Understanding the dynamic spatial structures behind the operation of unplanned commercial areas: a case of the Liuhua Clothing Wholesale District in China

China’s post-1978 economic transition induced fundamental changes to urban space. The private economy legalization and land commercialization suddenly endowed space with capital values. To understand the formation and transformation of urban space, this research investigates the dynamic spatial structures of the Liuhua Clothing Wholesale District in Guangzhou China, by regarding spaces as actors. The advantageous location of the Liuhua District on the south of the large transportation hub Guangzhou Railway Station not only started the rapid-growth of a brand-new clothing wholesale district, but also provides an ideal opportunity to investigate the dramatic changes of urban space during economic transition. The regulation gaps of urban planning left the opportunities for the space end-users – the wholesale traders – to express their agencies of space use. The agencies rendered the Liuhua district a multi-functional and well-organized place, including business types, such as clothing wholesale shops, mannequin shops, tag shops and logistics companies, to enable the everyday operation of clothing wholesale. This research follows Actor Network Theory (ANT) and borrows concepts from Social Network Analysis (SNA) in order to understand how human and non-human actors have shaped the spatial structures in the Liuhua District. Spaces are regarded both as actors and networks; the hierarchies of spaces are understood through the concepts centrality and marginality. To engage with the research question, the empirical research adopts qualitative mixed methods including archival research, ethnographic methods (observation and semi-structured interview) and mapping. The research findings include two parts. The first part focuses on the social relationships between spaces, while the second part works with the concrete phenomena from urban scale to architectural scale. This research has found that: cooperation, competition and evolution are three types of relationships between spaces in the Liuhua District; on the urban scale, the spatial structures of clothing wholesale areas are influenced by the central actors, people flows and early actors, while to clothing wholesale service industries, the everyday practices are vital in terms of choosing business location; on the architectural scale, spatial structures are influenced by central actors and spatial practices such as sales activities, livestreaming and customers’ activities. The Liuhua District is taken as an example to understand how spaces are endowed with hierarchies and chosen for various functions. Through actor networks, it becomes possible to understand that spatial structures are not merely determined by individual spaces, but are shaped by relations among spaces and other actors which influence the value, status, and changes of spaces.