TY - JOUR
T1 - Tracing the Links between Infrastructure-Led Development, Urban Transformation, and Inequality in China’s Belt and Road Initiative
AU - Apostolopoulou, Elia
N1 - Funding Information:
This study has been supported by a philanthropic gift from the Equal Opportunities Foundation and by a Cambridge Humanities Research Grant (GASR010852). I would like to thank all the interviewees for their valuable contribution to this research as well as three reviewers and the editor for their very constructive comments.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors. Antipode published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Antipode Foundation Ltd.
PY - 2021/5
Y1 - 2021/5
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - authoritarian neoliberal urbanism
KW - gentrification
KW - New Silk Road
KW - postcolonial geographies
KW - socio-spatial change
KW - spatial fix
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097227883&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/anti.12699
DO - 10.1111/anti.12699
M3 - Article
SN - 0066-4812
VL - 53
SP - 831
EP - 858
JO - Antipode
JF - Antipode
IS - 3
ER -
