| This study aims to examine the effects of global connectivity on local transformation in post-reform Shanghai. By highlighting personal global connectivity as the central mechanism that binds people across national boundaries and induces a variety of changes in Shanghai, this study provides a new perspective on the complicated relationship between the global and local, particular in four spatial and sociocultural areas, namely, residential differentiation, community satisfaction, global lifestyle, and value orientations.;The primary data set for this study came from a survey conducted in 2001 Shanghai's Pudong New Area. Using a prepared questionnaire and with the assistance from the neighborhood and village committees, a face-to-face interview with one member of each chosen household was conducted. From a total of close to 700 interviews, this survey data excluded a number of low quality questionnaires after logical checking and ended up with a total of 600 cases.;The main foci of the survey were global connectivity, residential locations, consumer behavior, and modern values in Shanghai. The questionnaire consists of five sections. The first section includes demographic and socioeconomic variables such as age, gender, marital status, education, occupation, income, housing conditions, and area of residence. The second section contains questions regarding personal consumer behaviors in terms of a globally vs. a locally oriented life style. The third section includes questions about culture and values. The fourth section includes questions related to the extent of modernization and globalization in terms of individual behaviors. The last section includes the extent of modernization and globalization of the community and the city.;There are three main findings in this study. First, personal global connectivity has been generated by institutional change and associated with individuals' demographic and socioeconomic characteristics such as age, education, and income. Second, several aspects of local transformation have been shown as a function of global connectivity net of other socioeconomic factors. Third, the global connectivity approach developed in this study provides a new way of understanding the interaction between the internal and external sources of local social change that was presumed by modernization theory to be largely internally triggered. |
