The Weight of Small Cities: Development and the Rural–Urban Nexus in Jinghong, Southwest China

Abstract

Research on small cities has begun to attract the attention of scholars who argue that contemporary urban scholarship, in its preoccupation with the largest and most advanced world-class cities, have largely ignored small to medium-sized cities. In China, although much attention has been paid to economically advanced urban centers, there actually has been a steady stream of work on small cities. This article profiles how a comparatively smaller city in western China attempts to market itself by selectively placing itself within various social–spatial and political–economic realities. Through Jinghong, we illustrate how local officials and planners attempt to center the city as a gateway to Southeast Asia. By activating, often discursively, multiscalar transborder strategies, local officials in Jinghong not only mobilize ethnic imaginaries, but they also adopt forms of entrepreneurial tactics to promote growth. Developmental strategies of Jinghong not only vacillate between (and draw on) both rural and urban resources; they are furthermore expected to alleviate rural poverty. Through highlighting the agency of small cities like Jinghong in China, this article speaks to the broader developmentalist critique of third- and fourth-world cities as an unfortunate footnote in global urban restructuring, often depicted as places of uniform marginalization and structural irrelevance. Indeed, by focusing on the geography of small cities and giving due attention to their size and proximity to rural spaces, case studies like Jinghong might yet point empathetically to different ways and imperatives of “being urban” where the weight that they carry can also be duly recognized.

小型城市的研究，开始吸引学者们的关注，这些学者主张，当代的城市研究，全神贯注于最大型、最先进的世界级城市，因而大幅忽略中小型城市。在中国，即便大多数的关注皆聚焦经济上领先的城市中心，但实际上，仍有持续的研究工作关注小型城市。本文概述中国西部一个相对而言较小型的城市，如何透过选择性地将自身置放在多重的社会—空间及政治—经济现实中，以进行自我行销。我们透过景洪的案例，描绘地方官员及规划师如何企图凸显该城市作为取道东南亚的门户。景洪的地方官员，透过激活经常是论述上的多重尺度跨境策略，不仅动员族裔想像，亦同时採纳创业策略的形式来促进成长。景洪的发展策略，不仅在农村与城市资源之间摇摆（并同时运用两造资源）；这些策略同时被进一步期待能够减轻农村贫穷。本文透过凸显诸如中国的景洪等小型城市的能动性，与更广泛的发展主义批判进行对话，该批判将第三、第四世界城市视为全球城市再结构下的不幸注脚，并经常将其描绘为始终如一的边缘化、且无关乎结构之地。透过聚焦小型城市的地理，并正视它们的大小及其与农村空间的邻近性，诸如景洪之案例研究，的确有可能具同理心地说明作为城市灯的不同方式与动机，其中它们所承载的重量，也可同时被公允地承认。

La investigación relacionada con ciudades pequeñas ha empezado a atraer la atención de estudiosos que lamentan que la especialidad urbana contemporánea, con su preocupación por las más grandes y pujantes ciudades globales, en gran medida ha ignorado las ciudades pequeñas y medianas. Si bien allí se le ha concedido considerable atención a los centros urbanos económicamente avanzados, en China realmente se nota una corriente sostenida de trabajos sobre ciudades pequeñas. Este artículo traza el perfil sobre la manera como una ciudad comparativamente pequeña de la China occidental intenta vender su imagen colocándose selectivamente dentro de varias realidades socio–espaciales y político–económicas. Con el caso de Jinghong ilustramos el modo como funcionarios locales y panificadores intentan centrar la ciudad como puerta de entrada al sudeste de Asia. Al activar estrategias multiescalares transfronterizas, a menudo de manera discursiva, los funcionarios locales de Jinghong no solo movilizan imaginarios étnicos, sino que también adoptan formas de tácticas empresariales destinadas a promover el crecimiento. Las estrategias de desarrollo de Jinghong no solo vacilan (y también se basan) entre los recursos rurales y los urbanos; aún más, se espera de ellos que alivien la pobreza rural. Al destacar la agencia que ejercen en China ciudades pequeñas como Jinghong, este artículo le habla a la más amplia crítica desarrollista de ciudades del tercero y cuarto mundos, como desafortunada nota de pie de página en la reestructuración de lo urbano global, ciudades a menudo retratadas como lugares de marginalidad uniforme e irrelevancia estructural. En verdad, enfocándose sobre la geografía de las ciudades pequeñas y brindándoles debida atención a su tamaño y proximidad a los espacios rurales, estudios de caso como el de Jinghong bien podrían apuntar empáticamente a diferentes maneras e imperativos de lo que significa “ser urbano”, donde el peso que ellos lleven pueda también ser debidamente reconocido.

Key Words:

• China
• development
• rural resources
• rural–urban nexus
• small cities

关键词:

• 中国，发展，农村资源，农村—城市轴线，小城市。

Palabras clave:

• China, desarrollo, recursos rurales, nexo rural–urbano, ciudades pequeñas

Acknowledgments

To protect the privacy of the interviewees, pseudonyms have been used throughout the article.

Note

Notes

1 According to the central government's classification, the largest cities should have a population of more than 2 million and a small city is one with a population of 200,000 or less. A city like Jinghong with a reported population of 500,000, based on its most recent census, would be considered large (Jinghong City Statistics Office 2011). The central government's classification, however, refers to nonrural residents and excludes the populations of counties that are under the jurisdiction of the city (Dan and Zhong 2011, 39). For Jinghong, the figure of 500,000 includes population under its jurisdiction (spread over ten other towns and more than eighty villages). The actual urban population of Jinghong is about 162,000 (Jinghong City Statistics Office 2011). Chan (2007) commented on the inconsistencies in the definitions of different forms of cities in China as well as their relevant statistics.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Harvey Neo

HARVEY NEO is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at The National University of Singapore, 117570 Singapore. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include animal geographies, nature and society issues (focusing on the production and consumption of food), and green urbanism.

C. P. Pow

C. P. POW is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at The National University of Singapore, 117570 Singapore. E-mail: [email protected]. He researches the critical geographies of the urban built environment, urban environmentalism, and urban cultural politics.