VIRTUAL Lisbon Livable Cities

Abstract

This article examines the transformation of Qingyanliu Village in Zhejiang Province, China, as a case-study of how e-commerce has come to shape rural and peri-urban urban transformations in the service of industrial production. Originally founded in the Song Dynasty, Qingyanliu Village was demolished and rebuilt as a Taobao Village, or a village whose economic livelihood almost entirely revolves around manufacturing and distributing goods for the Taobao e-commerce platform. This research explores how the village’s rebuilding highlights the impact of industrial production on both urbanism and housing, which in turn have had an enormous effect on the local community life of the village. Qingyanliu Village is a significant case study in that it reveals the broader phenomenon of Taobao villages, and how these productive forces have come to transform rural space into urban spaces of manufacturing and production. By examining the different actors and forces in play in this transformation, such as local government policies, corporate strategies, new live-work housing typologies, global supply chains, and the flow of migrant labor, we begin to understand how capital is transforming rural and peri-urban space within contemporary China. Qingyanliu village reveals questions about the social, economic, and environmental effects of this transformation that exists across China’s Southeastern coastal region. It also reveals a restructuring of rural space into that of industrial production of contemporary urban life. This case-study provides insights into how global economic systems reshape local geographies at the level of the local community through the implementation of new forms of urbanism and new housing typologies in the name of e-commerce.