Intraurban Location of Producer Services in Guangzhou, China

Abstract

The location of producer services has significant implications on the restructuring of the urban landscape. It is well documented that the growth of producer services in advanced economies has tended to be highly concentrated in the city proper, while at the same time demonstrating a prevailing tendency toward decentralization in recent years because of the development of information and communication technology. Producer services have been growing rapidly in urban China over the past decade. They have created new and remarkable changes in ‘postsocialist cities’. This study analyzes the intraurban location of information and consulting services in Guangzhou, China. The findings suggest that the distribution pattern of producer services has gradually changed from dispersed to centripetal development towards the new business district. This is in stark contrast with the situation in Western cities. In Ghangzhou, urban land reform, city planning, and the need for producer services to gain more prestige and business linkages have together shaped new location dynamics for producer services. There has been a transformation from the once dispersed pattern into one that is more concentrated.