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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 urban China, residential mobility behaviors have changed fundamentally in recent decades. While research has been undertaken on the trends and causes of residential relocation for different population groups, less attention has been paid to micro‐level processes of residential change, yet the latter underscore urban dynamics. This study addresses this through a survey conducted in Guangzhou in late 2012, which analyzes the spatial flows of residential shifts within and between three distance zones—inner core, inner suburbs and outer suburbs—to reveal complex mobility trends. In particular, hukou or household registration status, socio‐economic status, the nature and rank of employment, and tenure were found to have varied effects on the probability of inward and outward shifts. More specifically, while outward shifts in recent years mainly involved local hukou holders, families with higher education levels, a higher socio‐economic status or those working for government departments and public institutions were found to be more likely to settle in high‐rise commodity housing in the inner core. The majority of non‐hukou migrants, by contrast, moved within the same street or between adjacent streets within the same suburban area, while age, socio‐economic status and homeownership were found to increase an individual's chance of an inward shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]