Category Archives: Urban communities

Shopping in an urban village

Electrical equipment shop in an urban village, Elosua Miguel

An electrical equipment shop in an urban village in Kunming, Yunnan. Urban villages are informal settlements that have proliferated in many Chinese cities (for other articles on urban villages click here:  http://urbachina.hypotheses.org/5981). Although usually described by officials as dirty and insalubrious, urban villages are not slums, or at least not the ones the writer of this article has visited. However, it’s difficult to define these informal settlements as homogeneous living communities for their location and construction vary considerably. In many cases, original villagers construct five to six stories buildings (it seems it is the maximum height recommended to avoid having to install an elevator) with a few facilities. Sometimes, the urban village preserves its original layout, thus keeping some resemblance to a rural settlement in the midst of urban structures.

Urban villages are often lively neighbourhoods, with a buoyant service trade for residents and outsiders lured by the affordable prices. They can play an important role in helping migrants integrate into urban life. Some Chinese scholars (see for example Wu Fulong) advocate protecting these villages and supporting the informal market. It is interesting to note that the original villagers (farmers transformed into landlords) turn the double property system to their advantage and make good profits renting out rooms and retail space. (This is not the case of this shop, which is still run by the original resident.) The paradox here is that had farmers the right to sell their homesteads (which they do not), they could exploit the inherent value of land and profit from it. As a consequence, the urban village would probably be dismantled, making way for new residential or commercial developments, and its residents, migrant workers for the most part, would be forced to look for affordable housing in places far away from the city centre.

Urban village 4 (chengzhongcun - 城中村), Elosua Miguel

Therefore, until governments make urban social housing policies for migrant workers more flexible, it seems desirable to preserve urban villages and acknowledge their role in providing affordable housing in a somewhat integrative community. The government could introduce regulations regarding safety and hygiene issues to guarantee an acceptable standard of living, as well as levying business taxes on rental activities that could then be returned to the village in the form of basic services.

 

Miguel Elosua

Spanish qualified lawyer; PhD in Chinese Law. UrbaChina Research Officer. Has lived in China since 2006.

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Urban competitiveness and innovation

Pengfei Ni , Qiong Jie Zheng (Eds.), 2014, Urban competitiveness and innovation, Cheltenham (UK), 296 p.  Look inside

Description

Against the backdrop of today’s climate of economic globalization and the rapid development of information, this timely book explores the complex concept of competitiveness between cities. The expert contributors illustrate that innovation is a prerequisite for increasing urban competitiveness, and highlight the various ways that urban innovation-based competitiveness can be approached.

Contributors include: G. Ferrari, F. Gipouloux, L. Kamal-Chaoui, P.K. Kresl, S. Mollica, P. Ni, J. Shen, J. Sobrino, P. Taylor, L. van den Berg, H. Wolman

Article by François Gipouloux: The Strategic Shift Toward Domestic Market, Service Enhancement, and Urban Competitiveness in China

 

 

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Chinese homeowners’ participation in policymaking

Jiang, Yihong ( 2013 ). Altering the rules : Chinese homeowners’ participation in policymaking. Journal Of Current Chinese Affairs, 42(3), pp. 121-148. [Retrieved January 17, 2014, from http://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jcca/article/view/672]

This study looks at Chinese homeowners’ participation in policymaking. Drawing on evidence from Guangzhou and Beijing, it shows that various organised homeowner activists have moved upstream in the policy process and have begun to push beyond policy implementation into the domain of agenda setting and “rule-making”. These advocates display rights-conscious patterns of behaviour that are closer to that of interest or lobby groups than to the typical repertoire of Chinese contentious citizens. The study suggests that this kind of political participation is on the rise amongst Chinese homeowner activists. This result complements and extends other recent findings that suggest the Chinese policy process is gradually opening up. Such a trend could have significant implications and calls for more research in different domains of state-society relations.

Read full text (PDF)

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Informality and the development and demolition of urban villages in the Chinese peri-urban area

Fulong Wu, Fangzhu Zhang and Chris Webster (2013), Informality and the development and demolition of urban villages in the Chinese peri-urban area, Urban Studies.   Free full-text on Sage

Abstract

The fate of Chinese urban villages (chengzhongcun) has recently attracted both research and policy attention. Two important unaddressed questions are: what are the sources of informality in otherwise orderly Chinese cities; and, will village redevelopment policy eliminate informality in the Chinese city? Reflecting on the long-established study of informal settlements and recent research on informality, it is argued that the informality in China has been created by the dual urban–rural land market and land management system and by an underprovision of migrant housing. The redevelopment of chengzhongcun is an attempt to eliminate this informality and to create more governable spaces through formal land development; but since it fails to tackle the root demand for unregulated living and working space, village redevelopment only leads to the replication of informality in more remote rural villages, in other urban neighbourhoods and, to some extent, in the redeveloped neighbourhoods.

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Persuasion through negotiation

Persuasion through negotiation, Elosua Miguel

A building about to be demolished near the ancient town of Ciqikou (磁器口), in Chongqing. The local government plans to tear the whole neighbourhood down and rebuild it with new “old buildings” at its core. The new “old street” will become a commercial area and numerous apartment buildings will be built around it. The process of expropriation forces authorities to negotiate with the residents on a case-by-case basis. In this photo, some residents have already left apartments vacant, while others still remain in their homes wishing to better their compensation package. The gentrification of the neighbourhood is guaranteed since high prices will force most, if not all, former residents to move out of the community.

 

Miguel Elosua

Spanish qualified lawyer; PhD in Chinese Law. UrbaChina Research Officer. Has lived in China since 2006.

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Beijing’s low-wage migrants: hikers in the urbanisation and growth process

Liu, R., Wong, T.-C. and Liu, S. (2013), Low-wage migrants in northwestern Beijing, China: The hikers in the urbanisation and growth process. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 54:3, pp. 352–371. doi: 10.1111/apv.12029

Abstract

In the post-Mao era from the 1980s, market reforms have seen profit-led neoliberal forces being introduced into China’s urban spatial movements. In supporting such movements, labour mobility is allowed but the hukou system has been retained to prevent urban informality and slum formation and to control municipal public expenses. Without residency permits granted by the host cities, low-wage rural migrants enjoy little ‘right to the city’ and are deprived of local welfare and benefits. They often become ‘drifting tenants’, frequently driven by urban renewal, rising rentals and change of jobs. This study examines the spatial effect of causes (residency system) and consequences (frequent shifts in residence) experienced by low-skilled and low-wage migrants. A survey was conducted from February to mid-April 2011 in northwestern Beijing’s Great Zhongguancun area which shows and the marginalised state of displaced migrant tenants. This includes their adaptations to change, the pattern, causes and history of their intra-city mobility.

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Rooftop gardening: better environment and much more

From Dublin1 to Montréal, many cities around the world promote the development of urban rooftop farming. Some of these urban experiments are also conducted in China. Many of these urban farms are actually operated by specialised companies, which ensure that they are quite efficient. In our opinion, it would make sense if local residents were involved in these initiatives.

In a country like China, which is undergoing a massive and rapid urbanisation, a large part of the urban population actually comes from the countryside. Including rural migrants in this kind of project can create societal benefits in the city. There have been several studies focusing on the positive effects of these green rooftops on environment, but rooftop farms may also bring social advantages to urban communities. As noted by my colleague Ai Chi-Han in a previous post, community gardens strengthen relations among residents. Urban rooftop farms can play a similar function and an also improve intergenerational relationships. By gardening on rooftop farms, elders who spent a large part of their life in the countryside could share time and experience with youngsters, who are more and more interested in healthy products. This experience transfer could also continue at lower levels, in the kitchen, for instance, where the old generation will pass on their recipes to the younger generation with the vegetables they have produced together.

This positive effect of urban rooftop farms may seem anecdotic at first sight. Yet, in an urbanising China where traditional social reference points are being challenged, urban authorities should encourage these initiatives that smooth relations between generations and help bring rural elders respect.

  1. Alison Healy (July 17, 2013), Dublin rooftop Urban Farm showcases a growing movement ,The Irish Times http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/dublin-rooftop-urban-farm-showcases-a-growing-movement-1.1465783, accessed October 23, 2013 []

Sebastien Goulard

Ph.D. in political science (EHESS, Paris); M.A. in social sciences (EHESS, Paris); M.A. in international relations (IRIS, Paris), B.A. (Hons) in international political studies (ESE - Nottingham Trent University)

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Making cultural cities in Asia

Call for Papers: Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL, April 8-12th – 2014

Session Title: Making Cultural Cities in Asia

Organizers
Jun Wang (City University of Hong Kong)
Tim Oakes and Yang Yang (University of Colorado at Boulder)

Discussant
Tim Oakes (University of Colorado at Boulder)

Session Abstract
In an increasingly globalizing world, many ‘ideas’, ‘innovations’, and ‘best practices’ derived from the West have flocked into Asian cities without much critical assessment of their contextual appropriateness and consequences. “Cultural/creative cities” is one such example. However, such occurrences in Asian cities linked to global networks of urbanism have only recently been taken up for examination, as empirical studies on Asian cities are few and far between. As for recent literature on creative/ cultural cities and industries in Asia, a growing body of scholarship has focused on this topic. Yet, less attention has been given to the critical issue of the applicability, transferability, and translation of “creative/cultural cities” from their Euro-American origins to Asian contexts.

Highlighting these issues, we intend to collect various explorations on the question of state-society interrelations amidst the mobility and territorialization of “creative/cultural cities” policies. We contend that the project of producing new urban spatial orders in a global network may be interpreted as a dynamic process:  how the mobile idea of cultural/creative cities has been channeled to and territorialized in Asian cities, and how the mutated or re-invented versions have been territorialized, institutionalized, branded and, perhaps, exported.

On the one side of the spectrum, we call for studies on policy mobility, in particular the political construction of the “web” of communication and the restructuring or rescaling of the state. On the other side, we look for studies that examine the impact of cultural/creative city projects on urban society, in particular the increasingly fragmented social forces, their changing roles in the process, their negotiations, alignments, and resistances.

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to Jun Wang (june.wang@cityu.edu.hk) or Yang Yang (yang.yang@colorado.edu) by November 15, 2013. Priorities will be given to those who submit before October 23, 2013. Please feel free to contact them with questions about the session.

See the AAG Annual meeting website

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Community garden, micro-agriculture in cities

社区农圃-城市中的微型农业

近年来Community garden,随着中国城镇化的快速发展,农业和城市的关系逐渐在转型。大量农村人口迁往城镇,加速了城镇化发展过程,虽然带来了经济上的富裕,但也带来了污染,人与人间疏离化和原子化等诸多新问题。近年来,社区农圃的概念在各国兴起,透过由居民自发组织起来的团体,自行管理运作,藉由规模小、低碳环保的微型农业方式,促进人与人间的交流互动,打破彼此间的隔阂。

社区农圃的概念主要源自几个不同的阶段1 :

  • 1890年代的底特律,受到「文明美化运动 (Civic beautification movement)」影响,社会学家、教育改革家开始透过社区农圃的方式,提供失业者、青年农业技术上的知识传授。
  • 1918年一次大战期间,政府倡导社区农圃的概念,提供国家农产品资源。
  • 1930年经济大恐慌时期,社区农圃提供失业者自给食物来源。在此时期,美国的私人机构、州与地方政府纷纷提供园地带人民种植农作物。
  • 1940年二次大战期间,光荣农圃(Victory Garden)的概念兴起,目的是要增加战争时期的人民日常的食物供给,提倡透过庭园改造来种植作物。虽然战后只有少数的社区农圃被保留下来,但是仍带给往后社区农圃概念重新被提倡的起源。
  • 到了1970年,随着美国城市的发展,人与人间的关系开始疏离,为了提倡对于环境的关注并且敦亲睦邻,社区农圃的概念又再一次兴起。城市里不同的机构组织提供各类型的补助项目,协助人民取得土地,建造花园和发展教育计划。

现在,社区农团在美国超过2千个社区农圃,纽约市就有超过 750 个社区农圃2。台湾、日本、法国、加拿大都有自己的「市民农园」或「都市农业」3

社区农圃不同于传统农业,需要由社区里的居民共同管理与维护,在中国快速城镇化发展的阶段,社区农圃提供优质农产品和优美文化环境,可以提供城镇化发展一个新兴的个性化农业发展模式。

美国社区农圃协会-介绍社区农圃影片
https://youtu.be/L5QmK3tcdq4

  1. The history of community gardening http://extension.missouri.edu/p/MP906-4 accessed on 14 october, 2013 []
  2. Find a community garden near you with our Bi-National Community Garden Database http://acga.localharvest.org/search.jsp?lat=39.679462&lon=-78.90191&scale=4 accessed on 14 october, 2013 []
  3. Shequ nongye http://www.producegreen.org.hk/agronomy_08.htm accessed on 14 october, 2013 []

Chi-Han Ai

Ph.D. candidate of EHESS ( École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris) focusing on regional economic development in China and Taiwan.

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China’s future and scarcity

Ma, Damien and Adams, William (2013). In line behind a billion people : how scarcity will define China’s ascent in the next decade. Pearson Education, FT Press, 352 p. ISBN: 978-0-13-313389-9.

Within a decade, China will have the world’s largest economy. In this book, two China experts turn the conventional wisdom on its head, showing why China’s economic growth will constrain rather than empower it. Political analyst Damien Ma and global economist William Adams reveal why, having 35 years of ferocious economic growth, China’s future will be shaped by the same fundamental reality that has shaped it for millennia: scarcity. Ma and Adams drill deep into Chinese society, showing all the scarcities that will limit its power and progress. Beyond scarcities of natural resources and public goods, they illuminate China’s persistent poverties of individual freedoms, cultural appeal, and ideological legitimacy — and the corrosive loss of values and beliefs amongst a growing middle class shackled by a parochial and inflexible political system.

Download sample pages (Table of contents, Introduction and Index)

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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An underground city in Paris – The parisian sewer system

雨果曾在他的小说《悲惨世界》 里曾提到,下水道是一座城市的见证 (L’égout c’est la conscience de la ville),下水道系统的建立,不仅体现了一个城市发展程度,同时也关系市民的生活质量。巴黎的下水道系统是全世界唯一可以参观游览的下水道,也许可以提供中国城镇化发展时的一个参考。

巴黎的下水道系统是在1854年左右才开始大规模兴建,在此时期以前,大部分的废水都是直接排入塞纳河中,不仅造成了塞纳河的严重污染,还导致了1832年巴黎传染病的发生。因此在拿破仑三世时期,为了解决巴黎的水污染问题,委托乔治-欧仁·奥斯曼 (Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann) 执行巴黎改造计划,下水道工程师欧金·贝尔格兰德(Eugène Belgrand) 受命于奥斯曼,结合卫生学的理论开始将巴黎的污水管线进行改造。贝尔格兰德利用巴黎地势北方较低的特点,为了把污水排出巴黎市内,他将巴黎左岸的下水道管线聚集在爱而玛桥 (pont de l’Alma),并在塞纳河底建立一条水管,让污水引流到巴黎地势较低的克利希(Clichy)并且将污水净化。到了1895年,污水引流管线延长到更西北方的安歇尔(Achères),巴黎所有的污水也都排到的该地的污水处理场。为了确保塞纳河回归原来的洁净,政府在1894年立法规定禁止倾倒废水到下水道系统與塞纳河中,巴黎的水污染问题因此得到大幅的改善。

 由于巴黎污水的排放,是按照「水往低处流」的原理,把污水引到巴黎郊区,故了避免该排污水管堵塞,清淤球,清淤车等设备因此负责下水道水管系统的水流顺畅。

巴黎的下水道从1878年总长600公里发展至今约总长2400公里1,虽然已经拥有相当规模的地下排水系统,然而,却仍在1910年1月遭遇了大淹水,这场淹水使得当时20万巴黎人受到影响,2万间房间浸在水中,总长40公里的道路被水淹没。根据塞纳河上奥斯特利茨大桥 (pont d’Austerlitz)上水位标尺的记录,当时水位最高达8.62 m,超过正常水位6 m多。这场大淹水倒灌入巴黎地下的排水系统,并通过下水道、地铁等地下网络,进入了巴黎城区。因此,现阶段的巴黎下水道备有关闭水道闸口的设计,也因此可以防止海水倒灌。

WP_001664

为了要防止污染与洪水入侵城市,下水道扮演着很重要的角色,然而,没有任何一个城市能够百分之一百确定城市发展中不会因为天灾或人祸使人民生活遭受威胁,巴黎从19世纪开始就重视下水道工程的建设与水污染的治理,该经验也许可以提供中国城镇化发展时的一个参考。

  1. Bali shi zhengfu wangzhan, http://www.paris.fr/pratique/musees-expos/musee-des-egouts/visite-publique-des-egouts-de-paris/rub_9691_stand_5943_port_23931, accessed on 24 september []

Chi-Han Ai

Ph.D. candidate of EHESS ( École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris) focusing on regional economic development in China and Taiwan.

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New road indicators in Paris alert drivers to the driving speed

在巴黎,有接近60%的道路面积是供给行人徒步的区域1,为了要增加行人徒步安全,巴黎市政府在学校、住宅区和核心区街道设立「30公里限速区 (zone 30)」。为了扩大「30公里限速区」的设置 ,从2013年9月开始,政府将原先限速50公里的街道区域,减速为30公里,促使37%的巴黎道路在繁忙的城市步调中慢起来2

以往各国对于交通限速的警示,政府是以路标的方式提醒驾驶人减速,但是法国道路交通安全委员会Délégation à la Sécurité et à la Circulation Routières) 采取新的道路指标,目的要让车辆与行人更融洽的遵守限速区的交通规则。

5种新的路标形式包括三线/五线谱、矩形、街头艺术与文字提示型。这些新型道路指标主要的目的在于提醒车辆已进入限速区,并注意行人安全。

Street indicators

  1. Direct matin n°1338 4, September, 2013, http://fr.1001mags.com/parution/direct-matin/numero-1338-4-sep-2013/page-10-11-texte-integral (accessed 9 October 2013 []
  2. Nouveaux marquages, http://www.paris.fr/pratique/deplacements-voirie/la-rue-en-partage/experimentation-marquage/rub_10228_stand_129859_port_25784 (accessed 9 October 2013 []

Chi-Han Ai

Ph.D. candidate of EHESS ( École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris) focusing on regional economic development in China and Taiwan.

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What drives the spatial development of urban villages in China?

Pu Hao, Pieter Hooimeijer, Richard Sliuzas, Stan Geertman (2013), What drives the spatial development of urban villages in China? Urban studies May 16, 2013, doi: 10.1177/0042098013484534

China’s dramatic urban expansion has encompassed many peri-urban villages and turned them into so-called urban villages that provide a niche housing market for rural migrants for whom the formal housing market is unaffordable. Yet urban villages are very distinct from informal settlements elsewhere, because they are being developed by the original village community on collectively owned land. As these communities cannot sell their land and only build housing units for low-paid workers, the only way to make a higher return from their land is to increase its built intensity. This paper tests the hypothesis that the driving factors of this built intensity are analogous to factors that drive land prices in the formal city. Results of multivariate regression models of the built intensity of urban villages across the city of Shenzhen show a remarkable resemblance to hedonic models of land prices elsewhere. Location matters and access to employment, along with development constraints, are the most important determinants for the development of Shenzhen’s urban villages.

Read th full text of the article : http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/05/09/0042098013484534.full.pdf+html

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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Ren-Urban China

Urban China

Ren, Xuefei. (2013) Urban China. Cambridge : Polity Press. 218 p (China today).

Ren Xuefei is assistant professor of sociology and global urban studies at Michigan State University.

Description

Currently there are more than 125 Chinese cities with a population exceeding one million. The Ren Xuefei - Urban Chinaunprecedented urban growth in China presents a crucial development for studies on globalization and urban transformation. This book examines the past trajectories, present conditions, and future prospects of Chinese urbanization, by investigating five key themes – governance, migration, landscape, inequality, and cultural economy.

Based on a comprehensive evaluation of the literature and original research materials, Ren offers a critical account of the Chinese urban condition after the first decade of the twenty-first century. She argues that the urban-rural dichotomy that was artificially constructed under socialism is no longer a meaningful lens for analyses and that Chinese cities have become strategic sites for reassembling citizenship rights for both urban residents and rural migrants.

For students and scholars of urban and development studies with a focus on China, and all interested in understanding the relationship between state, capitalism, and urbanization in the global context.

Table of Contents

  • Chapter 1 China Urbanized
  • Chapter 2 Governance
  • Chapter 3 Landscape
  • Chapter 4 Migration
  • Chapter 5 Inequality
  • Chapter 6 Cultural Economy
  • Conclusion

 Publisher’s website

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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