Urbanization And The Production Of Consumption Space

Shopping has become a matter of daily routine for persons living in modern society as their way of connecting themselves to the community and the world. It is beyond doubt that shopping takes place in certain social space such as grocery、snack counter、bazaar、 department store、supermarket、mall and so on. For the above reason, the research on consumption space is indispensible for the study of consumption behavior. Up to now, there are mainly four sociological perspectives on the study of consumption space, namely perspectives of capital、culture、power、and globalization. However, these perspectives are constrained by western social background and the discourse in western nature, therefore not able to explain properly the rapidly rising modern consumption space nowadays in China. In China, motivated by the rapid urbanization process modern consumption space which usually exists only in metropolises (or the fist level cities) such as Beijing、Shanghai, is now developing fast in other urban areas (such as the second and third level cities)and extending even to rural areas. Due to this fact, the urbanization perspective is of great significance both on reality and theory in understanding the production of consumption space in China. Based on the in-depth interview with fifteen local inhabitants of T-Community and the participant observation on T-Community、 bazaar and modern shopping places, this paper investigates the production of consumption space in T-Community through the process of urbanization, by which the relationship between urbanization and consumption space is discussed.This paper begins with the discussion of the concept of consumption space which is defined with the help of spatial triad theory by Lefebvre and Soja. According to the idea of consumption space as the result of social construction which is significantly constructed by its social reality, consumption space is analyzed into three different dimensions, the physical one、the cultural one and the psychological one. By analyzing the change of these three dimensions in T-Community through the urbanization process, the significant transformation of consumption space in T-Community comes into sight. In traditional period, the three dimensions of consumption space respectively took on the characteristics of cohesion、uniformity and closeness. During the development of urbanization, the physical dimension of consumption space transformed from cohesion to diffusivity, the cultural dimension from uniformity to diversity, and the psychological dimension from closeness to openness. Simultaneously, forced by the dynamic of urbanization the traditional consumption space was transforming into the modern consumption space.By this research, it is found that the transformation of consumption space is the epitome of the transformation of the society of China, and urbanization is not only the main background but also the dynamic of traditional consumption space transforming into modern consumption space. In the same way, the transformation of consumption space is not only an important factor for urban and rural daily life, but also a significant aspect of the ongoing urbanization process in China.