Livelihood Strategies in China: Lessons Learned From Taiyuan

Abstract

Studies of urban China often deploy top-down analyses and focus on tier-1 cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. This thesis contributes to a diversifying literature by using a bottom-up analysis to compare the livelihood strategies of peri-urban residents in Taiyuan, a tier-2 city, to those in tier-1 and other lower-tiered cities. The empirical findings elucidate a similar spectrum of livelihood strategies, but unlike tier-1 and some lower-tiered cities, there was an absence of renting to migrant workers in peri-urban Taiyuan. Additionally, social infrastructure, social reproduction, and socio-spatial practices, often overlooked in studies of Chinese livelihoods, are central to understanding livelihood strategies people in peri-urban Taiyuan. Lastly, this thesis suggests that similar comparative studies can produce sharper insights into how processes of urbanization are not bound to specific territories: Chinese and global urban studies are connected through analogous urbanization processes, while also having unique circumstances.