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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.

Pattern identification (PI), also called Bian Zheng (辨证), syndrome differentiation, pattern diagnosis, or pattern classification, is the basic principle and the key concept of Chinese medicine (CM). The core of PI is CM syndrome, on which CM theory, therapeutic method, prescribing formula and the use of Chinese herbal medicine are basically based. PI, in fact, is another classification method anticipated to improve the clinical efficacy. How to make an exact PI seems to be very important for taking full advantage of PI in clinical practice. Therefore, the establishment of diagnostic criterion of pattern has been the prerequisite for the standardization of PI. In recent years, a lot of diagnostic criteria of different CM patterns have been formulated. Taking the diagnostic criteria for blood-stasis syndrome as a model, the methodologies and considerations in establishing a pattern diagnostic criterion were discussed in this paper, which might be of great reference value in future PI standardization research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

The housing reform in urban China since the 1990s and the ensuing spatial and social dynamics gave rise to new kinds of neighbourhoods with new logics of neighbouring and neighbourhood attachment. Meanwhile, neighbourhoods are actively promoted as platforms for policy implementation. Both are reasons to revisit the meaning of neighbourhood attachment in the Chinese context. This article focuses on the roles of neighbourly interaction and physical environment, juxtaposing post-reform commodity housing estates against traditional neighbourhoods. The analysis draws on both qualitative and quantitative datasets from three case studies in Guangzhou and a city-wide survey. Results indicate that, compared with traditional neighbourhoods, residents of commodity housing estates have weak neighbourly interactions but strong neighbourhood attachment, which is based mainly on their satisfaction with the physical environment and less on their neighbourly contacts. Neighbourhoods in China have apparently shifted their function from social arenas to privatised living environments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: This paper investigates the residential mobility patterns among Hong Kong’s various ethnic groups, grounded on the Spatial Assimilation Theory. The results first show that immigrants in general have contributed the most to the residential movement of Hong Kong’s populace. Nonetheless, disparities in residential mobility patterns have been observed among these immigrants. Wealthier immigrants, for instance westerners, by relocating to non-new town areas of the New Territories, show no signs of acculturation to local Hong Kong community. Also, while public rental housing has managed to relocate and gather ethnical groups, such as new arrivals from the Chinese Mainland and South Asians with permanent residence status, to new town areas in the New Territories (N.T.), the out-migration of private-sector residents from new towns to the outskirt areas of the N.T. has turned these new towns to multiethnic enclaves. For South Asians whom have yet to obtain permanent residence, they appear to have segregated themselves from the locals in urban areas and formed their own ethnic concentrations (i.e. Chungking Mansions in Kowloon). Lastly, the home-moving pattern of long-term Chinese immigrants is very similar to that of local Hong Kong residents, which can be regarded as a sign of assimilation. Policy implications derived from these findings are then discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper analyses the accessibility implications of the development of expressways and inter-city railways in the Greater Pearl River Delta (GPRD) over the period 1990–2020. Average travel time was firstly reduced by expressway development; and it will be reduced further by the introduction of the inter-city rail system in 2011. The unevenness in regional accessibility remained relatively high during the initial stage of expressway development, but later expansion brought more balanced accessibility landscapes. The first stage (2010–2020) of inter-city railway development will raise the accessibility inequality. Its later effects, however, remain to be seen. Convenience in transport connections is associated with the spatial pattern of industrialization. In addition, accessibility improvement is tied to the direction of city-region development, as exemplified by Guangzhou’s choice of Nansha, the city’s outer port, as development focus. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines home financing in China, using data from household surveys conducted in Guangzhou and Shanghai. The nationwide Housing Provident Fund is still of minor importance. The majority of homebuyers continue to rely heavily on personal savings and parental contributions to finance home purchase. Mortgages are gaining importance, with slightly less than one-third of the purchases employing this means. Demographic attributes have relatively minor effects on mortgage loan utilisation. Socio-economic status is of somewhat greater significance; however, it exhibits contrasting effects in Guangzhou and Shanghai, which may be attributed to the difference in local housing market conditions. Migrants are discriminated by their hukou status. The findings show hukou status affects access to mortgage primarily through its impacts on the job market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper uses the concept of citizenship in the social sense of membership and the right to an allocation of resources to examine the urban citizenship of migrants in Chinese metropolises with special reference to Shanghai. Citizenship in the Chinese context is interlocked with the household registration (hukou) system instituted more than 50years ago. The paper tracks the changes in both the defacto and the hukou population in selected Chinese cities in the past 30years to analyze how large the gate of the hukou system has been opened and under what circumstances urban hukou is conferred on migrants. Facing a flood of migration, the Shanghai Municipal Government has introduced a residence card system without challenging the existing hukou system. Blended new wine in an old bottle, a hierarchical structure of population registration and management has been set up leading to a system of citizenship stratification, which allows the municipal government to trade the differential citizenship for talents, capital, and super-low-cost labor and to avoid the social obligations to the non-constituents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of personal housing loans in advancing homeownership in urban China. The focus is on the Housing Provident Fund (HPF) and commercial bank mortgage loans. National data show that the use of HPF loans and bank loans has only become more common since 1998, but their share of the total expenditure on home purchase remains relatively small. Data derived from household surveys conducted in Guangzhou in 2001 and 2005 show that personal savings and parental contributions are the most important sources of home finance. The affordability of housing is closely tied to personal savings. To date, access to mortgage finance has played a relatively minor role in China's drive towards homeownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Households in Chinese cities today have to increasingly rely on the market to satisfy their housing needs. The growing freedom in choosing one''s own residence implies increased variations in all aspects of housing consumption. Examination of individuals’ housing preferences is crucial in understanding these variations. This paper studies the housing preference of Guangzhou people through choice experiments framed in state-of-the-art experimental design methods. Joint logit models comprising both neighbourhood and dwelling attributes are estimated for all subjects and for various sub-samples classified by family income, age, education, nature of employment organization, district of current residence, etc. The models are then used to compute utilities for different attribute levels, the impacts of these attributes on choice probabilities, and the relative prices that the subjects are willing to pay for buying a home in different districts, with different accessibilities, of different types, etc. Neighbourhood and location-related attributes are found to be more important than dwelling-related attributes in home purchase decisions. Further, factors such as family income, age, education, nature of employment organization, etc. are found, to various degrees, have affected housing preference. Based on the preference structures revealed, we envision a new urban morphology to take shape in Chinese cities which is not too dissimilar from the ones in cities in the West, with the inner core dominated by the aged and the urban poor and the outskirts occupied by younger people and the rich and well-educated class. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Presents a comparative study of housing consumption in Beijing and Guangzhou in China. Types of commodity housing; Research design; Results; Summary and conclusions.

Abstract Using a sample of recently completed 'commodity housing' in Guangzhou, i.e. dwellings that were built by development companies and sold or rented at full market price in the primary market, a multi-level logit analysis of the housing allocation process and of tenure decisions was conducted. The results of the statistical analysis are generally in line with the nature of housing market segmentation and the forces governing housing allocation and consumption in China in general and Guangzhou in particular. Residents in open market housing generally have higher incomes and hold higher-status jobs than those in the subsidised sectors. However, at the same time, the getihu or petty traders, who rank low in terms of occupational status, are also likely to be occupants of open market housing. Household characteristics also show systematic variations between occupants of different types of subsidised housing. In particular, residents of resettlement housing tend to occupy lower-status jobs. In terms of tenure choice, the results for the open market housing residents are to some extent consistent with studies conducted in market economies. In the subsidised sectors, the factors underlying homeownership are quite different between housing types. Occupation, for example, has significant effects on homeownership in both work unit housing and housing bureau housing, but the nature of the influence is quite different in each case. In the case of resettlement housing, none of the household attributes, with the exception of the head's year of service in present employment organisation, was found to be significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports the results of a statistical analysis on economic growth and income determination generated from a migration survey conducted in 1992 in the cities of Meizhou and Dongguan, China. Changing nature of income determination and labor market segmentation; Effects of income determinants on geographical and migratory-status settings; Impact of policy changes in household registration status.

The paper documents some of the changes that have occurred in the Pearl River Delta area in Guangdong Province, China since the launching of economic reforms in China in 1978. The data show that more liberal policies have resulted in much faster rates of urban development particularly in the smaller urban places. The degree of primacy of the region's city system has declined substantially with the gradual opening of the region to the outside world. In a sense such a trend is at odds with conventional development theories. That the forces of polarization ceased to operate and the triggering-down effects began to dominate at an early stage of urban development is indeed an anomaly and deserves close scrutiny. There are several reasons for this. One is the rigid political and administrative system of China which renders penetration of foreign capital more difficult in the large urban centers. Another is the virtual state monopoly on housing provision which makes zilikoulianghu migration to the large cities a very difficult proposition. Moreover, the major urban centers in the region do not admit any zilikoulianghu migrants. A third is the success of the production responsibility system and the consequential rise in agricultural productivity and rural income. This means not only that more funds can be channeled to capital formation in general and industrial production in particular but also than an increasing number of peasants are freed from the land to work in the factories. A fourth is the existence of kinship connections with overseas Chinese for a large number of families in the region. A fifth is the need among Hong Kong, China's manufacturers who are suffering from high land costs and intense competition from South Korea and Taiwan to find lower-cost production sites. All these are of significance in stimulating industrial growth in the smaller urban places and rural districts.

Residential mobility can be conceptualized as an outcome of a choice process exercised under complex institutional and personal constraints. China's rather unique pattern of housing market segmentation under market transition impinges directly on residential location and relocation. Drawing upon data from a sample survey, this paper analyzes the pattern of residential moves resulting from commodity housing construction in a major Chinese city, Guangzhou. Most moves are of short distance, although the general direction is towards the urban periphery. Danweisand the municipal housing bureau, rather than the market per se, are the primary driving forces behind suburbanization in China today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper aims to test if traditional literature on both internal residential mobility and international migration hold up in explaining the driving forces behind the home-moving behaviours of Hong Kong residents to the Chinese Mainland, under a mixture of economic integrations, past connections along with present structural and identity differences. The multi-dimensionality of this behaviour, in comparison to other forms of residential movements in the literature, is shown as there is no single attribute, albeit all necessary conditions, sufficient enough to encourage such movement on its own. Instead, the cross-border residence is primarily a middle-class, middle-aged phenomenon, due to one’s past connections with Mainland China throughout his/her life course and the possession of financial resources insufficient to afford larger living space in Hong Kong yet enough to benefit from the remarkable living cost advantages on the other side of the border. It provides some directions for studying similar forms of residential mobility in the era of globalization when the functions of national borders have become more obscure than before. Implications from this residential behaviour are then discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]