how Yuhang, Zhejiang, has transformed from a traditional rural county to a suburban central business district (CBD) in the last 40 years. It reveals the dynamic but path-dependent nature of regional economic development characterized by periodic equilibrium trajectories and shocks. The unraveled narratives contribute to understanding the central and local scalar relation as well as the role of structure and agency in post-reform regional transformation in China. While the locals, that is, cadres, entrepreneurs, and peasants, are crucial and fundamental in stimulating regional economic development and triggering local-based growth processes, the central state is instrumental in initiating reform policies incentivizing the locals and mitigating developmental shocks at the critical junctures. The decisive role of social structures in producing the incrementality of economic reform and social change is balanced by the pivotal role of human agencies across scales in navigating through the critical junctures, endogenously or exogenously created.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Environment, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada

    Wei Xu

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  1. Wei Xu
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Correspondence to Wei Xu .

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  1. University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA

    Youqin Huang

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Xu, W. (2020). Path Dependency, Central-Local Dialectic, and Structure and Agency: How Has Yuhang Transformed from the Rural to the Urban?. In: Huang, Y. (eds) Chinese Cities in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34780-2_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34780-2_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-34779-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-34780-2

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