The Hidden Crisis: the Prato Industrial District and the Once Thriving Chinese Garment Industry

This paper discusses the ways in which Chinese migrants and the city/ID of Prato together mutually constitute the local in the framework of global and national dynamics. It aims to document and explain the dynamics taking place in Prato, Italy at a time when its garment industry, mainly run by Chinese migrants, is confronted with global changes and restrictive local policies that threaten its very existence. Glick Schiller and Caglar (2011) suggest that studies of migrant pathways of incorporation in cities impoverished within global restructuring can contribute to different analysis of the relationship between migrants and cities. This article contends that Prato is an exemplary case that yields new insights into the interplay of scales – global, national, and local – in the complex dynamics between migrants and the locality. Chinese migrants are depicted as the long arm of the Chinese state and blamed for the impoverishment of the city and its loss of international relevance.