Bart Wissink

Enclave Urbanism In China: Consequences and Interpretations

Following reforms enacted since the late 1970s, domestic and foreign investments are resulting in a dramatic transformation of Chinas landscape. The concentrated Maoist city with its cellular multifunctional work-unit structure is disappearing. In its place, cities now emerge as patchworks of mono-functional and mono-cultural enclaves, often demarcated by walls and gates. Based on experiences elsewhere, urban theorists criticize such segregated and gated developments because they threaten social integration and social justice. Focusing on residential enclaves, this introductory article considers the relevance of this criticism for urban China. It is argued that residential enclaves might indeed produce substantial negative effects. However, the materialization of these effects depends on local spatial and social realities. Thus an adequate interpretation of Chinese enclave urbanism necessitates the answering of a number of empirical questions. Among the most prominent are: Does the private provision of services in China lead to or exacerbate exclusion? Do residential enclaves limit contacts among groups? And how do various social groups perceive walls and gates in urban China?

Neighborhoods, social networks, and trust in post-reform China: The case of Guangzhou

Urban scholars in the West pay considerable attention to the neighborhood as a locus for social networks. Such an emphasis would be appropriate in China as well. Here work-units were the urban building blocks until the late 1970s, and social networks mainly developed within their boundaries. But economic reforms have generated a new urban structure, eroding the centrality of the work-unit as a site of social organization. There has been little empirical research on the impacts of this transition for social networks. This study takes up that task with an exploratory investigation into the role of the neighborhood for social networks in Guangzhou. Results from a survey and interviews indicate that people maintain strong ties with former neighbors and with contacts based on kinship, region, and work. However, due to high residential mobility, in post-reform China many of these contacts do not reside within the neighborhood any more. At the metropolitan scale, this causes new problems: neighborhoods consist of strangers who do not readily trust each other.

Between places and flows: towards a new agenda for neighbourhood research in an age of mobility

Abstract This article discusses the role of the neighbourhood in an era of increased mobility. It explores the consequences of the “new mobilities paradigm”, which argues that the growing importance of flows – of people, goods and information – results in a deterritorialization of social practices. Rows thus gain prominence in comparison to places like regions and neighbourhoods. At the same time, however, neighbourhoods continue to play a role in the actions and imaginations of people, neighbourhood organizations, and government policies. People still live in neighbourhoods, and governments still try to solve often severe social problems through neighbourhood policies. We argue that the neighbourhood has to be re‐imagined as a collection of hybrid nodes connecting a multiplicity of flows that bind actors and objects in order to understand the potential effectiveness of these policies. From this new mobilities perspective, we make suggestions for future neighbourhood research.

Travel Time and Distance in International Perspective: A Comparison between Nanjing (China) and the Randstad (The Netherlands)

While Western countries are trying to reduce car dependency on the back of low carbon objectives, the ownership and use of private cars in urban China is increasing dramatically. In this paper, light is shed on both developments through a comparative study of the travel behaviour in two regions with a very different built environment: Nanjing, China, and the Randstad in the Netherlands. Controlled for car ownership, daily travel time and distance are analysed in both regions. The results indicate that, in the case of Nanjing, the suggestion is that the configurations of current land use which support walking and cycling should be preserved as much as possible and that, in the meanwhile, investments should be made in fast public transport to facilitate economic developments. As regards the Randstad, it would seem wise to promote the use of walking and cycling by continuing to encourage compact land use patterns in combination with relatively fast public transport developments.

Introduction—Living in Chinese Enclave Cities

It is by now well documented that China’s remarkable economic and social development has been accomopanied by an equally astonishing spatial transformation. The concentrated Maoist city with its cellular work-unit structure of mixed functions amidst open rural land has almost disappeared. In its place, huge and ever-expanding urban fields of patchworked, unifunctional, and monocultural enclaves have emerged, often separated by walls and gates. The resulting urban spatial structure can be described as enclave urbanism. We use this term to refer to an urban structure of distinct areas marked by specific cultural, functional, and economic groups or activities. In our reading, “enclaves” merit a neutral interpretation. A diversity of activities—work, leisure, shopping, and housing— can result in the formation of enclaves; and enclaves can be both exclusive and low-end. Thus gated commodity housing estates, urban villages, erstwhile work-units, shopping malls, and development zones are all enclaves. Often they are physically separated from their surroundings and access can be selectively restricted.

Social Networks in ‘Neighbourhood Tokyo’

The loss of community worries academics and politicians the world over, and Japan is no exception. Over recent decades, in response to an outcry over diminishing social cohesion, Japan has seen a wave of neighbourhood projects, aiming to restore local social networks. At the same time, some argue that here urban neighbourhoods still function as organisers of social life. These contrasting views make Japanese cities interesting case studies. Unfortunately, despite a host of studies on aspects of neighbourhood involvement, there is limited general research into local social networks as a neighbourhood effect. The authors aim to fill this gap with evidence from a household survey in Tokyo. They conclude that neighbourhoods in Tokyo are relatively mixed and that, for some groups, the neighbourhood is an important source for social relations. However, the study does not show that this supports cross-group relations.

Elderly co-residence and the household responsibilities hypothesis : Evidence from Nanjing, China

In this paper, we analyze the effects of co-residence with elderly parents on gender differences in travel. The Household Responsibility Hypothesis (HRH) explains differences in the role of women regarding household responsibilities. However, research so far has studied “Western” household types while excluding households with co-residing elderly parents. Furthermore, research has paid exclusive attention to gender differences in commuting trips, and has neglected the effects of built environment characteristics. In view of these shortcomings, we pose the following research questions: what are the determinants of gendered differences in travel behavior, and specifically, what are the effects of elderly co-residence in households and land use on gender differences in trip frequency and travel distance? In addition to the HRH, we introduce the Elderly Co-residence Hypothesis, which suggests that co-residing elderly parents take over household responsibilities from adult women, resulting in diminishing gender differences in working-age travel patterns. We present the results of empirical research in Nanjing, China, that support this hypothesis.

Whose city now?: Urban managerialism reconsidered (again)

This introductory essay reflects on the continuing relevance of Ray Pahl’s Whose City? It reassesses the original urban managerialist perspective, developed in the Europe of the late 1960s and early 1970s. When large-scale public institutions dominated access to scarce urban resources, Pahl argued that urban managers played a crucial role in the shaping of life chances. But with the emergence of Marxist perspectives on the city under capitalism, urban managers receded from view as minor players within overarching structures of exploitation and inequality. This was only reinforced by the neoliberal transformations that started to take hold after the late 1970s. We are now living in a very different world of global financialized capitalism in which the relevance of various radical theorists is being reassessed. Have new urban managers emerged? Who are they and what do they do? Should we modify the urban managerialist perspective for the post-privatized city, the city of ‘governance’, the city of choice in which interests and responsibilities appear to have become more fragmented and less transparent? The essay concludes with a discussion of the other papers in this special section and their contribution to a reassessment of Ray Pahl’s urban managerialism.

Welcome to the club! An exploratory study of service accessibility in commodity housing estates in Guangzhou, China

Abstract In post-reform China, gated commodity housing estates play a crucial role in the provision of urban services. Such collective service provision is criticized in the urban studies literature, because ‘club goods’ are thought to exclude people that do not live in gated communities. This paper reflects on the global relevance of that argument with an exploratory study in Guangzhou, China. We argue that access to collective services is structured in local social practices, involving diverse actors and specific rules and resources. Discussions on the exclusionary effects of service provision through gated communities should therefore focus on the characteristics of these practices of access in specific cities. Employing this perspective, the paper shows that in Guangzhou at least two mechanisms partly ease the exclusion of non-residents from club goods. On the one hand, municipal government maintains a considerable role in service management, mediating exclusion from services for people who do not live in commodity housing estates. On the other hand, generally the management of services is separated from housing estate management, and service providers try to increase profits through service provision to non-residents. We discuss the consequences of such mediations for an adjusted research agenda on service provision by gated communities.

Enabling, structuring and creating elite transnational lifestyles: intermediaries of the super-rich and the elite mobilities industry

ABSTRACT This article considers how the migration industries lens can be usefully employed in understanding how professional intermediaries enable, structure, and create transnational migration lifestyles of the super-rich. In particular, we examine how intermediaries and their services (1) enable the continued sustenance of transnational migration lifestyles for this group of elites; and (2) structure and create elite transnational lifestyles. This article primarily draws on interviews with professional intermediaries who service the super-rich, and content analysis of their websites and brochures. Inspired by insights from the new mobilities paradigm (and in particular the politics of mobility), we argue for an expanded conceptualisation of the migration industries beyond the literature’s current focus on labour recruitment and migration management. Specifically, we suggest thinking of the migration industries as a collection of actors and services that enable, structure, and create different types of ‘migrants’, their spaces and their highly uneven transnational mobilities – including that of the super-rich and their elite transnational lifestyles. We conclude with suggestions for a research agenda that may help to better understand the role of intermediaries in the creation of differentiated mobilities.