Uneven development and tourism gentrification in the metropolitan fringe: A case study of Wuzhen Xizha in Zhejiang Province, China

Abstract

Gentrification has now unfolded at a planetary scale and has broken down the center-periphery structuring of urban and rural areas. In the context of new-type urbanization and rural revitalization, tourism gentrification has gradually become a new frontier of the rural-urban relations in China. Taking Xizha as a case study, this paper aims to explore the characteristics and mechanisms of tourism gentrification in historic districts through temporal analysis and multi-scalar approaches. Based on recent field visits and semi-structured interviews with administrative staff, enterprise managers, residents, and tourists in the study area, three main arguments are put forward in this paper. First, a phased tourism gentrification process has taken place in Xizha, with significant shifts in lifestyle, industry and investment, physical infrastructure, property rights, and the rent gap. Second, tourism gentrification in Xizha is a multi-subject and multi-scalar consequence of uneven development in China, with power-oriented, capital-driven and class-separated processes as the core mechanisms. Third, Xizha's tourism gentrification is regional and endogenous, with the local government and the rural-urban dual structure being the principal influencing factors. Further discussions are provided to expand the general significance of the case study and increase the contribution to the planetary gentrification.