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Under China's "Western Development" plan, inland China has witnessed massive urban expansion and land development, but little is known about the consequent stratification among relocated communities. This study examines the urbanization process on the outskirts of the Municipality of Yinchuan in northwestern China. Previous studies have focused on how urbanization impoverished or enriched rural communities, while this study examines how relocated communities (or teams) were differentiated in their compensation and relocation outcomes, as a combined outcome of policies and resource structures. Quantitative evidence suggests that urbanization has led to both between-team and within-team variations, and qualitative analyses illustrate why even the "lucky" teams always had "unlucky" villagers in compensation outcomes. Between-team variations were often used to mobilize collective resistance to strive for better compensation, but the rise of within-team variations has undermined the grassroots alliance against "unfair" policies. Villagers were more obsessed with individual competition of property investment based on their wealth and self-financing capabilities, but they also complained about "unjust" competition, such as the appropriation of resources based on cadres' privileges and connections. Although individual competition was celebrated under the official neoliberal market-oriented narratives, the decline of collective patronage and the resentment toward cadres' rent-seeking behaviors have added to tensions within relocated communities and contributed to their fragmentation. • Urbanization in northwestern China has led to different compensation outcomes among displaced villagers. • Policy changes and resource structures have contributed to inequalities between and within relocated communities. • Villagers' stratification has weakened grassroots alliance with a shift from collective resistance to individual competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we extend recent discussions on the relationship with the host place of ‘temporary’ or non-hukou migrants in major Chinese cities through the lens of three psychological processes: familiarity, attachment and identity. The empirical analysis is based on fieldwork conducted in selected villages-in-the-city in Guangzhou. A mixed methods approach is employed. The findings highlight the emotional distance between temporary migrants and their urban milieu: while some become familiar with the city through their prolonged stay, very few establish attachment and identity. The analysis shows that the dominance of indigenous villagers is a major obstacle for migrants to develop attachment to the given village-in-the-city; moreover, perceived institutional discriminations negatively affect migrants’ attachment to the city. The findings also corroborate a social constructionist perception of place identity: when place identity is legitimated and reproduced by the hukou system, it is difficult for migrants to challenge the hegemonic constructions of place and identity and to create their own narratives of identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of accessibility has been widely employed to understand the jobs-housing relationship in US cities. However, relevant studies in Chinese cities are rare. Little attention has been paid to accessibility modelling, variations among population groups, and the influence of land use arrangement and transport infrastructure in Chinese cities. To address this deficiency, the present paper provides measures on the job accessibility of workers with different hukou status in Guangzhou. The study yields the following findings: 1) inner-city districts have better job accessibility compared to suburban areas; 2) local hukou workers have significantly higher job accessibility than non-local hukou workers; 3) job suburbanization seems not to be effective in improving job accessibility or narrowing the gap between local and non-local hukou workers; and 4) investment in public transport would significantly improve the mobility and job accessibility of non-local hukou workers and help to alleviate accessibility inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although changes in urban space often mean a restructuring of social relations, few studies elucidate why network-related frameworks are inherently related to residential outcomes in urban neighborhoods. By proposing a relational account of neighborhood governance, we investigate outcomes of neighborhood governance by incorporating a series of measures of network forms of organization, network-based social capital, and neighborly interactions. Based on a collaborative survey project conducted in Guangzhou, we find that neighborhood ties and neighborly interactions are positively associated with neighborhood attachment and cohesion, whereas uneven power relations between grassroots governments and civic homeowners associations are negatively associated with these two measures. These results not only reveal new social dynamics in urban space but also lend support to a relational account of neighborhood governance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including migrant labor in China, neighborhood relations, and segregation.

Abstract: This study investigates the interaction between the homeowners of commodity housing and the Internet in transitional urban China. It examines how the homeowners make use the Internet and weave it into their everyday life in the commodity housing estates to improve their positions in both home purchase and neighborhood management. The study analyzes the emergence and use of online neighborhood forums with a special reference to Guangzhou. It argues that the neighborhood forums provide a platform within which information exchange, organization of collective actions, social interactions, and community building take place simultaneously. In the course of both online and offline interactions, users have adopted four kinds of strategies of mobilizing and organizing: common grievances, common threats, common amenities, and common attributes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]