Financialized ecological civilization and cultural consumption: extended urbanization in the mountains of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics
This paper examines the paradoxical relationships between land financialization and ecological civilization, focusing on a Chinese case of extended urbanization in the mountains of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Chongli, located just 200kilometers from Beijing, was long a nationally designated poverty-stricken mountain area due to industrial development restrictions. After gaining the right to co-host the Winter Olympics in 2015, the transformation of Chongli has been drastically boosted, accompanied by a new territorial business model featuring mountain leisure and cultural consumption. The thriving winter sports economy has become a novel regional growth engine, driving the large-scale expansion of resort real estate to attract Beijing urbanites. Meanwhile, there is a spatial re-scaling between the former mountain periphery and the capital, facilitated by Olympic-triggered infrastructure upgrades and increased mobility, aiming to attract both financial resources and consumers. We argue that this signifies an urbanization paradigm shift in the mountains, where mountain land financialization aligns with the creation of leisure consumption places, serving as an ecological areas, but it also carries consequences such as the overproduction of real estate and the marginalization of local communities.
EPFL
2024-08-25
EPFL
Event name | Event acronym | Event place | Event date |
IGC2024 | Dublin | 2024-08-24 - 2024-08-30 | |