Infrastructure-led development, urban transformation and inequality in China’s Belt and Road Initiative: a Marxist postcolonial geographies analysis
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Apostolopoulou, Elia
Type
Chapter
Abstract
In this chapter,1 I aim to explore the intricate connections between infrastructure-led development, urban transformation and inequality within China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). By conceptualizing the BRI as primarily a spatial fix (Harvey, 2016) to the overaccumulation issues inherent in Chinese capitalism, I foreground urbanization as a critical process while considering the dialectical interplay between the territorial and capitalist logics of power (Gramsci, 1971; Harvey, 2005; Lee et al, 2018). Adopting the lens of Marxist postcolonial geographies (Hart, 2006; 2018; Apostolopoulou, 2021a), my goal is to provide a nuanced, relational analysis of diverse trajectories of socio-spatial urban change driven by BRI projects in different cities across the Global South and North with the goal being to understand how the New Silk Road is profoundly reconfiguring the urban geographies of the 21st century.
Date Issued
2025-09-29
Citation
The Material Geographies of the Belt and Road Initiative, 2025, pp.214-236
ISBN
9781529240641
Publisher
Bristol University Press
Start Page
214
End Page
236
Journal / Book Title
The Material Geographies of the Belt and Road Initiative
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
12