The Geographies of Expatriates’ Cultural Venues in Globalizing Shanghai: A Geo-Information Approach Applied to Social Media Data Platform

Abstract

This paper measures the cultural consumption patterns of expatriates in Shanghai by applying a geo-information approach to data derived from social media. In order to reveal the geographical characteristics, the paper zooms in on the level of city districts and presents a typology based on the degree of spatial and functional aggregation of cultural venues. Three major contextual parameters underlying the typology are discerned: the geographies of the Shanghai space-economy, the imprint of Shanghai’s spatio-political strategies, and the overall policy approach toward this community. We discuss how this study can be used as the starting point for further comparative studies on cultural patterns of expatriates in other geographical contexts.

1. Introduction

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the geographies of cultural venues frequently used by expatriates in a globalizing Shanghai. To this end, we used state-of-the-art data and methods put forward in the science and technology of geographic information [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. Expatriates living in Shanghai constitute a diverse, highly skilled, and mobile workforce [11], and recent research highlights that the presence of this community is both a sign and an enabler of the myriad processes underlying global city development [12,13,14]. For employers and urban policymakers alike, the (perceived) necessity to attract and retain these expatriates is part of a global ‘war for talent’ [15]. Against the backdrop of earlier research showing how expatriate managers, skilled professionals, and their dependents are increasingly part and parcel of the social reality of global cities [11], in this paper, we use the case of Shanghai to present a quantitative analysis of a key geographical component of this community’s presence: their cultural consumption patterns. Applying a kernel density algorithm to bespoke data derived from social media platforms, we explore which parts of Shanghai have transformed in light of its rising global status. In addition to being relevant in its own right, our results also lay the groundwork for future research on how these ‘new’ cultural consumption patterns intersect with other geographical patterns within global cities.

The rise of Shanghai as a well-connected city in global business networks has been extensively documented in the literature [16,17]. Since 1978, China’s open-door policy has boosted Shanghai’s position in rankings of global prominence [18,19,20]. Extensive foreign direct investment [21], the agglomeration of multinational companies’ headquarters [22], the presence of the largest seaport in China [23], and the vast economic hinterland of Yangtze River Delta [17] all attest and contribute to the global economic attractiveness of Shanghai. This in turn sets the city up for attracting a large number of expatriates. Furthermore, with the implementation of China’s national economic strategy of attracting capital and talent from abroad [24], Shanghai has gradually become the destination for a rising number of expatriates from all over the world. According to the Shanghai Statistics Bureau (2019) [25], the number of foreigners with a legal residence permit increased from 130,000 in 2008 to almost 210,000 in 2019, the latter accounting for 23.7% of the total number of international migrants in China. Among them, in 2019, Taiwanese made up the largest migrant group, accounting for 21.57% of the total migrants, followed by Japanese and US citizens, accounting for 14.25% and 11.33%, respectively (see

Table 1. Largest groups of international residents in Shanghai by nationality in 2019.

Origin	Total Number	Relative Share
Taiwan	44,928	21.57%
Japan	29,684	14.25%
USA	23,602	11.33%
South Korea	19,764	9.49%
Hong Kong	19,290	9.26%
France	7482	3.59%
Germany	6893	3.31%
Canada	6535	3.14%
Singapore	5957	2.86%
Australia	5420	2.60%
UK	4457	2.14%
Malaysia	4021	1.93%
India	2550	1.22%
Italy	2245	1.08%
The Philippines	2024	0.97%
The Netherlands	1544	0.74%
Indonesia	1345	0.65%
Spain	1269	0.61%
Thailand	1226	0.59%
New Zealand	1215	0.58%
Russia	1150	0.55%
Sweden	1144	0.55%
Other	13,629	6.54%

Source: Shanghai Statistics Bureau, 2019. Note: Only nationalities with >1000 international residents are shown.

).

Obviously, foreign communities in Shanghai and in China more generally are not restricted to the stereotypical ‘expats’ working for multinational companies. In addition to the specific cases of residents from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, international migration is much more diverse; for example, it also includes major communities of African traders in Guangzhou, Japanese call-center workers in Dalian, Vietnamese brides in border regions, and English teachers scattered throughout smaller Chinese cities [26,27,28]. Nonetheless, according to Farrer [28], in Shanghai, the most noticeable and relatively self-enclosed group of migrants is that of the so-called expat community: a group of skilled migrants and their dependents working for multinational companies. Given this, and in line with Beaverstock [29] and Maslova and Chiodelli [14], this community is our focus in this paper. More specifically, we analyze the geographies of cultural venues frequently used by expatriates in a globalizing Shanghai, thus providing insight into the ways in which expatriates add cultural meaning to geographical locations. In doing so, we contribute to the literature on expatriates’ work and residency in world cities by exploring the geographies of their collective leisure consumption. Chang [30] introduced the concept ‘expatriatization’ to describe how geographic locations morph into identifiable expatriate enclaves on the basis of a range of often intangible elements such as taste, ambience, and informal recommendations. Beaverstock [13] and He and Gebhardt [31] coined the term ‘expatriate sense of place’, referring to the synergies between these elements. In this research, we chart this particular expatriate sense of place by applying a geo-information approach to bespoke data derived from social media platforms. Our results are, thus, a clear example of Appadurai’s [32] hybridity-of-globalization thesis where expatriates add layers of meaning to global Shanghai’s cityscape through their ‘complex, partly imagined lives’.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: we begin by positioning our research in the literature on expat communities and/in global cities. This is followed by a specification of our analytical framework and a description of our data. In the results section, we explore the geographies of cultural consumption patterns by developing a typology of districts in Shanghai as cultural hubs for expatriates. The paper is concluded with a summary of our main findings, a discussion of our framework’s limitations, and an overview of possible avenues for further research.

2. Background: Expats in a Globalizing Shanghai

2.1. Contextual Geographies 1: Economics, Politics, Outlook of Expats’ Use of Cultural Venues

Understanding expatriates’ position and involvement in Shanghai requires an understanding of contextual parameters shaping their cultural consumption patterns. There are three sets of contextual parameters: the geographies of the Shanghai space-economy, the imprint of Shanghai’s spatio-political strategies, and the overall policy approach toward this community. We draw on these contextual parameters in the results section as we discuss the different patterns.

First, the cultural geographies of expatriates need to be understood against the background of the broader spatio-economic inequalities across Shanghai. On a very general level, the geography of foreign direct investment follows a gradient from relatively more developed central districts to relatively less developed ones in suburbs [33]. In recent years, this gradient has also increasingly taken on a dimension of service-intensive central districts and manufacturing being pushed toward subdistricts and even into the wider region. This is supported by Shen and Wu’s argument [34] that an important element of Shanghai’s development into a global city is to ‘mimic’ other major cities by promoting the development and location of a service economy in the central area. This reinforces Glaeser and Gottlieb’s earlier prediction [35] that the main function of downtown Shanghai will be to become a center of consumption, with the degree of popularity of this declining from the central city toward the outskirts [36].

Second, the cultural geographies of expatriates need to be understood against the background of the broader spatio-political inequalities across Shanghai. The spatial concentration of expatriates is the outcome of the interplay between different factors, with politics, governance and policy—especially in China—playing a major role [33]. After 1978, when China (re)opened to the world, the expatriates in Chinese cities were explicitly and implicitly ‘guided’ toward designated districts [37]. For example, following a push in the renewed ‘openness’ in 1990, expatriates were required by the Shanghai government to reside near Hongqiao International Airport [24] or live in the Pudong district where expatriates were seen as a core strength for developing the economy [28]. Although, in recent years, policies aimed at guiding residential concentration of expatriates have been weakened and expatriates have been gradually allowed to live anywhere [38], data from the 2019 census (see Figure 1) still show the mark of the government’s erstwhile spatio-political strategies; Pudong, Changning, and Minhang, the three main designated districts to receive expatriates due to their closeness to two international airports, in total account for 61.1% of the city’s foreign residents [25].

Third, the cultural geographies of expatriates need to be understood against the background of the often-ambivalent attitude toward expats. This paradox consists of a mixture of the desire, on the one hand, to conserve ‘local’ or ‘Chinese culture’ and, on the other hand, to nurture an openness to the expat community. Not unlike other Chinese cities, multiculturalism is managed by the local administrative government, which, as argued by Farrer [39] and Giorgi [24], tries to ensure that the integration of foreigners into Shanghai’s social and cultural identity does not unsettle Chinese culture being at the core of its urban identity. However, at the same time, it has been argued that Shanghai is the most open city in China toward foreign cultures [24,39]. The government believes that the presence of foreigners can give the city the international flavor and pluralistic identity associated with a modern metropolis [40]. This implies that, in comparison with other Chinese cities, Shanghai has a certain degree of tolerance that permits foreigners cultural freedom in general and the ability to adapt these to the local context in particular; foreigners can preserve their ‘otherness’ and maintain most of their own customs and habits [24]. By way of example, it can be noted that they are able to pursue a lifestyle characterized by intense social networking, bar culture, and attendance of recreational events late into the night, all of which are different from Chinese customs [41]. This ambivalence has geographies that are related to the previous two patterns, but add a distinctive dimension to them.

2.2. Contextual Geographies 2: Expat Communities in Global Cities

The research agendas associated with the analysis of expat communities in global cities are diverse and wide-ranging. An interesting element of understanding expat communities is a detailed quantitative analysis of how they engage in and with the city. Previous research into expatriates has covered different areas [42]. Conceptual and empirical analyses have centered on the presence of expatriates from the perspective of the socio-spatial segregation emerging from their working and residential patterns [13,14,40,43]. For instance, previous studies on the residential patterns of expatriates in cities have revealed some spatial characteristics such as ‘socio-spatial segregation’ [29], ‘bubble living’ [14], or ‘expat enclaves’ [13]. Furthermore, Beaverstock [29] and Tseng [44] used the emergence of transnational compounds to elaborate the socio-spatial clustering and homogenization of expatriates’ residential patterns in global cities. Farrer [11] discussed the negotiation of complex outsider–insider relations between expatriates and the host city. Maslova and Chiodelli [14] emphasized the fostering of segregation, homogeneity, and social exclusion of expatriates in terms of class, culture, and lifestyle. The changing residential dynamics associated with the expansion of expatriates has also been tackled in literature, with special attention being paid to their spatial decentralization into suburban settings [43,45].

Meanwhile, the literature on expatriates in Shanghai also tends to focus on exploring their work, life and/or residential patterns [46,47]. For instance, Farrer [11] observes their lifestyles oscillate between a desire to maintain distance from local society and an aspiration to be integrated through various ‘strategies of emplacement’. Huang and Gao [37] study the highly condensed residential agglomeration of Japanese expatriates, while Farrer and Field [48] address the experiences and perceptions of expatriates’ new cosmopolitan society. Through examining the day-to-day behavior of expatriates, Sander [49] concludes their tendency to live in upscale suburban compounds which de facto entail a specific form of ‘gated communities’.

Despite the plethora of insightful writings on living and working patterns of expatriates in Shanghai, there has been a relative dearth of research on the (geographies of) cultural activities of this community. Scott [50,51] has long argued that cities assume a privileged role as centers of cultural activities. As cities have evolved from being centers of manufacturing and physical production to being powered by human capital and ideas [52,53], cultural amenities have been increasingly used as means for global cities to attract skilled human capital [52,53]. Extensive cultural clusters of galleries, museums, libraries, universities, and the like often act as a catalyst for the formation of ‘soft infrastructure’ to facilitate the development of city’s economic conditions such as trust, reciprocity, exchange of tacit knowledge, and propensity to share and pool economic risk [54]. Furthermore, over the past decade, there has been a surge of interest in the spatial clustering of cultural activities, and the nurturing of such cultural clusters has become an important component of public policy at multiple geographic scales [43]. In light of these discussions, and echoing Grimes’s [44] early statement about the need to focus on ‘activity behavior’ rather than ‘residential behavior’ of expatriates, this paper puts the cultural activities of the expat community center stage by systematically measuring and revealing their cultural consumption patterns drawing on geo-information-based techniques and data.

The present paper contributes to this literature in three different ways. First, we propose to focus on urban morphologies, i.e., the cultural infrastructures used by and provided for international migrants. In other words, the concrete research objects are the locations hosting cultural activities rather than the cultural activities themselves. The persistently intertwined relationship between place and culture has been underlined by the work of cultural critics, urbanists, and economists [55,56,57,58]. Scott [51] argued that place is a privileged locus of culture, while culture is a phenomenon that tends to have intensive place-specific characteristics that helps differentiating places from one another. Bassett et al. [59] and Currid and Williams [54] further highlighted that cultural activities such as film, music, performing arts, and opera can create a high aesthetic and symbolic content that has direct geographical ramifications. Moreover, Chang [30] introduced the concept of ‘expatriation’ to describe a geographic location featuring an identifiable expatriate enclave. The author formulated several factors to identify ‘expatriation’: the majority of products catering specifically to expatriates’ tastes, the reputation being built upon informal recommendations within expatriate networks, and the reproduction of a location’s expatriate ambience. Beaverstock [13] and He and Gebhardt [31] extended this concept as the ‘expatriate sense of place’, which endows a unique expatriate ambience with clear synergetic structures within places. Therefore, by studying hosting venues of expatriates’ cultural activities, our research provides insight into the ways in which expatriates add cultural meaning to geographical locations and make them meaningful in the context of local and global structures. On the one hand, we illustrate how cultural activities for expatriates are entwined with the morphologies of particular places. On the other hand, we demonstrate how a particular spatiality within the city has become influenced by a critical mass of expatriates. In doing so, tendencies and capacities within these morphologies that make them liable to incubate more cultural activities for expatriate in the future can be identified.

Second, as detailed in the methodological section, we propose to use the opportunities unlocked by social media platforms to geographically analyze key elements of expatriates’ ‘use’ of the city. Third, we suggest focusing on the level of city district (China’s contemporary administrative system is hierarchically structured at the provincial, city, district/county, town, and township levels (Zhang & Wu, 2006)) to analyze the cultural patterns. A district is a formal layer in the hierarchical administrative system in China, which is highly intertwined with its spatial economy as elaborated in Cheng et al.’s (2006) concept of the ‘administrative-region economy’. Since the reform and open-door policy in 1978, the division of administrative regions in China has frequently been adjusted to resolve economic problems and promote economic development [60]. For example, the city government decides on the borders of districts and gives them targets in terms of economic and social development [22]. As a consequence, the districts also reflect the distribution of various development resources in a city [61]. In this sense, although our use of districts to address geographical patterns has all the bearings of the modifiable area unit problem and provides contextual information at best, the alignment of different geographies at this scale suggests that this is arguably the most useful scale for contextualizing our findings.

3. Analytical Framework

3.1. Data

As Currid and Williams [54] argued, a recurring challenge to our understanding of the geographies of cultural activities has been a lack of data. Here, we make use of the new opportunities offered by increasingly important social media platforms to identify these locations [1,2,4,5,8,10]. We derive data from four social media apps: Smart Shanghai, Time Out Shanghai, Bon App, and That’s Shanghai. These online social media apps were chosen because (1) of their popularity among the international expatriate community in Shanghai (they are leading English-language online leisure media inspiring readers to explore the cultural offerings), and (2) the information of activities is posted online freely. Below, we provide more info on these platforms and use this to argue why they provide us with a relevant snapshot of expatriates’ leisure activities.

‘TimeOut Shanghai’ is part of the TimeOut Group, one of the world’s largest providers of digital platforms providing curated content on culture (in the broadest sense of that word) in cities. The company has its roots in London, where it helped people discover new urban cultures that had started up all over the capital. Since then, it has evolved into a global iconic brand that is one of the go-to sources of inspiration for visitors; it now operates in 108 cities across 39 countries and reaches an average monthly global audience of over 137 million across all platforms. Importantly, TimeOut not only targets short-term visitors, but also expat communities by publishing English-language info on events, things to do, restaurants, gigs, and nightlife. TimeOut Shanghai was launched in January 2009. Capitalizing on the global recognition of the TimeOut brand, its state-of-the-art digital platforms, and curated content, TimeOut Shanghai has evolved into a go-to source for the expatriate community in Shanghai.

A broadly similar story applies to That’s Magazine Shanghai, which has now existed for over 20 years and is the Shanghainese publication/platform of the broader That’s Magazine mother company. That’s Magazine is a fully integrated multimedia group offering the latest listings of leisure and cultural options of top-tier cities across China, including Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Suzhou, and Shenzhen. The magazine group has a monthly readership of over 600,000, boasts 5,000,000 monthly website pageviews, and has over 760,000 social media followers. One of the key features of That’s Magazine Shanghai is that it is a ‘glocal’ platform that combines a global presence and outlook with local information to provide a mix that is specifically targeted at the expatriate community in Shanghai.

The Bon APP is relatively young and complements the two previous apps in that it is less exclusively oriented to the expatriate community and yet targets these communities by their choice of language (both English and Chinese) and their approach to event listings; it is based on big data analysis rather than being curated by individuals or organizers. It was founded in 2015 in Shanghai to list cultural and leisure activities with expatriates as one of the primary target groups. It is now active in 13 cities in the Asia Pacific region. Today, it has more than one million active users with its big data approach arguably covering all key events aimed at the expatriate community in Shanghai.

Lastly, Smart Shanghai is an app that specifically focuses on providing daily content and editorials on lifestyle news. In the process, it also lists key events in Shanghai. It is run by a dedicated team of editors, photographers, and designers who are expatriates that live, work, eat, play, and drink in Shanghai, making it into an interesting conduit between ‘local’ events and the ‘global’ expatriate community in Shanghai. As written on their website, Smart Shanghai derives its name from it being a so-called crowd-contributing content media; expatriates or local event organizers encourage listings of events on the media’s various applications. It owns its reputation of being an independent media publication, as stated by Smart Shanghai: ‘We never give an opinion or recommendation that we would not also share with our own friends and family’. In this context, the media outlet has evolved into the city’s leading English-language online magazine. It attracts more than 10,000 visitors a day, more than 70,000 visitors a week, and more than 230,000 visitors a month. In June 2021, the average monthly user visits of the media exceeded 230,000, and the total webpage visits exceeded 570,000.

Collectively, these four apps, thus, capture the bulk of expatriates’ joint leisure and cultural events in Shanghai. This assessment was confirmed by surveying a number of expats who confirmed that they tend to get their info on leisure and cultural events for the community from one or more of these outlets. We derived a total 3033 events in 2018 and 2019 listed in these four apps: 3019 in TimeOut, 1036 in BonApp, 3027 in Smart Shanghai, and 2011 in That’s Shanghai. The dataset obviously does not capture all leisure activities, as it may for example exclude nation-specific events and gatherings for which there are often parallel channels. Nonetheless, because these online platforms are market-driven channels where editors post events that are of shared interest to the expatriate community at large, it can be assumed that they capture an extensive and representative sample of leisure activities. Lastly and perhaps more pertinently, the significant overlap between listings further corroborates our approach. After deleting overlaps (i.e., events listed in more than one app) and geo-coding the cultural activities as a function of looking up the addresses of the venues, we identified a list of 1274 venues hosting the 3033 cultural activities in 2018 and 2019. The four most peripheral districts (Jiading, Jinshan, Fengxian, and Chongming) were excluded from the analysis because they had no or only one cultural venue. Figure 2 and

Table 2. Basic socioeconomic data per district, 2019.

	District	Area	Total Population	GDP	GDP/Capita	Number of International Residents	International Resident Ratio
Central districts	Huangpu	20.46	653,800	25.78	39.43	11,000	1.68%
	Jingan	36.88	1,062,800	22.99	21.63	14,000	1.32%
	Xuhui	54.76	1,084,400	21.11	19.47	21,000	1.94%
	Changning	38.30	694,000	16.49	23.76	42,200	6.08%
	Putuo	54.83	1,281,900	11.12	8.67	6200	0.48%
	Hongkou	23.48	797,000	10.33	12.96	5000	0.63%
	Yangpu	60.73	1,312,700	20.83	15.87	5800	0.44%
Subdistricts	Pudong	1210.41	5,550,200	127.34	22.94	45,400	0.82%
	Minhang	370.75	2,543,500	25.21	9.91	37,000	1.45%
	Songjiang	605.64	1,762,200	15.80	8.96	8100	0.46%
	Qingpu	670.14	1,219,000	11.66	9.57	6200	0.51%
	Baoshan	270.99	2,042,300	15.52	7.60	1800	0.09%

Source: Shanghai Statistics Bureau, 2019. Note: The classification of the central and subdistricts is derived from Li et al. (2019); area in km²; gross domestic product (GDP) in billions of Chinese RMB; GDP/capita in thousands of Chinese RMB; the international resident ratio is derived from data on international residents and total district population.

provide some background information on the remaining 12 districts.

According to the core functions, the venues were further classified into six sectors. The core function of venues in the art and heritage sector is to provide various culture-related services. These venues include art centers, museums, theaters, galleries, and exhibition centers. The core function of venues in the other five sectors is not directly culture-related. Nonetheless, they are sometimes used as places for expatriates due to their close socio-spatial relations with the daily living and working routines of expatriates. The remaining five sectors are (1) the food and beverage sector including venues such as bars and restaurants, (2) the sports sector including venues such as stadiums and gymnasiums, (3) the retail and shopping sector including venues such as department stores and shopping malls, (4) the office and business sector representing venues providing working spaces such as office buildings and co-work offices, and (5) the public sector referring to open locations such as city parks and water docks.

As illustrated in Figure 3 and

Table 3. Number of venues and activities held in venues in six sectors.

	Administrative District	Sector Types
		Food and Beverage Sector		Art and Heritage Sector		Sports Sector		Retail and Shopping Sector		Office and Business Sector		Public Sector
		V	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V	A
Central districts	Huangpu	165	381	65	303	18	23	28	47	10	18	6	12
	Jingan	156	426	47	116	31	45	28	53	15	52	5	7
	Xuhui	105	273	73	152	26	26	20	40	6	6	4	9
	Changning	64	243	30	72	11	11	1	1	8	12	2	2
	Putuo	10	24	29	44	4	4	9	11	0	0	0	0
	Hongkou	9	17	11	110	2	2	1	22	1	1	0	0
	Yangpu	6	6	9	26	3	3	0	0	1	1	0	0
Subdistricts	Pudong	46	73	81	166	16	23	6	7	7	10	11	15
	Minhang	12	30	36	50	9	11	9	9	1	1	2	2
	Songjiang	0	0	4	4	2	2	2	2	1	1	0	0
	Qingpu	1	1	5	9	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Baoshan	0	0	3	3	0	0	1	13	0	0	0	0
Total Number		574	1474	393	1055	122	150	105	205	50	102	30	47

Note: V = ‘number of venues’; A = ‘number of activities in venues’.

, venues in the food and beverage sector are the most popular gathering places, followed by venues in the art and heritage sector. The least popular category is represented by open public spaces and office buildings. Figure 3, Figure 4 and Figure 5 further elaborate that, geographically speaking, venues are highly agglomerated in Huangpu, Jingan, Changning, and Xuhui districts, all of which are very centrally located. The food and beverage sector is most commonly found in these four districts, whereas, in the remaining districts, the art and heritage sector plays the primary role.

3.2. Methodology

The first step in our analysis focused on revealing the geographies of the cultural consumption patterns of expatriates. To this end, we used the ArcGIS Kernel Density tool, one of the key methods for measuring spatial proximity, to calculate and present the density of cultural venues. The Jenks natural breaks classification method was applied to determine the most optimal class range in a dataset. The second step was to construct a typology based on similar combinations of venues. We devised a typology on the basis of the venues’ uneven level of (1) spatial aggregation and (2) functional aggregation. The spatial aggregation degree is a proxy for showing whether cultural venues of expatriates are concentrated in a few specific locations of a certain district. The functional aggregation degree reveals the concentration of venues functions in a district which further reflects its range of venues on offer. The 12 districts were divided into four quadrants as a function of the mean value of both degrees. The number of activities held in a venue was used as the weight when calculating the spatial and functional aggregation degrees.

Specifically, the spatial aggregation degree of a district was formally measured by means of Equations (1) and (2).

$$S{C}_{I,J,k}\frac{{{\displaystyle \sum }}_{i\in I, j\in J}di{s}_{i,j}}{N_I{N}_J},$$

(1)

where $S{C}_{I,J,k}$ represents the spatial aggregation degree of venues in sector I and sector J in district k, i and j represent the activity held in venues of sector I and sector J in district k, respectively, $di{s}_{i,j}$ is the inverse standardized spatial distance between activity i and activity j (i.e., a larger value denotes more spatially clustered activities), and N_I and N_J are the number of activities held in venues of sector I and sector J in district k, respectively.

On the basis of Equation (1), Equation (2) can be used to obtain the spatial aggregation degree of a district (as used as the horizontal axis in our quadrant analysis).

$$\frac{{{\displaystyle \sum }}_{i,j\in K,}di{s}_{i,j}}{N\left(N-1\right)},$$

(2)

where $S{C}_K$ represents the spatial aggregation degree of district k, and $N$ is the number of all activities in district k.

The functional aggregation degree, in turn, was measured by applying the Herfindahl index (Equation (3)) which allowed assessing to what degree cultural venues in a district are concentrated in certain sectors. A larger Herfindahl index denotes a greater concentration of functions of venues in a district (as used as the vertical axis in our quadrant analysis).

$$HHI={\displaystyle \sum }_{j=1}^n{(\frac{Y_{i,j}}{Y_j})}^2,$$

(3)

where i represents a district, j represents a functional sector of venues, $Y_{i,j}$ is the proportion of venues in sector j of district i relative to all venues in district I, and $Y_j$ is the proportion of venues in sector j in Shanghai relative to all venues in Shanghai.

4. Results

4.1. Geographies of Cultural Venues for Expatriates in Shanghai

Following the application of the kernel density function to the 1274 cultural venues, Figure 6 shows the importance of the central area, which can be understood in terms of the broader spatio-economic inequalities across Shanghai discussed in the background section; there is a clear-cut core area consisting of the southern part of the Jingan district, the northwestern edge of the Huangpu district, and the northern edge of the Xuhui district, all of which are very centrally located. There are a range of isolated areas with minimal activity. In addition to some peripheral parts of the districts with concentrations of cultural venues, this includes the edges of the Minhang and Yangpu districts. Lastly, some areas hardly feature any activities, such as the peripheral Songjiang, Qingpu, and Baoshan districts and most of Hongkou, Putuo, Yangpu, Minhang, and Pudong districts. This finding further reinforces the predictions of Glaeser and Gottlieb (2006) and Storper and Scott (2009) that components of urban service functions in Shanghai show a spatial gradient from the city center toward the city outskirts.

4.2. A Typology of Districts in Shanghai as Cultural Hubs for Expatriates

Table 4. Venues’ degree of spatial and functional aggregation per district.

District	Spatial Aggregation	Functional Aggregation
Huangpu	1.08	0.38
Jingan	1.12	0.36
Xuhui	1.07	0.32
Pudong	0.95	0.33
Changning	1.14	0.39
Minhang	0.96	0.34
Putuo	1.36	0.36
Songjiang	1.13	0.31
Hongkou	1.36	0.35
Yangpu	1.1	0.38
Qingpu	1.43	0.72
Baoshan	1.71	0.63
Mean	1.20	0.41

and Figure 7 present the results of the analysis of spatial and functional aggregation. Two initial observations can be drawn from the overall pattern, which elaborate how Shanghai’s attitude toward expats underlines the cultural geographies of expatriates. First, as already argued, when taking the entire ‘city’ as the unit of analysis, the cultural venues are geographically highly concentrated in the central area. However, when zooming in, the cultural venues often exhibit a more dispersed spatial layout. The degree of spatial aggregation of eight districts is below the average value. The kernel densities at the level of districts (see Figure 8) further illustrates this decentralized distribution. Moreover, this observation can be cast as a condition to be able to reap the benefits of cultural activities to the fullest; with the scattered ‘traces’ of expatriates in local Shanghai, expatriates get more chances to keep in contact with the products of local companies, which in turn might have a significant effect on Shanghai’s local economy and the balanced development of the local internationalization. Second, 10 of the 12 case districts are below the average value of the functional aggregation of cultural venues. Figure 9 further illustrates the functional decentralization in the districts. This observation implies that most districts offer a diversified range of venues for event organizers to design cultural activities for expatriates.

4.3. Lower Left Quadrant

No less than 95.8% of the cultural venues are located in the eight districts in the lower left quadrant. All three contextual parameters underlying the cultural geographies of expatriates are present here. First, a strong decentralized cultural geography profile of expatriates can be understood in terms of the geographies of the Shanghai space-economy. The most obvious example is the centrally located Huangpu district. With only 5.4% of the total number of foreign residents, its venues account for 22.9% of all venues. Our analysis suggests that its venues are often those speaking to a longer-standing Shanghai heritage or international concession stories, such as the world-famous Bund (see Figure 2), the Yu Garden, the Nanjing shopping road, and various historical museums (e.g., Shanghai Museum, Shanghai History Museum, Shanghai Grand Theater, Shanghai Cultural Square, and Shanghai Children’s Art Theater). This observation echoes statements in the Shanghai Annual Development Plan, in which the district is designated to play a central role in developing Shanghai into a global cultural metropolis [25]. Its cultural popularity also supports Giorgi’s [24] and Wang et al.’s arguments [40] that a Western-style riverfront—the Bund—and the buildings and avenues of the pre-1943 international concessions continuously remind foreigners of how deeply the historical development has been tied to the presence of a lively foreign community. In addition, some urban regeneration initiatives such as Xintiandi and Tianzifang are also popular locations for cultural activities; both Farrer [11] and He [62] illustrated Shanghai’s usage of old settlement sites to develop city landmark leisure clusters that ‘breathe’ nostalgia to attract expatriates.

Unlike Huangpu, which has a strong international historical atmosphere, the high density of service companies is suggested to be a driver of the cultural geography of the centrally located Jingan district. In spite of only having 6.9% of the total number of foreign residents, its venues account for 22.2% of all venues. The district was dubbed the ‘international service center of Shanghai’ in the Shanghai Yearbook [63]; the share of tax generated by service firms reached 96% of the total district tax in 2019 [63]. Moreover, over 20 global advanced producer service (APS) companies such as KPMG, CHNMC, YandR, Ogilvy, JWT, McCann, and BNP have their China/Asian headquarters in this district [33]. Our data suggest that the cultural activities are mainly concentrated in the district’s southwestern part (see Figure 7), which is consistent with the locations of international APS firms. Our data also suggest that the main cultural venues are branches of international restaurants, arts performing centers (e.g., Shanghai Theater Academy Experimental Theater, Meiqi Grand Theater) and boutique high-end heritage locations (e.g., Prada Villa, Bulgari Hotel). This points to connections of the cultural venues with the after-work life of expatriates, which supports Giorgi’s arguments [24] that Jingan district offers an appealing mixture of international service standards and local historical and cultural flavors.

The centrally located Xuhui and Putuo districts, in turn, provide a somewhat different example, in which arts venues play significant roles in shaping the geographies of expatriates. With 10.3% of the total number of foreign residents, Xuhui covers 18.4% of the total number of cultural venues. He and Huang [37] argued that West Bund is a typical example where avant-garde artists revitalize abandoned old warehouses into creative cultural clusters (see Figure 2). The industrial relics have been transformed into a series of art venues with international influence, including the Long Art Museum, which was renovated on the prototype of coal wharf, the Yudeyao Art Museum, which was renovated on the basis of McDonnell Douglas hangar, and the Oil tank Art Center, which was renovated on the basis of a shipping tank [25]. These art landmarks are often frequented by expatriates. Our research corroborates this finding, as the arts venues in the West Bund are prominent in the analysis. A similar example is the Putuo district where, in our data, the main contributor to the district’s low aggregation values is a group of art centers (e.g., M50 Creative Space, Vanguard Gallery, Huxi Culture and Art Center) and university studios (e.g., studios in East China Normal University).

Second, three districts in this quadrant elaborate how the imprint of Shanghai’s spatio-political strategies underlies the district’s cultural geographies of expatriates. As detailed in the previous section, Pudong, Minhang, and Changning districts (see Figure 2) are three major residential areas of expatriates due to the closeness to international airports [40]. Our data suggest that, on the one hand, locations where expatriates choose to live are, to some extent, different from places where they choose to organize cultural activities; although Pudong, Changning, and Minhang accommodate the majority of expatriates, the cultural venues only account for 13.1%, 9.1%, and 5.4%, respectively. On the other hand, cultural venues in the three districts have clear ‘international’ characteristics; they are often located in international neighborhoods with international facilities. Sander [50] and Wang et al. [40] argued that expatriates in the three districts tend to spend much time inside gated communities that form a local cultural vacuum permeated by an ‘international atmosphere’. In particular, Changning district is a ‘little United Nations’ in the expatriate community [24]. It includes Gubei compound, which is the first and largest cluster of foreign housing projects [47]. This is further confirmed by our data, which suggest that the main contributor to the district’s aggregation values is the cultural venues that align with the distribution of international residential compounds. The spatial aggregation of cultural venues in Pudong also coincides with the Lujiazui CBD and Jinqiao technical areas, which are the major foreign residential areas and locations of international financial and high-tech companies [64]. In Minhang, the venues are mainly located in the northeast with a large presence of foreign residential compounds, sports clubs, and high-end international hotel chains [33]. Furthermore, as shown in Figure 6, the three districts are principal centers for international schools [40], with these schools themselves often acting as the hosting places for expatriates’ cultural events.

Third, the low aggregation values can also be explained in terms of a specific policy approach toward the expatriate community alongside a specific location. Songjiang district is a peripheral area roughly 40 km away from the center of Shanghai [34]. It only has 10 cultural venues in our data. Nevertheless, it is the only one of the three most peripheral districts whose degrees of spatial and functional aggregations are below average. According to Li and Chiu [23], from 1995 onward, the Shanghai government’s policy of developing Songjiang into a villa residence destination for global elites contributed to the birth and development of a large group of luxury residential and outdoor leisure sites. Such a policy initiative, to some extent, guides the geographies of expatriates’ cultural consumption. This is corroborated by our data; there are four types of cultural venues, including art and heritage sites (mostly international schools), business sites, sports sites (e.g., Sheshan International Golf Club), and an office site, all of which are geographically scattered across the district with fairly diverse functions on offer.

4.4. Lower Right Quadrant

There are two districts in this quadrant with above-average spatial but below-average functional aggregation values: Hongkou and Yangpu districts. One of the main contextual parameters underlying the cultural geography profile is the often-ambivalent attitude toward expatriates inside a single district. In other words, some areas of a district in this category often tend to pursue a path where attracting expatriates is a key part of their development trajectory, while other areas insist on developing Chinese culture as the core of its place identity. Hongkou, a centrally located district, is an example here. The expatriates constitute 2.4% of the district’s population, and the cultural venues only account for 1.9% of the total. However, the number of cultural activities in the district is sizable. We argue that unique historical and cultural relics and remains of the concession era play an instrumental role in attracting international cultural activities. In our data, a specific concentration can be found around the Jewish Memorial Hall and the surrounding Jewish cultural areas. The other concentration is the North Bund area (see Figure 2), where popular cultural venues are high-end hotels and art parks (e.g., Banyan Tree on the Bund, W Hotel on the Bund, Hyatt on the Bund, and the North Bund Art Park). This corroborates the finding of Wang et al. [40] that the district’s local policy orientation on highlighting the internationalization of certain areas with unique Baroque architecture built by Jews, as well as the 20-odd docks and warehouses left over from 1845, has played an important role in shaping the district’s cultural geographies for expatriates. The situation in Yangpu is similar; venues in this centrally located district only account for 1.5% of the total. Yangpu derives its popularity from locations either inside the prestigious Fudan University or in various coworking spaces that radiate outward with the university at its core (e.g., Commune Club, Great Hidden Book Store, etc.). This finding is in line with the discussions of Wang and Loo [65], which elaborated the Shanghai government’s policy of promoting international investments in research and development industry in Yangpu district; 55.2% of the coworking offices in Shanghai are located in this district in close proximity to the campus of Fudan University.

4.5. Upper Right Quadrant

There are two districts that have both above-average spatial and functional aggregation values. A contextual parameter here is the broader spatio-economic inequalities across Shanghai. Both districts are at the edge of the city. Our observation suggests the high values of the two districts are related to the large land area and the very small number of cultural venues. While Qingpu covers 20% of the total study area, it contains only six cultural venues, accounting for 0.47% of the total; international schools (the German French School and WISS International School), the National Exposition Center, and five-star hotel facilities make for limited functional diversity (five art and heritage and one food and beverage venue). The district was home to a total of 10 cultural activities, nine of which were held inside art and heritage venues. The situation in Baoshan is slightly different. It covers an area of about 8% of the total study area and has only four cultural venues. Although Wusongkou International Cruise Port is a popular international terminal [41], it does not lead to a large number of major international cultural activities.

5. Conclusions

With the deepening of China’s reform and opening up, possibly at least until the COVID-19 crisis, international migrants and especially expatriates have been envisaged to play an important role in helping achieving China’s ‘globalization vision’. Expatriates expect a certain standard of living and working conditions, and cultural activities are one of the tools to add some ‘spice’ to the urban life and raise the city’s appeal. Despite the plethora of insightful writings on living and working patterns of expats in Shanghai, there has been a relative dearth of research on the (geographies of) cultural activities of this community. This paper, thus, extends earlier research on expatriates by exploring the functional geographies of the cultural venues in a globalizing Shanghai. Drawing on geo-information-based techniques and data derived from social media platforms, our approach complements earlier research that primarily focused on understanding the cultural consumption patterns of expatriates and exploring which districts of Shanghai have transformed in light of its rising global status. Although our analysis obviously does not provide a comprehensive analysis of each of the districts, we developed a typology for understanding how districts are unevenly embedded with cultural meanings. The framework could be adopted or adapted for future research on how these ‘new’ cultural consumption patterns intersect with other geographical patterns within global cities.

Our results suggest that, in general, Shanghai’s cultural venues are geographically highly concentrated in the central area. However, when zooming in on specific districts, the cultural venues show a more diverse and dispersed spatial layout. There are some notable differences between districts, which we traced back to the broader spatio-economic inequalities across Shanghai, the imprint of Shanghai’s spatio-political strategies, and the often-ambivalent policy approach toward expats. These contextual parameters unevenly interlock in complex ways and, therefore, play out unevenly in the face of specific locations.

Our study obviously had limitations, which can be recast as possible avenues for future research. First, our analytical framework only used data from four social media apps, and future analyses could, therefore, incorporate more data resources. Second, the paper used districts as the unit of analysis to discuss some of the cultural–geographic patterns of expatriates. Third, rather than discussing specific examples of the uneven embedding of districts in attracting cultural activities, future studies could focus on how these ‘new’ cultural consumption patterns intersect with other geographical patterns within global cities. Fourth, an obvious extension of the research would be a longitudinal analysis to gauge how the cultural geographies of expatriates change over time. Fifth, another drawback of a cross-sectional analysis is that we merely looked at the co-presence of spatial and functional aggregation degrees of cultural venues. This implies that we could only engage in informed speculation of how these influence each other. Understanding how typologies are formed requires further research adopting another methodological framework.