Abstract: There is no denying that economic transformation will have strong effect upon the urban development. America has experienced 5 economic transformations in its history, which directly affected the design of the cities. Meanwhile, problems like race, identity, class, gender, sex, etc. arose sharply during the process of urbanization. The present paper will take some representative plays in the period of transformation in the last century as a focus, study the relationship between economic transformation and metropolitan space construction, reveal the complicated implications of the social space change brought about by the urban physical space alteration, and decode the meaning of stage performances of some typical plays concerned. The authors hope that the research can provide some valuable information for the urban space construction in the process of China's urbanization.

Key words: economic transformation, American drama, metropolitan space construction