Category Archives: Urban communities

Internal migration and urban dynamics in Shanghai

Zhao, Yeqin (2011). Construction des espaces urbains et rénovation d’un quartier de Shanghai : la problématique de la migration et du changement social. Shanghai : Sanlian shudian, 2011. (In French)

The book is based on a Ph. D. thesis in sociology, Cachan, École normale supérieure, co-tutoring with Shanghai Huadong shifan daxue, 2008.

Abstract

Since the economic reform in the late 1970’s, China has undergone trmendous changes in poltical, social and cultural aspects. Two of the most important transformations are the urban growth and the flow of internal migration which is unprecedented in the history of China. This flow of internal migration has transformed the urban population.

The objective of this research is to analyze the complexity of relationships between migrnats from rural China and the indigenous inhabitants, who are often former migrants, in the context of ownership of an urban space (a poor community of Shanghai) which is dedicated to the renovation. These issues affect urban dynamics of contemporary China. This research has conducted a thorough analysis of previous empirical research, both Western and Chinese. The close link between migration and the city has directed towards a broader debate, particularly on internal migration and urban dynamics. We adopted the method of micro-sociology and regarded Yuanhenong, a poor neighborhood of Shanghai, as the unit of observation.

The research seeks not only to describe the transformation of Shanghai through a neighbourhood. it intends to show more generally : 1) that one must study the urban transformations from the activities and choies of people who “organize” the city, 2) how the internal migration and the mobility of population are transforming the cities of the emerging countries and how to build the new urban societies, and 3) the need to consider the question of Chinese specificities and its limits.

Monique Abud

Monique Abud

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

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Contesting urban sustainabilities in China

Pow, C.P. and Neo, Harvey. (2013) Seeing red over green: contesting urban sustainabilities in China. Urban Studies. Prepublished March, 14, 2013, DOI: 10.1177/0042098013478239

Abstract

The urban sustainability agenda is engaged at some levels with the two concepts of ecological modernisation and urban entrepreneurialism. While they share certain important commonalities (for example, the emphasis on what is normatively understood as ‘right’ policy-making), each has largely progressed on its own intellectual trajectory. It is suggested that the concepts of ecological modernisation and urban entrepreneurialism are crystallised and concretised in the idea(l) form of the ‘eco-city’ through the search for an ‘urban sustainability fix’ in urban China. Although the idea of constructing an ‘eco-city’ has been mooted since the 1980s, the concept remains somewhat elusive and controversial for a number of reasons. First, while its physical form and design appeal have often been promoted by urban planners, architects and government officials, the deeper normative tenets of building an eco-city are surprisingly ignored. Secondly, the lack of an ‘actually existing’ or successfully implemented eco-city project suggests the considerable amount of resistance and difficulties (in terms of planning, politics, economic costs, etc.) that the concept encounters in practice. To that end, the paper examines various green urban initiatives in reform China before focusing on the example of Shanghai’s Dongtan eco-city project (an entrepreneurial urban prestige-project jointly developed by the British and Chinese governments) to examine the challenges and contradictions of an urban sustainability fix in the guise of eco-city building in China.

Read the full article on SAGE Journals Online (restricted access)

  • Choo-Piew Pow, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore
  • Harvey Neo, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore
Monique Abud

Monique Abud

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

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Green growth in Stockholm, Sweden

OECD. (2013) Green growth in Stockholm, Sweden. Paris : OECD Publishing. (OECD Green Growth Studies) DOI: 10.1787/9789264195158-en

 This report studies green growth trends, challenges and opportunities in the City of Stockholm, Sweden. It first analyses socio-economic trends and the environmental performance of the city and the county of Stockholm; then it reviews urban policies for land use, transport, buildings, waste, energy and water that contribute to economic growth and reduce pressure on the environment; thirdly assesses Stockholm’s green innovation potential in areas such as cleantech, ICT and university to business linkages; and finally it examines local, regional and national institutions, including horizontal and vertical coordination mechanisms that strengthen cross-sectoral and multilevel govenance for green growth.

Table of contents

  • Foreword and acknowledgements
  • Acronyms and abbreviations
  • Executive summary
  • Economic and environmental trends in Stockholm
  • Policies to further promote green growth in Stockholm
  • Green innovation in Stockholm
  • Governance of green growth in Stockholm

Read the full text on OECD Publishing Read

Downloadable version accessible to subscribers on the OECD iLibrary or to be purchased from the OECD Online Bookshop

Monique Abud

Monique Abud

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

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Lyon’s sustainable transportation for school

对于可持续城市发展的定义,一般来说是根据1987年联合国公布的布伦特兰报告 (Brundtland Report),其中指出 “可持续发展,以满足目前的需求,又不损害子孙后代能满足他们的需求的发展模式”1。而对于可持续发展城市的具体作为,各国政府主要依据1992年联合国在巴西里约热内卢拟定的“21世纪议程 (Agenda 21)”,其中指出联合国针对可持续发展方面的行动具体计划,再进行深入具体的方案实施而成2。因此在” 21世纪议程” 之下,各国家、城市间,开始执行不同的可持续发展政策与项目。

法国里昂在” 21世纪议程”的概念之下,从2005年5月开始执行”大里昂21世纪议程项目 (Agenda 21 du Grand Lyon)3,在该计划之下有几个次计划来达到可持续城市的实践,本篇是在”大里昂21世纪议程”项目中,针对节能减排,绿色公交的 « Pedibus计划 (上学路队计划) » 进行概略的介绍。

该项目实行的目的,是有鉴于孩子在前往学校的途中,大量的车子从家中开出,由于学童都属同一学区,一方面造成交通堵塞,另方面造成废气排放,故此为了在城市里实践可持续发展计划,从政府的角色出发,减少接送小孩上学的« Pedibus计划» 因此诞生。

该项目的目体作法是 :

  1.  由家长带领,在网站上刊登出带领学童徒步上学的路线图
  2. 号召同路线的学童一起加入
  3. «上学路队» 形成后,由家长带领接送学童上学。

未命名

此项目是一个简单执行的举措,但却可以藉由该项目促进居民对于节能减排,对抗温室效应,並提供公众参与,到2010年,在里昂市区内已有73所学校参与这项计划,并创造142条线路 « 上学路队» 领接送学童往返学校。

该项目的参考网址: http://blogs.grandlyon.com/pedibus/

  1. United Nations. 1987, Report of the World Commission on environment and development, http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/42/ares42-187.htm (accessed 16 July 2013 []
  2. United Nations. 1992, Agenda 21, http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf (accessed 16 July 2013 []
  3. L’Agenda 21 du Grand Lyon, http://www.grandlyon.com/L-Agenda-21-du-Grand-Lyon.34.0.html (accessed 16 July 2013 []
Chi-Han Ai

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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Urban Village

Urban Village (chengzhongcun - 城中村), Elosua Miguel

 

Urban villages have proliferated in almost every Chinese city as consequence of the urban sprawl commanded by local governments, sometimes with the purpose of financing their budgets. They expose the imperfections of the double property system, where the government has a monopoly of the primary land market. The term “urban village” (chengzhongcun – 城中村)refers to the situation where the city ends up encircling the village. Most of the farmland has been expropriated and urbanized, and only the villagers’ original homesteads remain. Soaring real estate prices in the surrounding city reduce the possibility of an eventual expropriation and redevelopment of the area.

Urban Village 2 (chengzhongcun - 城中村), Elosua Miguel

In the meantime, the original residents make a good profit from renting rooms, mostly to migrant workers who have restricted access to urban formal housing, due to the high prices, and the lack of stable jobs and tax returns. Housing conditions are precarious and villagers are not keen to invest much money, hoping for an eventual expropriation. Buildings like the one in these photos date from the 1950s.  They are made of mud bricks and have dirt floors, water leakages are frequent, and some lack running water. The average rent is around 50€ for a 15 square meter room. Migrant workers adrift on the fringes of citizenship.

 

Urban Village 3 (chengzhongcun - 城中村), Elosua Miguel

Miguel Elosua

Miguel Elosua

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

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China’s urban labor market: a structural econometric approach

Liu, Yang. (2013) China’s urban labor market: a structural econometric approach. Hong Kong :  Hong Kong University Press, 204 p. ISBN 9789888208043

In the last two decades, expanding China’s urban labor market has gone through a dynamic job creation and destruction, and large-scale rural-urban immigration. The marketization since early 1980s has made great progress in the transition to a real labor market. The author offers a novel analysis of China’s labor market using modern structural econometric models. The book examines issues of the disequilibrium of labor supply and demand, job and worker reallocations, and labor market matching in China. It also looks into the impact of rural–urban immigration on the urban labor market. The author analyzes the economic reasons behind the high unemployment rate in China and explains why it coexists with the shortage of workers in recent years.

Further reading

Liu, Yang. (2013) Job and worker reallocation in China.  APIR discussion papers 2013/01. Read the full text article on APIR website.

 

Monique Abud

Monique Abud

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

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Keys to the city

Storper, Michael (2013) Keys to the city : how economics, institutions, social interaction, and politics shape development. Princeton University Press. 288 p. ISBN: 9781400846269

Why do some cities grow economically while others decline? Why do some show sustained economic performance while others cycle up and down? In Keys to the City, Michael Storper, one of the world’s leading economic geographers, looks at why we should consider economic development issues within a regional context–at the level of the city-region–and why urban economies develop unequally. Storper identifies four contexts that shape urban economic development: economic, institutional, innovational, interactional, and political. The book explores how these contexts operate and how they interact, leading to developmental success in some regions and failure in others. Demonstrating that the global economy is increasingly driven by its major cities, the keys to the city are the keys to global development. In his conclusion, Storper specifies eight rules of economic development targeted at policymakers. Keys to the City explains why economists, sociologists, and political scientists should take geography seriously.

Monique Abud

Monique Abud

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

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Kunming confronted to the issue of recycled cooking oil

Luo, Chris. “Kunming struggling to deal with ‘gutter oil’”. South China Morning Post. 27 June 2013.  http://www.scmp.com/article/1270196/kunmings-making-gutter-oil-use-comes-stall [Accessed 27 June 2013]

Kunming, the capital city of China’s Yunnan province, is having problems dealing with recycled cooking oil – often derisively referred to as “gutter oil”. City municipal officials told the Chinese media that the problems with “gutter oil” have existed for centuries.

His comments attracted widespread condemnation from internet users. Some accused city authorities of shirking their responsibilities over the issue.

The use of illegal cooking oil – recycled from waste oil – is rampant in China. And because waste oil contains harmful carcinogens and other pollutants, mainland authorities have been determined to crack down on it for years.

Kunming has a national pilot scheme which converts recycled cooking oil into bio-fuels for vehicles. But the scheme is not working very well, the media also reports […] Read more

Continue reading

Monique Abud

Monique Abud

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

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Everyday approaches to food safety in Kunming

Jakob A. Klein (2013). Everyday approaches to food safety in Kunming. The China Quarterly, 214, pp 376-393. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305741013000325 [Access restricted]

The article explores how people in Kunming have interpreted and acted upon food-related environmental health threats, particularly within the contexts of everyday food shopping. It is argued that an increasingly intensified, delocalized food supply system and a state-led emphasis on individual responsibility and choice have produced growing uncertainties about food. However, the article takes issue with the claim that new forms of risk and institutional changes have produced “individualized” responses, arguing that many of the practices Kunmingers have developed to handle food-related risks and their understandings of what constitutes “safe” food have been developed within the frameworks of family ties and regional cuisine. Further, shoppers and purveyors of food have forged new ties of trust and re-emphasized connections between people, food and place. Nevertheless, concerns about the food supply are a source of discontent which is feeding into wider ambivalences towards modernization. This is particularly acute among the economically disadvantaged.

  • Special section: “Dying for development”, The China Quarterly, vol. 214, June 2013. Table of contents (some articles are in free access)
  • Jacob A. Klein

 

Monique Abud

Monique Abud

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

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中国城市竞争力报告 (2013 版) = Annual Report on Urban Competitiveness

倪鹏飞, 主编 Ni Pengfei, ed. (2013)中国城市竞争力报告 : 11 Zhongguo chengshi jingzhengli baogao. 北京 : 社会科学文献出版社 Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe. 460 p. ISBN: 978-7-5097-4575-5

图书简介

ZG chengshi过去10年,中国城市在增长方式转变方面收效甚微,同时房价过高、环境恶化、社会问题多发等问题凸显,“城市病”不断加剧。寻求可持续的发展机制和走新型城市化道路成为中国城市当前所面对的迫切问题。本年度报告将“新基准:建设可持续竞争力理想城市”作为研究主题,就是对未来中国城市发展方向的一次追寻和探索。《中国城市竞争力报告No.11》在前十份报告十年研究的基础上,将城市竞争力理论又向前推进了一步,使其理论框架更加清晰,政策含义更加鲜明。首次将城市竞争力明确区分为产出的、当前的和短期的城市综合经济竞争力,城市产业体系竞争力与投入的、可持续的和长期的城市可持续竞争力三个组成部分。城市综合经济竞争力即城市创造价值的能力,体现为城市创造价值的规模、速度和效率,城市可持续竞争力即城市的要素与环境状况,体现为城市在主体素质、当地要素、当地需求、主体联系、公共制度和基础设施六个方面的状况。其中,以构建理想城市为目标,我们提出理想城市应该是以人为本的宜居城市、创业至上的宜商城市、公平包容的和谐城市、环境友好的生态城市、创新驱动的知识城市、城乡一体的全域城市、交流便捷的信息城市和开放多元的文化城市,并从城市可持续竞争力的六个方面提取出关键因素,按照理想城市的这八项特征重新组合,作为其构成成分。然后从这些构成成分出发,设计了可持续竞争力的指标体系。因此,城市可持续竞争力就反映了城市和理想城市的差距与城市不断迈向理想城市的能力。根据城市综合经济竞争力和城市可持续竞争力的指标体系,我们对中国293个城市的综合经济竞争力和287个城市的可持续竞争力进行了分析和比较,发现中国城市总体上在可持续竞争力及其八个方面距理想城市的标准都存在很大差距,每个方面都存在一系列迫切问题有待解决。未来中国城市的发展,必须以建设理想城市为目标,从可持续竞争力的八个方面入手,逐步解决各方面的问题,走新型城市化的可持续发展的道路。

 

Presentation

New Benchmark: Constructing the Ideal city with Sustainable Competitiveness” It is a quest to explore the future development directions for cities in China. Based on research in the past ten reports,Annual Report on Urban Competitiveness(No.11)has achieved new progress in urban competitiveness theories with clearer theoretical framework and policy implications. It is the first time we clearly distinguish among the three parts of urban competitiveness,of which urban general economic competitiveness is the output,current and short-term aspect of urban competitiveness; urban industrial system competitiveness and urban sustainable competitiveness are the input,sustainable and long-term aspect of urban competitiveness. Urban general economic competitiveness shows cities’ ability to create value,which is reflected by the scale,speed and efficiency of cities’ value creation activity. Urban sustainable competitiveness is cities’ conditions of factors and environment,which is illustrated from six aspects,including the quality of economic agents,local factors,local demand,local and global connections,social systems and infrastructure. Aimed at building an ideal city,we claim that an ideal city should be people-oriented, livable city,entrepreneurship and business-friendly fair, inclusive, harmonious,environment-friendly,innovation-driven, city,urban-rural integrated,an communication and information friendly,culturally open and diversified. We extract key elements from the six aspects of urban sustainable competitiveness,and recompose them according to the eight characteristics of an ideal city. Then we design the index system of urban sustainable competitiveness. Therefore,a city’s urban sustainable competitiveness reflects the gap between an ideal city and its current state,as well as real cities ability to achieve the ideal. Based on the index system of urban general economic competitiveness and urban sustainable competitiveness,we analyze the urban general economic competitiveness of 293 cities and the urban sustainable competitiveness of 287 cities in China. And we find that there are big gaps between Chinese cities and the ideal city in terms of urban sustainable competitiveness in eight aspects. Each field needs to deal with a series of urgent problems. In the future,in order to build ideal cities and solve these problems effectively,Chinese cities should take the new path of urbanization and achieve sustainable development.

 

Monique Abud

Monique Abud

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

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From Istanbul to Beijing?

In a recent article, Jacques Attali, a French spin doctor, argued that last month’s riots in Swedish cities and the current demonstrations in Istanbul are two symptoms of the growing inequalities in Western countries1. According to him, the poorest inhabitants of Stockholm and Istanbul feel excluded from the rest of the population because they have little access to education and housing.

In our view, however, this issue does not only concern the Western world. Every country needs to address this issue. Inequalities between continents or countries seem to be narrowing whereas competition among cities, or even city districts, is increasing. We live in a world where it is easier for a citizen from Shanghai to relate to a New Yorker than to a peasant from Ningxia because he shares with the New Yorker the same urban life, work in the same environment and the same sort of entertainment.

Governments seem to underestimate the importance of urban issues and as a consequence need to pay more attention to the claims of the urban population. Inhabitants often do not understand economic issues: can anyone really explain how US Federal or ECB fund rates influence the economy?  However, everyone feels concerned about his or her quality of life and living conditions. The uprising in Istanbul was caused by the Central government’s unilateral decision to redevelop Taksim square and to cut down the trees there. Now Erdogan’s decisions and government are being challenged

In Stockholm, but also in Paris and London, immigrants and their children feel stuck in the worst suburbs and are the first to suffer from unemployment.   

Another point is that the authorities can no longer impose their urban projects, their “vision”, without the approval of their citizens. Governments cannot, on the one hand, ask the inhabitants to be proud of their city and to adopt good urban behaviour, while on the other hand, leaving them out of the decision process.

There are still no urban riots in China, but even so, Beijing should have a close look at what is happening in Europe and Turkey. Contrary to what Jacques Attali argued, there is no cultural cause behind these events, but rather a unique urban culture.

China’s urbanisation is still relatively new, but China should already start thinking about issues related to urbanisation that may arise in the future.

One of this issues that needs to be addressed is the integration of the second generation of rural migrants. The possibility of receiving a good education and securing top jobs will greatly impact China’s future political stability. China should try to succeed where Europe failed.

  1. Jacques Attali (2013, June 13), “La fragilité du modèle occidental”, L’Express. http://www.attali.com/actualite/blog/social/la-fragilite-du-modele-occidental []
Sebastien Goulard

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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Street vendors: poor and indesirable in the city

Solinger, Dorothy J. (2013). Streets as suspect: State skepticism and the current losers in urban China. Critical Asian Studies. 45(1) pp.3-26

Abstract

The Chinese Communist Party has been suspicious of people engaged in commercial activity on the streets ever since it took over the country in 1949, but the reasons for this have shifted in a paradoxical way over the decades. In the years when Mao Zedong ruled the nation according to his understandings and beliefs about socialist values and for several years after his death the suspicion in the main concerned the capitalist practices that business entails – profit making, inequalities, price-consciousness, class differentiation. Except for a few short intervals, doing non-state trade or providing private services was banned. In the first few decades after 1980, marketing outside was treated more leniently, although fees and licenses were still required in order to avoid harassment, and peasant migrants faced challenges. But once millions of people were laid off after 1995, the Party hoped to enable them to make a living, and also to prevent them from protesting, so it gave them special leeway to work outside from stalls and even directly on the pavement. After the mid 2000s, however, the indigent – the majority of whom were probably once members of the ideologically sacrosanct proletariat – have, ironically (in light of the values of the past) been discouraged from appearing on city streets to make money. Thus now that capitalist activity is common, the impoverished are considered to damage the city appearance, so that instead of capitalism being banned, it is the interests just of large-scale moneymakers that are to be served.

Monique Abud

Monique Abud

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

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Undo the discriminatory hukou system to achieve ‘cities of dream’?

1. Chan, Kam Wing. 2013, February 4. Turning China’s cities with invisible walls into cities of dreams. East Asian Forum (accessed 25 April 2013).

2. Chan, Kam Wing. 2013, January 19. China’s hukou system stands in the way of its dream of prosperity. South China Morning Post (accessed 25 April 2013). [Earlier version of 1.]

1. During a widely publicised tour of Shenzhen, China, the new head of the Communist Party, Xi Jinping, called for the realisation of the ‘Chinese dream’ — a great national revival.

Shortly after that, the Chinese character meng (dream) was voted ‘character of the year’ in an online poll of 50,000 people.

As China enters the urban age, a critical part of the Chinese dream is the ‘urban dream’: the promotion of urbanisation to generate household consumption to put the economy on a sustainable footing. This would steer China away from its currentexport- and investment-driven growth model, which has long been considered, even by the government, as ‘unbalanced’ and ‘unsustainable’.

Premier-designate Li Keqiang has championed urbanisation for years. Some media pundits are excited by his talk of a new type of urbanisation, though details are scant. Can he do it right and help China reach its urban dream?

Read more

2. Dreams are in vogue in mainland China. During a widely publicised tour of Shenzhen, the new head of the Communist Party, Xi Jinping , called for the realisation of the “Chinese dream” – a great national revival. Right after that, the Chinese character meng (dream) was voted “character of the year” in an online poll of 50,000 people.

The new year also began with a political storm over a censored article dreaming of Chinese constitutional reform. Whether those dreams are more like a fantasy than realistic hope remains to be seen.

Read more

Related

  • Chan, Kam Wing. (1994) Cities with invisible walls : Reinterpreting urbanization in post-1949 China, Oxford university press, 194 p.
  • Chan, Kam Wing and Will Buckingham. (2008) Is China abolishing the hukou system? The China quarterly, 195, pp. 582-606. [Full text here]
  • 陈, 金永. 2013年05月13. 户籍改革路线图. 财新《新世纪》. [Accessed 28 May 2013].
  • 陈, 金永. 2013年06月1.十五年完成户籍改革. 财新《中国改革》. Dowload PDF here.
  • Kam Wing Chan webpage

 

Monique Abud

Monique Abud

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

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Gearing up for China’s urban billion

This Policy Spotlight is organised within the framework of the Europe-China Forum, a joint initiative of Friends of Europe and the Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the European Union, and with media partner Europe’s World.

The world is watching closely as China’s cities get big, bigger, biggest. China’s rapid urbanisation is unprecedented in human history: by 2030, the country’s urban population will reach 1 billion – roughly one in every eight people in the world. Not surprisingly, China’s new leaders have put urbanisation at the top of their priorities. But their task is not easy, with the country’s new urban dwellers demanding not only cleaner air but also better housing, sanitation, mobility, health, education and recreational facilities. Tom Miller, Managing Editor at GK Dragonomics and author of the book “China’s Urban Billion”, will be sharing his insights on China’s urbanisation challenge.
Please visit the event page for the full program and latest updates from Friends of Europe.

Location

  • Brussels

Date

  • 23 April, 2013

Time

  • 12.30 p.m to 2 p.m

Registration

  • To register, please got to the Registration section of the event page.
  • You will receive a confirmation of your registration prior to the event, including further logistical details. In the meantime, should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at the following number: +32 2 8939824.
Aurélia Martin

Aurélia Martin

Chargée de communications et des médias pour l'UMR Chine Corée Japon (CNRS)

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