Mapping China: Urbanisation - 2 Regional Cities and City-Regions: Pearl River Delta

China’s modernisation reform, or the Open Market Policy, started in the Pearl River Delta. Shenzhen was the first to experiment with the Special Economic Zone Policy in China. The transformation of the 1980s attracted intense foreign investments into the Pearl River Delta, which became a magnetic force for labours all over the country. There soon came into being the ‘world factory’ that gave shape to the most intense regional urbanisation in human history. In Fanyu alone, one of Guangzhou’s administrative districts, the number of immigrants tripled in 1985 within one year. In the same area, the population increased from 650 thousand in 2000 to 1.6 million in 2008.

Three decades have passed and the Pearl River Delta is confronting new challenges. As the cost of human resources rise, the PRD has lost one of the defining elements that built up the world factory: cheap labour. Its closeness to Hong Kong provides easy access to global financial resources, but also ties the PRD to the instability of the global economic climate.

In the Pearl River Delta, an intense transformation is underway. The formerly industrially-oriented city of Shenzhen, is rebuilding its skylines and providing more spaces for new business patterns and financial services. In places like Dongguan, where manufacturing used to dominate people’s livelihood, anxiety is in the air. The living legend of the world factory is starting to turn into a regional hub for high-tech services. Technology and creativity have become the new keys to the path of development.