Research Note—The "Instant City" Coming of Age: Production of Spaces in China's Shenzhen Special Economic Zone

Abstract

Shenzhen, China's first special economic zone (SEZ), not only heralds the essence and evolution of the PRC's earlier domestic reform and global integration, but also demonstrates how urban spaces are rapidly produced in a socialist economy undergoing market transformation. This note identifies three such spaces: an economic space of globalization; a social space of exclusion and contestation; and a political space of governance.