Understanding Shiminhua in Chinese Greater Bay Area: Internalizing Urban Identity and Negotiating Place Attachment

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the question: How does the process of urbanisation of rural‐urban migrants (shiminhua) unfold in Chinese cities? It focuses upon the urbanisation of people in the contextualised concept of shiminhua. This paper mainly adopted qualitative methods of focus group discussions (FGDs) and semi‐structured interviews in three GBA cities. The results indicate that shiminhua is an incremental process of gaining internalised urban identity and negotiated place attachment. It implies that successful shiminhua process in GBA comprise efforts from multiple levels of stakeholders. Regional policy and urban governance strategy should understand shiminhua more comprehensively to facilitate successful shiminhua process.