Spaces of Consumption Replace Spaces of Production

Abstract

This chapter outlines two competing styles of cinematic Chengdu and its adjacent cities: primitive and modern. The primitiveness of Chengdu results from its geographical isolation and underdeveloped economy before the 1980s, while the modern facet of Chengdu started to take shape under the Third Front Project between the 1960s and the 1980s when mainland China was confronted with the Cold War. The cityscape of Chengdu, accordingly, was featured by an array of state-owned socialist “units” involving in the production of military and heavy industry. Focusing on these socialist spaces and relevant policies (household registration), this chapter shows that the unit, represented in Jia Zhangke’s 24 City [Ershisi chengji] (2008), functioned as centripetal spaces attracting talent, resources and capital with their promises of decent payment, city household registration and life-long career. Moreover, it argues that the spatial transition of Chengdu from a space of production into a space of consumption is characterised by generational gaps in characters’ consuming and appropriating urban spaces. It finally concludes that the 1980s becomes a watershed that breaks the centripetal space under the socialist economic system and witnesses the formation of a centrifugal space created by a socialist market and facilitated by interprovincial highways and railways.