This article examines the evolution of mill districts in Shanghai and Mumbai across the 20^(th) century as cases of political heritage—in which the socio-spatial formations of factory and neighbourhood produced new m...This article examines the evolution of mill districts in Shanghai and Mumbai across the 20^(th) century as cases of political heritage—in which the socio-spatial formations of factory and neighbourhood produced new meanings of citizenship for the workers in each city.Using historical materials from the textile industry in each city,government reports,housing data,and secondary sources,this article first traces the origins of Shanghai’s textile industry in the 19^(th) century to its connections with Bombay’s textile mills,then examines the emergence of working-class neighbourhoods as they acquired distinctive patterns of tenement housing,shopfronts,and street life.The main finding is that despite clear differences in the two cities in terms of religion,culture,and politics,the‘mill district’became a socio-cultural formation central to the identity and memory of generations of textile workers in Shanghai and Mumbai.A concluding section examines the similar process in each city in the 21st century in which mill compounds and neighbourhoods were converted into high-end commercial real estate and sites for consumption and leisure.展开更多
The two purposes of the research are(a)to develop an analytical model that views the economy/polity as a social system with interactive subsystems of actors:households,firms,government,political parties and other sign...The two purposes of the research are(a)to develop an analytical model that views the economy/polity as a social system with interactive subsystems of actors:households,firms,government,political parties and other significant actors,and(b)apply the analytical model to construct and verify a timeline that figures major events in world development that shaped the evolution of the western economies,and the relative strength of their interacting subsystems.The timeline highlights the changing and evolving dominance of the major subsystems in the economic history of the western world.We differ from the convention of looking at history as the occurrence of exogenous consequential events and offer instead a system dynamics analysis that makes historical events endogenous and to be affected by the powerplay within the system.The current dominance of the firm subsystem in western countries is demonstrated to be the accumulated result of centuries of past events:wars,discoveries,colonies,trade,political enlightenments,and industrial revolutions that strengthened participation and interactions in the firm subsystem at the cost of weakened dominance of rival subsystems(those of traditional households,theocrats,manors,communes,royals,and the modern state subsystem).The behavioral orientation of a social system is explainable in terms of(a)interactive influence(which occurs during the participation and interaction of agents in multiple settings,with some settings having more interactive influence than others),and(b)regulative influence(where the conduct of the one subsystem overrules that of other subsystems).Western economic history suggests a positive conditional correlation and convergence between(a)and(b).Being conditional,the convergence between(a)and(b)may not hold in other world contexts,i.e.,China,India,Arab and African countries.展开更多
文摘This article examines the evolution of mill districts in Shanghai and Mumbai across the 20^(th) century as cases of political heritage—in which the socio-spatial formations of factory and neighbourhood produced new meanings of citizenship for the workers in each city.Using historical materials from the textile industry in each city,government reports,housing data,and secondary sources,this article first traces the origins of Shanghai’s textile industry in the 19^(th) century to its connections with Bombay’s textile mills,then examines the emergence of working-class neighbourhoods as they acquired distinctive patterns of tenement housing,shopfronts,and street life.The main finding is that despite clear differences in the two cities in terms of religion,culture,and politics,the‘mill district’became a socio-cultural formation central to the identity and memory of generations of textile workers in Shanghai and Mumbai.A concluding section examines the similar process in each city in the 21st century in which mill compounds and neighbourhoods were converted into high-end commercial real estate and sites for consumption and leisure.
文摘The two purposes of the research are(a)to develop an analytical model that views the economy/polity as a social system with interactive subsystems of actors:households,firms,government,political parties and other significant actors,and(b)apply the analytical model to construct and verify a timeline that figures major events in world development that shaped the evolution of the western economies,and the relative strength of their interacting subsystems.The timeline highlights the changing and evolving dominance of the major subsystems in the economic history of the western world.We differ from the convention of looking at history as the occurrence of exogenous consequential events and offer instead a system dynamics analysis that makes historical events endogenous and to be affected by the powerplay within the system.The current dominance of the firm subsystem in western countries is demonstrated to be the accumulated result of centuries of past events:wars,discoveries,colonies,trade,political enlightenments,and industrial revolutions that strengthened participation and interactions in the firm subsystem at the cost of weakened dominance of rival subsystems(those of traditional households,theocrats,manors,communes,royals,and the modern state subsystem).The behavioral orientation of a social system is explainable in terms of(a)interactive influence(which occurs during the participation and interaction of agents in multiple settings,with some settings having more interactive influence than others),and(b)regulative influence(where the conduct of the one subsystem overrules that of other subsystems).Western economic history suggests a positive conditional correlation and convergence between(a)and(b).Being conditional,the convergence between(a)and(b)may not hold in other world contexts,i.e.,China,India,Arab and African countries.
