The Studies Of Gentrification In China's Western Cities

Gentrification is a special phenomenon of urban socio-spatial which was first mentioned by a famous British sociologist Glass in 1960s. It is the transformation of a working-class or vacant area of the central city into middle class residential or commercial use. After half a century of development, the types, characteristics and formation mechanisms of gentrification have undergone great changes, in order that a growing number of geographers had a strong interest in the phenomenon. Nowadays, the research of gentrification in western countries has been into a mature stage, and has formed a set of their own theories. However, this phenomenon appeared in China after 1978, and Chinese scholars began to embark the research on gentrification only in 1990s, which means that the research on gentrification in China lags behind western countries. Therefore, it is very meaningful to embark more research on China's gentrification.Based on the research of western countries'cities and China's eastern cities on gentrification, this paper aims to analyze the characteristics and driving force of gentrification in China's western cities. First of all, this paper reviewed the research of gentrification in western countries'cities and China's cities in recent decades, including the revolution of the concept, the procedure of the development, and the compared research between western countries and China. Secondly, the author embarked the fieldwork in Chengdu and Guiyang city in order to find the formation mechanism of gentrification in China's western cities. Finally, according to the result of the fieldwork and the theory, the mechanism of gentrification in China's western cities could be discovered eventually.The author consolidated the process of gentrification's development and its studies in western countries and China in theory systematically. Meanwhile, based on the analysis of formation mechanism of gentrification in western China's cities, this paper could give some suggestion and ideas for the development of the western China's cities in the future.