From Special Economic Zone to Creative City

Shenzhen during the period of rapid economic growth

Abstract

Located in the Pearl River Delta in southern China, adjacent to Hong Kong, Shenzhen is an economic city whose construction began in 1980. Chinese Communist Party adopted a development policy of "reform and opening-up" and designated four "special economic zones" as experimental zones. As one of these, Shenzhen grew from a remote farming village to an export processing zone and then to a megacity with a population of 17 million. This presentation focuses on China's period of rapid economic growth from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s, and aims to examine the socioeconomic changes in Shenzhen's urban history.