Creating urban images through global flows: Hong Kong real estate developers in Shanghai's urban redevelopment

The term 'flow' is used to conceptualize global connections in globalization. A butch of globalization theories devotes attention to the nature of global flows and their internal relationships. Global cities are often viewed as nodes that passively convey and transmit flows. This article focuses on the role of 'halfway' nodes that circulate city images, and examines the activities of Hong Kong's real estate developers in changing Shanghai's urban images from the 1990s onwards. It reveals the transformative role of these developers in the symbolic sphere of urban image making: from being subordinate to the urban design requirements of the authority to their breaking away from the prescribed official framework and gaining the edge in the state-developer interplay. This article contributes to globalization theories by arguing that 'halfway' nodes are more likely to actively create, rather than passively pass on, 'symbolic flows' in China through the use of distinctive design languages. Also, this article proposes a new three stage conceptual framework that attempts to explain the process of circulating urban images.