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The space in the process of urbanization is undergoing a great transition from physical space to social space. The relations between society and space become more important and complicated than ever. As a critical social theory, production of space means that urbanization has been reshaped by social factors or forces like capital, power and class, so that the urban space finally becomes their production and process. Based on socio-spatial dialectic, the main methodology of spatial production, urban space (re)shapes social relations and processes. The different spatial scales have and continuously produce the different social relations. In the researches about production of space, little work has been done on the index system to assess the extent of production of space and to analyze middle-scale region. This article designs a set of simple index system to reflect the spatial influences of capital, power as well as class, and chooses Jiangsu Province as a typical case because of its rapid and differential urbanization to indicate the process of spatial production from 2000 to 2015. In this index system, capital is represented by fixed-asset investment, real estate investment and foreign direct investment; power is represented by the index of the constructed urban land area; the index reflecting class is the urban-rural income ratio. Based on the analysis of these changing indexes, this paper finds that urbanization in Jiangsu is hybrid process: the forces from capital and power greatly contribute to rapid urbanization and high urbanization level, however, the gaps among the three sub-regions in the province and rural-urban income inequality have not decreased accordingly. Conversely, these gaps enlarge in some periods. This kind of urbanization pattern is characterized by large-scale spatial expansion, and is driven by capital and power, but there are many latent social risks and spatial inequality. In the process of spatial production, space and society interact, entangle and (re)shape the pattern of urbanization in the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The university town is an important phenomenon in the course of urbanization in China. This article introduces and applies theory of production of space and socio-spatial dialectic to explain the processes and mechanisms of production of space in Xianlin university town in Nanjing City, China. As a typical case, Xianlin university town displays multi-scalar separations. The time-scale separation has four sides: the old and new campuses are completely different; teachers and students spend a significant amount of time commuting that they cannot communicate well; during summer and winter vacations, the university town becomes an “empty nest”; and life of low-income earners is fragmental. The four kinds of spatial scale splits are inside the campus, between universities and downtown, among universities, and between the city and its citizens. Resources and rights have an imbalanced distribution among the different classes, which leads to social space differentiation or alienation. The powers of discourses and land resource distribution are in the hands of the government. University managers are stimulated by the idea of a “larger and newer campus” and keep a watchful eye on competing for more land resources. Planners usually cater to such ideas. However, teachers, students, and low-income earners of the university town are neglected. Social process and the influences of land-use/cover change (LUCC) should be more frequently discussed in the future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]