China's Landscape Motives of Development Instead of Vernacular Motives

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China
In the last two decades, the world has seen the rapid transformation of China to become the world’s second-largest economy. This is when nominal GDP is considered, but when one considers purchasing power parity, China is then the world’s largest economy. Trending Economics notes that China’s annual growth rate averaged 9.58% for the past three decades. This was unprecedented, and for a country that was largely agrarian, China had surprised the world and is today rivaling the likes of the United States for the top spot. While China still holds tightly on its socialistic ideals, it can be argued that it has from time to time embraced certain capitalistic attributes as it seeks to propel itself along the development path. This is up for debate but not in this paper. This paper seeks to expound on a theme that appears to have influenced the world and now appears to influence the development agenda of China. With its initial ideals, China lagged behind, but the moment the Republic embraced the ideals of the outside world, the tide appeared to turn. Well, this article seeks to investigate the notion that China continually embraces or is inclined towards landscape motives of development instead of the vernacular motives.
First of all, there is the idea of how China managed to develop in such a short span of time. Harvey (292) notes that “the urbanization of China over the last twenty years has been of a different character, with its heavy focus on infrastructural development, but it is even more important than that of the U.S.” China’s urbanization happened in only two decades, but this is beside the point here. As indicated in the above statement, the country focused more on developing infrastructure which is a testament to a development agenda that is focused on the landscape motives. Zukin (84) notes that “cities always struggle between images that express a landscape of power and those that form the local vernacular.” China had initially leaned towards the image that formed the local vernacular. However, with this aggressive development agenda which lasted three decades, China had switched to an image that expressed a landscape of power. The world is in a state of competition, and China’s development agenda is simply to help the country position itself as an attractive site for visitors and investors. Having lagged behind in the past, China had to fight for its position in the world, and this meant that it had to reform its development agenda and adopt a system that favored landscape motives.
Secondly, China’s intense urbanization scheme or agenda was to help position its cities to be able to “capture global markets in a single space” (Zukin, 84). Major cities in the world have been involved in a competition to capture global markets. Cities such as New York and London have been fierce rivals as each has been trying to outdo the other and assume pole position in the world. However, China’s growth and the development of cities like Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong have disturbed the atmosphere of the leading hubs at the top. Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong have shifted focus for a significant part...