Category Archives: Urban communities

Gentrification in Peking and Paris (III)

However, finance was also the reason for Haussmann’s dismissal in 1870, one year after failing to get parliament’s support for the fourth issuing of bonds. This was mostly due to the provinces’ opposition to using State resources for the sole benefit of Paris. It is interesting to note that financial costs had increased as a consequence of the June 6, 1860 ruling by the Supreme Court. This ruling not only increased compensation to landlords, but also granted protection to expropriated tenants. The prefect harshly opposed the ruling, as it would “dramatically increase expropriation costs and delay the works due to the multiplication of procedures”. It is notable that this was the first time expropriation was used to renovate the city of Paris: entire quarters were demolished. The Declaration of Universal Human Rights of 1789 consecrated the right to property, and the Law of June 3, 1841 set the regulations for expropriating land in cases of public utility, stressing the social significance. In 1852, however, the decision to expropriate in cases of public utility was transferred from the legislative branch to the Emperor, leaving parliament without control over the procedure.1

In the case of China, the expropriation procedure has undergone an important evolution over the last two decades, although a low level of compensation has remained its main feature. The declaration of public utility was vague until 2012, leaving local governments with discretionary powers to use land acquisitions for local finance. With reference to the meagre compensation fees, it is interesting to reflect on the report by Hyun Bang Shin about residential redevelopment in Beijing. He analysed a specific case involving two phases between 1999 and 2002 in downtown Beijing.  He noted that in 2002 compensation fees would just amount to the equivalent of eight years accumulation of annual income for a three-person household (Price to Income ratio of 8 to 1) whereas the average price for an apartment there would be the equivalent to a PIR of 20 to 1. The PIR was lower outside the second ring road, reaching 7.1 to 1 outside the fourth ring road. Finally, even though 4% of the residents were re-housed in the redeveloped neighbourhood, most of them were driven out later due to the increase in housing costs. On average this would amount to as much as 28.7% of their monthly income, whereas before it came to 11.6%. The municipal ordinances only calculated compensation for registered Beijing residents (ironically excluding those migrant workers who were working on the renovation of the city for the Olympics).

City expansion paves the way for “commuting” to work from home. In Paris, commuting began at the time of the Haussmann renovations, especially for the displaced working classes. In Beijing, it led to the disappearance of bicycles, which have gradually left their place to cars, traffic jams, and pollution.

Community, Elosua Miguel

The splendid film “Shower” (xizao – 洗澡), by Beijing director Zhang Yang (张杨), depicts the last days of a neighbourhood in Beijing through the family-run bath where residents not only go to wash, but also to relax and chat at the end of the day. The film presents a caricature of the modern urban lifestyle, where white-collar employees devote just seven minutes of their “optimized time” to shower in specially designed cabins located near their offices in a sea of glass and steel. The activity is carried out without any trace of human interaction and is in stark contrast with the humanity that reigns in the local bath that is about to be demolished. Although the film is an exaggeration, it seems evident that displaced residents are forced to make a new start far from everything they have grown familiar with during their whole life, and this necessarily implies a break in social ties, the loss of points of reference, and the eclipse of neighbourhoods whose sense of community can hardly ever be replaced.

  1. Michel Lacave (1980) Stratégie d’expropriation et haussmannisation: l’exemple de Montpellier. Economies, Societés, Civilisations, 35e année, 5 []

Preserving local traditions in an urban context

Tsang Tai Uk, a preserved Hakka village in Hong Kong, Goulard SébastienDespite its modernity and the demographic pressures it endures, Hong Kong has preserved some aspects of its traditional villages. Urbanisation and land development have not completely wiped the villages from the New Territories, which have been carefully preserved by the government with a view to conserving their heritage and promoting tourism. In a recent article, three scholars from the University of Hong Kong and Tsinghua University have examined the impact of urbanisation and modernity on Lung Yeuk Tau, a village in the New Territories1. This village was once predominantly occupied by the Weitou Chinese, members of the Tang clan. Hakka Chinese have lived in the area for many decades as well, and are also considered “indigenous people”. Since the 1970’s and the development of the New Territories, a new population group has moved to Lung Yeuk Tau: in the wake of the handover to China, Chinese migrants from the Mainland have also settled there because of the relatively lower real estate prices. Although the Tang people are no longer the only inhabitants of the village, they still maintain their traditions, even if these have undergone modern alterations.

The authors note in their observations and interviews that traditions have been modified by urbanisation, but modernity has also emphasized and preserved the Tang cultural heritage.

Jaya, Li and Zhuang note three main factors of change:

  • Once a poor rural area, this village has experienced an increasing standard of living. Fields, sold or rented to the government, have been transformed into urban areas. Inhabitants have seen their social status upgraded. As a result, some of their traditions have been abandoned. For example, the Tang clan members now prefer to buy traditional meals instead of preparing them together, and this affects their sense of community.
  • A second aspect of modernity is the growing role of women in the community. Whereas women were mostly excluded from traditional practices and rituals before the 1990’s, they are now taking part in certain festivals. According to the authors, this is a result of the growing power of women in Hong Kong. Although the Tang clan is a very male-dominated community, the village is not isolated enough to be unaffected by the rise of feminism in urban Hong Kong.
  • Another factor of transformation is the growing intervention of the State in the community. The Hong Kong authorities have been interested in preserving local Tang clan traditions in order to promote them as tourist attractions. The government funded the renovation of the Tang clan’s ancestral hall, but in exchange it had to be opened to (non-Tang) visitors.

The authors feel that the opening of temples to the public enshrines local culture and preserves traditions. They also argue that the government’s promotion of local culture unifies traditions and influences perceptions of Tang clan history: what is published on tourist posters is assimilated by local inhabitants. This contributes to the construction of the Tang community.

The authors also mention the special rights granted to the “indigenous people” of the New Territories. Inhabitants whose ancestors lived in the New Territories villages before British rule in 1898 have special representatives. This particular feature is examined in detail in this article, and its importance in identity preservation cannot be denied.

Hong Kong rural society has undergone important transformations over the last forty years. Local culture has also evolved. Traditions are not static and are adapted to their new urban environment.

We need to look at the role of tradition in urban societies. In the case of Lung Yeuk Tau, it can be argued that traditions are important not only for the purpose of promoting tourism but also in order to preserve a sense of community. What has happened in Hong Kong is occurring on a larger scale throughout China as a result of intense urbanisation. What will become of the individual characteristics of each village? Their preservation may be necessary in order to help locals adapt to societal changes as their rural world disappears.

  1. Jaya  Gopan, T., Li Z. and Zhuang S. (2012). Modern traditional village life in Hong Kong: the case of Lung Yeuk Tau;  Hong Kong Anthropologist , vol.6, http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ant/hka/vol6/HKA_JAYA.pdf  []

Gentrification in Peking and Paris (I)

Haussmann

“We sense that it is to no purpose to regret the old Paris now, the historical and thinking Paris, whose last exhalations we are now witnessing; the artistic and philosophical Paris (…) where there were once groups, neighbours, neighbourhoods, traditions; where expropriations did not constantly trouble old relationships and the most cherished habits, where the artisan, who is now barred from the city centre by a merciless system, used to live next to the financier (…) Our eyes are full of tears, crying for this old Paris, especially when we see the intolerable “hotellerie”, the expensive confusion, the triumphant vulgarity, the terrible materialism that we are to bequeath to our nephews (…)”

This is an extract from one of the articles written by the journalist Jules Ferry in “Les comptes fantastiques d’Haussmann”. He denounces the colossal work to renovate Paris that was undertaken by Baron Haussmann during his 17 years as prefect of the city (1853-1870). The rebuilding of the city continued well after the end of the Second Empire under the direction of Haussmann’s collaborators, as Haussmann himself was dismissed following the severe criticism he received from his contemporaries. This renovation of Paris was probably the most dramatic of all the transformations the city has undergone to date. Paris had hardly changed for almost three centuries. Modernization brought gas lighting, wide avenues, clean water, modern sewage treatment, trees, public parks, fountains, hospitals, to name but a few changes.

After reading this extract one cannot help but reflect on the disadvantages of the phenomenal transformations that Chinese cities have undergone during the last two decades, in particular the capital, Beijing. In terms that remind us of July Ferry, some of the residents who lived in the thousands of hutong that were once the heartbeat of the city, and are now disappearing, lament their displacement from their inner-city neighbourhoods: “Nowadays, people say that high-level cadres live around the second ring road, while paupers live around the sixth ring road (…).1 It has been calculated that by 2007, approximately 1.5 million Beijing residents had been relocated to suburban areas as a consequence of the rebuilding of the city.2 Many officials are offering words of warning regarding the destruction of the historic architectural heritage: “The traditional streets and ancient buildings are disappearing under the bulldozer”.3 Likewise, the NGO Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center is working to raise awareness and help protect the cultural heritage (http://en.bjchp.org).

Hutongs (Drum and Bell tower neighbourhood), Elosua Miguel

This zoning of social classes or sociospatial reorganization as a result of urban redevelopment is a common feature in both the case of 19th century Paris and modern Beijing. Insufficient compensation prevents residents from staying in central Beijing. Gated compounds where non-residents are excluded likewise proliferate downtown. In Paris, rising rents also drove workers out of the city. It has been said that Haussmann wanted to place populations that were likely to revolt in areas outside of Paris (the city had a turbulent history of revolts, the last one just a few years before the renovations began). The working classes were forced to move to areas ignored by the renovation work. In Beijing, on the contrary, displaced residents have generally seen their housing quality improved, because they have usually moved into newly-built residences which, although far from the city centre, are modern and comfortable.

Obviously, there is also much dissimilarity in the urbanization of 19th century Paris and that of Beijing. In particular, Beijing’s rate of urbanization was only 20% in 1986. It had an urban population of less than one million at that time. Rural counties that served as its food basket made up the greatest part of the city area.4 Paris renovation works, on the other hand, were mainly carried out in the heart of the city. The city’s expansion has always been restrained by its enclosures; it has pushed out beyond only six enclosures in eight centuries, all the while maintaining its circular shape.5

(The second part of the article will be published next Friday)

  1. Hyun Bang Shin (2008) Residential redevelopment and social impacts in Beijing, Wu Fulong, (ed.) China’s emerging cities: the making of new urbanism. Routledge contemporary China series. London, UK []
  2. Campanella, Thomas (2008) The Concrete Dragon. Princeton Architectural Press []
  3. Shan Jixiang, director of China’s State Administration of Cultural Heritage, Xinhua News Agency. June 2, 2006 []
  4. Victor F. S. Sit (2009) Chinese City and Urbanism, Evolution and Development, World Scientific []
  5. Eric Hazan (2002), L’invention de Paris, Editions du Seuil, Paris []

Improving housing conditions in poor neighbourhoods

Traditional street in Wenchang, China, Goulard Sébastien

The current marketisation of the housing sector in China cannot solve every housing issue. Government still needs to intervene in order to reduce poverty and provide low-cost housing for the most vulnerable inhabitants. This is the point of view of Ying Chang and Graham Tipple (Newcastle University) in their article entitled Realities of life and housing in a poor neighbourhood in urban China1. The authors focus on the housing conditions in poor neighbourhoods and the way they can be improved.  Wang and Tipple argued that relocating poor people to suburban areas and providing larger housing units – the usual policy in China – may not be the best solution from the poor resident’s point of view.

During the 90’s, local governments sold off a large part of their municipal-owned housing units.  In most cases, poor residents were not able to buy them. Moreover, programmes for building affordable housing, because of their top-down approach, did not meet their objectives. Although the housing was designed for the poorest, only the middle-class could afford it. Since 2007, the authorities have changed their approach to housing provision. Although marketisation has not been excluded, new measures have been implemented to increase local government investment in rental housing. However, little investment has been made in improving housing conditions in poor areas.  Most of the programmes have failed to take into account the considerations of the poorer residents.

The authors chose to conduct their research in a poor neighbourhood in Wuhan, in central China. This neighbourhood, “Shanghai Lane”, is located in the city centre and is home to many poor households. Chang and Tipple used the “sustainable livelihood framework” (SLF) as their main investigating method for understanding residents’ assets and issues and for analyzing recent improvements in the inhabitants’ quality of life.

  • Their results showed that, in this poor area, sanitation was inadequate, and many households used the most polluting source of energy available (coal briquettes) to heat water or to cook, increasing pollution and health hazards for local inhabitants.
  • Their research also pointed out that inhabitants had to deal with employment issues, and many had to rely on casual, unskilled work. Overtime work was a common way to earn extra money for Shanghai Lane residents.
  • Intergenerational financial support was also widespread. Grandparents’ pensions were an important source of income for many households.
  • The authors noticed that there was a high level of social capital in the street they studied, as inhabitants had lived together for a long time. The area provided adequate space for meeting, chatting or playing mah-jong. However, feelings of trust and safety had decreased over the last few years, as more and more migrants moved into the lane. The authors remarked a loss of trust even among long-term residents. One illustration of this was the addition of removal heads on water taps in the shared toilets.
  • Residents had extended most of the housing units. Two thirds of households had extended their dwellings to install a private bathroom, a kitchen or toilets. The authors noticed that people with stronger political connections (former cadres) had been able to create new rooms to sublet to migrants, thus creating an overcrowding situation.
  • The authors noted that residents’ interests were poorly represented by residents’ committees. They underlined the lack of associations in Shanghai Lane.

Although the municipal government of Wuhan has launched a plan to upgrade several poor communities (improving roads, adding street lights, hiring security guards or opening mah-jong recreation centres), the authors argue that more efforts should be made to improve local residents’ quality of life. They feel that rental charges should be reduced and pensioners’ incomes should increase so that residents can afford to better maintain their housing units. However, according to the authors, the most important point concerns collaborative upgrading. Residents should be empowered, so that they feel more concerned about matters relating to their residence, thus increasing their desire to improve it. The authors argue that stronger collaboration between municipalities, resident committees and local organisations would greatly affect the overall housing conditions in these neighbourhoods.

 One might object, however, that empowering poor inhabitants, so that they change their habits and feel more concerned about their neighbourhood, requires time and large investments. Although municipal governments should pay more attention to this issue, as advocated by the authors of this article, in most cases they are more interested in relocating poor inhabitants to suburban areas and transforming poor, but central, neighbourhoods into CBD or middle-class residential areas. Local residents’ interests do not necessarily fit in with the municipalities’ short term interests. Promoting greater social diversity is a difficult objective to attain. Grassroots organisations will need to convince the authorities that improving poor central areas will benefit the whole city.

 

  1. Chang, Y. & Tipple, G. (2009) Realities of life and housing in a poor neighbourhood in urban China: livelihoods and vulnerabilities in Shanghai lane, Wuhan. International Development Planning Review, 31-2 http://forum.eastwestcenter.org/urbanasiaseminar/files/2010/03/IDPR-2009.pdf, accessed 20 January 2013 []

Spatial practice of socialist city: worker’s new village in Shanghai 1949-1978

« Shehui zhuyi chengshi de kongjian shijian – Shanghai gongren xincun 1949-1978 社会主义城市的空间实践——上海工人新村 (1949-1978) »  Renwen dili 2011 26 n°3, p.35-40.

Disponible sur CNKI: http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTotal-RWDL201103009.htm

This article focalizes on a history of Shanghai worker’s village built in year 1949-78. On one side, the state industrialization policy that “inland is superior to littoral” and “elimination of regional imbalance in development” confined the state fiscal input to Shanghai for a long period. The local fiscal policy also sacrificed residential needs to pursue a rapid growth in industrialization. Thus, the non-production investment, such as housing, kept in a relatively low level in the whole thirty years. On the other side, with the principle of “serving for production, serving for worker”, worker’s village had shown up as the critical urban practice for the new regime to achieve their political wills during the socialism period. The layout and the standard housing of the worker village contributed a new life style of “taking factory as home”.

本文以”历史—空间—社会”的三重视角对1949—1978年 上海工人新村的”缘起”、”建造过程”以及”对城市空间和社会生活的影响”进行了分析。揭示了受国家财政和地方工业化政策的影响,带有”社会主义理想” 和”为工人阶级服务”双重目标的新村计划在实施过程中出现了明显的”非连续性”特征。从数量上看,三十年(1949—1978)的新村建造没能真正的解决 上海工人阶级的住房困难;另一方面,作为社会主义时期上海城市改造的主体,工人新村也成为落实新政权的政治意愿、经济政策和社会理想的重要手段,新村的大 规模建造对城市空间结构与社会生活也产生着持续而深刻的影响。

 

Chinese women: becoming half the sky?

Special issue of China Perspectives on Chinese women.

  • p.2,  Editorial 2012/4 Isabelle Attané Full text available on line
  • p.5, Being a Woman in China Today: A demography of gender Isabelle Attané Full text available on line
  • p.17, Equality, Did You Say? Chinese feminism after 30 years of reforms Tania AngeloffMarylène Lieber
  • p.25 ,“Jumping Out of the Agricultural Gate” (tiaochu nongmen): Social mobility and gendered intra-household resource distribution among children in a central Chinese village, 1950-2012  Huang Yuqin
  • p.35 , Why Women Own Less, And Why It Matters More in Rural China’s Urban Transformation  Sally Sargeson
  • Special Feature
  • p.43, The Migration of Women from Northern China: A gender-oriented choice? Florence Lévy

 

Urban villages and urban integration

This article written1by Liu Yuting (South China University of Technology), He Shenjing (Sun-Yatsen University), Wu Fulong Cardiff University) and Chris Webster (Cardiff University), analyses the phenomenon of urban villages in China and their physical and social integration into cities.

In China, the concept of urban villages should not be understood as in Western countries, where it refers to an urban planning project promoting pedestrian facilities and mixed use zoning. In China, urban villages (城中村: villages surrounded by city) are the unplanned results of an intensive urban sprawl. Chinese cities have been spreading into their rural surrounding for the last twenty years.  Many farmlands have been requisitioned by city governments; however in most cases, villagers have kept their housing lots. However, in the absence of farm lands, villagers have become landlords: they have constructed buildings on their housing lots and are renting to large numbers of migrants. These urban villages are often depicted by the media and by researchers as problem areas, suffering from poverty, social disorder and low quality housing.

The authors have deliberately chosen to look at the positive aspects of urban villages; the aim of their article is to study the dynamics of urban villages, based on several field trips conducted in 2006 and 2007 in eleven urban villages located in six major Chinese cities of different sizes and income levels (Guangzhou, Kunming, Nanjing, Wuhan, Xian and Harbin).

The authors first look at the residents in urban villages and the way they adapt to this rural-urban environment.

  • Because of urban sprawl, local villagers’ working activities have changed. Without farmland, they can no longer work in the fields. Furthermore, they lack the necessary working skills to find jobs in the city. By renting apartments or rooms to migrants on their housing lots, local villagers can expect a comfortable source of income, and thus gain a higher social status.
  • Another point is that local villagers have been empowered by their participation in collective organisations. Farm land that belongs to the village itself has not been requisitioned by city governments, but has been transformed into low-cost housing units for the migrants. Every local villager has become a shareholder of this organisation, and receives money from the tenants. The local villagers’ committee is also in charge of social welfare in urban villages and acts as a governing body.
  • Urban villages offer cheap accommodation to rural migrants. In their studies, the authors note that rental prices in urban villages are half of those in urban districts. Urban villages also offer a wide range of informal employment to the newly arrived migrants. According to the authors, urban villages facilitate migrants’ integration into cities.

Low quality housing in Shaoxing, Goulard SébastienSecondly, the authors argue that urban villages are not only physical places, located between cities and rural areas, but also represent a social transition between traditions and modernity. The authors note a vacuum of formal authority within the urban village. City governments do not wish to be responsible for management and social welfare in the urban villages, as this would demand large investments.   In the absence of city regulations, urban villages have kept their traditional forms of governance.  Because they are located in urban villages, rural settlements remain collective and the community still plays an important role. The article describes the villagers’ community as a patriarchal society with strong family connections.

The authors plead for more tolerance for urban villages. However, they also point out that the longer city governments wait to begin, the more costly urban redevelopment will be. They also call for the authorities to empower local grassroots organizations to deal with social issues, and advocate the introduction of market rules in the housing sector of urban villages.

This article depicts another facet of urban villages. However, we may raise objections concerning the sustainability of urban villages. The absence of formal regulations may create unsolvable issues in the long run. Moreover, promoting villagers’ committees may not be a sufficient remedy for the integration of urban villages, because villagers committees only represent local residents’ interests, while rural migrants living in those urban villages have little chance to defend their own interests.  A sustainable solution would involve large scale investments by city governments in public housing and a reform of the hukou system.

  1. Liu, Yuting, He, Shenjing, Wu, Fulong & Webster, Chris. 2010 “Urban villages under China’s rapid urbanization: unregulated assets and transitional neighbourhoods”. Habitat International, 34 (2), pp. 135-144, retrieved from 10.1016/j.habitatint.2009.08.003, []

Dreaming in Chinese: accountable development

Barbara L. Bezdek (2012). Dreaming in Chinese: accountable development. Maryland journal of international law 27, 48-81.

Economic life in the PRC today is marked by rapid privatization, marketization, and urbanization. This triad of forces effects a profound restructuring of China’s urban spaces and is giving rise to new forms of private, voluntary associations of citizens such as neighborhood campaigns of resistance to urban redevelopment. Civil society theory ascribes to such organizations outside of state control, the potential to constrain government officials by enabling citizens to express their collective interests more effectively, and to resist government encroachment more powerfully than they otherwise could. Because resort to China’s courts has produced little protection for citizens’ formal legal rights in the event of forced demolition, relocation, and compensation, urban homeowners have resorted to extra-legal modes of resistance including protests, petitions, and confrontations – some of them deadly. This article assesses the potential to construct an ‘accountable development’ frame as a set of strategies to channel resentment and resistance into bargained-for development agreements – situations between the market and the state, neither anti-regimist nor stymied by the ‘turn from law.’

 

On development path of creative industries in urban old industrial area in China: a case study of Shijingshan, Beijing

Yin Yimei 尹贻梅, Liu Zhigao 刘志高, Liu Weidong 刘卫东, Dai Juncheng 戴俊骋, « Chengshi lao gongye qu chuangyi zhuanxing lujing yanjiu: Yi beijing shijingshan yu yi sheng, chongqing daxue 城市老工业区创意转型路径研究:以北京石景山为例 », Dili yu dili xinxi kexue, 2011, Vol. 27, N° 6, pp. 55-60.

The transformation and reconstruction of urban old industrial areas is always an urgent and hot topic to study. In recent years, developing creative industries has become an important strategic initiative of fulfilling old industrial areas′ revitalization in developed countries and regions. The current studies on creative transformation of old industrial areas mainly focus on the status and effectiveness of creative transformation of old industrial zone, but seldom concern the mechanism of transformation from theoretical perspective. In this paper, the theories of path dependence and path creation are employed as the theoretical tools to study on the mechanism and path of the creative transformation in old industrial area, with Shijingshan, Beijing as an example. The paper first explains the concepts of path dependence, lock-in, path creation and their application in explaining the transformation of old industrial area; and then analyzes the historical origin of Shijingshan old industrial areas and its problems, then explores the creative transformation paths of Shijingshan, putting forwards three main paths, i. e., the industrial design and development, digital entertainment and recreation tourism industry; finally, this paper concludes with the responsibilities that the government should take in the transition process.

Other articles written by Liu Weidong in 2011-2012

  • Liu Weidong 刘卫东, Liu Hongguang 刘红光, Fan Xiaomei 范晓梅, Chen Jie 陈杰, Tang Zhipeng 唐志鹏, «Diqu jian maoyi liuliang de chanye – kongjian moxing goujian yu yingyong 地区间贸易流量的产业—空间模型构建与应用» ( Sector-Specific spatial statistic model for estimating inter-regional trade flows: a case study of agricultural, chemical and electronic sectors in China), Dili xuebao, Vol, 67, N°2, 2012, pp. 147-156.
  •  Yang Hongmei 杨红梅, Liu Weidong 刘卫东, Liu Hongguang 刘红光, « Tudi shichang fazhan dui tudi jiyue liyong de yingxiang 土地市场发展对土地集约利用的影响» (Effects of land market development on land use intensity), Zhongguo renkou ziyuan yu huanjing, Vol. 21, N°12, 2011, pp. 129-133.
  •  Liu Weidong 刘卫东, Jin Fengjun 金凤君, Zhang Wenzhong 张文忠, He Canfei 贺灿飞, Liu Zhigao 刘志高, « Zhongguo jingji dili xue yanjiu jinzhan yu zhanwang 中国经济地理学研究进展与展望» (Progress in economic geography 2006-2011), Dili kexue jinzhan, Vol 30, N°12, 2011, pp. 1479-1487.

All the articles are available on the CNKI.