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New Wenzhou: Migration, Metropolitan Spatial Development And Modernity In A Third-Tier Chinese Model City, Sainan Lin

Doctoral Dissertations

Migration has asserted great influence on urban spatial structure, especially during China’s recent waves of rural-to-urban migration. This dissertation focuses on Wenzhou, a third-tier Chinese city that served as a national model for the re-introduction of small-scale private enterprise in the 1990s. Wenzhou’s economic success generated migration that has served as a catalyst for new forms of urbanization in which migrants play a central role. I aim to examine and understand the distribution patterns of migrant settlements, their changes over time and the ways that the formation of these settlements has impacted emerging urban form. There are two primary components …