Rural Migrants and New Patterns of Urban Transformation in China

Urbanization and urban transformation in China have been influenced by its rapidity of rural-urban migration, land property-based urban expansion, and the urban-rural duality under the hukou system. The recent development of the Internet, smartphones and online social networks contributes to the rapid growth of e-commerce, which becomes more and more important in economic development and is promoting new patterns of urban transformation. Taobao villages with a high concentration of rural e-tailers have emerged in both rural and urban areas and their number has dramatically increased from 3 in 2009 to 1311 in 2016. Taobao villages are clusters of rural e-tailers where at least 10 per cent of households engage in e-commerce or at least 100 online shops have been opened by the households. The e-commerce activities of Taobao village are based on the platform of Taobao.com -- a top online shopping giant in China.  Taobao villages have gradually changed the pattern of the rural economy as well as the social foundation of rural daily life throughout China. In cities, the new generation of rural migrants plays a crucial role in social and economic transformation of taobao villages. They are familiar with the Internet, “smarter” equipped with affordable smartphones, and able to manage their online shops.  They use social networks as assets to help each for daily life and jobs. There are also emerging new relations between villagers, rural migrants, self-organizations and local government on collective land development and management in order to facilitate e-commerce activities. In sum, e-commerce provides new opportunities for social and economic integration of rural migrants in cities and promotes new types of urban transformation in China.

The speaker

Dr Yanliu Lin studied urban design and planning in China and human settlements and strategic spatial planning at KU Leuven in Belgium. After getting her PhD at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, she has joined at the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning in Utrecht University, initially as a postdoctoral researcher and later becoming an assistant professor of spatial planning. She has conducted intensive research on China’s urbanization, sustainable development, villages in the city, social and economic integration of migrants, social housing provision and neighborhoods, and informal settlement upgrading. She is interested in interdisciplinary research, using governance, network and social theories and innovative methodologies to investigate complex urban systems and the influence of new technologies on urbanism, smart cities and participatory and collaborative planning. She has published a number of articles in highly ranked journals, e.g. Urban Studies, Cities, Habitat International, Environment and Urbanization, and Land Use Policy. She is also co-editor of Village in the City (Park Books, 2014).

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