Tourism gentrification in Shenzhen, China: causes and socio-spatial consequences

Abstract

Tourism gentrification is a consequence of both ‘gentrification generalized’ and the rapid development of the global tourism industry. The geographical spread of tourism gentrification from Western countries to emerging countries like China inevitably challenges existing explanations. Using the case of the Shenzhen Overseas Chinese Town (OCT) community in China, this study examines the causes and socio-spatial consequences of tourism gentrification with the aim of widening the discussion on tourism gentrification. Historically, the Shenzhen OCT community was a traditional farm with single group of peasants. Over the past two decades, it has become a mixed gentrified community with upper-class and low-income residents. Theme parks and other tourist facilities now dominate much of the community. This empirical analysis of this community highlights some of the features of tourism gentrification in China. It can be a type of new-build gentrification evolving from a brownfield area. The emergence of a rent gap is the result of rapid urbanization in China but not of suburbanization. The government gives the primary land developers some community administration rights to promote tourism and community development. Tourism gentrification leads to a mixed community with a certain proportion of low-income residents, which generates a diversity of cultural preferences and consumption patterns in the OCT community. In the changing context of China and other emerging countries, tourism gentrification is one part of a broader transformation of social space from lower-class to upper-class spaces. In this case, tourism becomes the main driving force in economic, social, cultural, and lifestyle transformations.