Fangzhu Zhang

Intergroup neighbouring in urban China: Implications for the social integration of migrants

There is an emerging literature on social interaction and neighbourhood attachment of various social groups in China. However, few have directly addressed the interaction between the locals and migrants at the neighbourhood level. This paper examines the variation of intergroup neighbouring in the city of Nanjing and how housing characteristics and hukou status may affect this process. Measured by intergroup communication and mutual support, this study reveals that migrants are more likely to interact with their urban neighbours, which suggests that migrants might not only interact with each other but also are willing to interact and help with local neighbours. Furthermore, compared with modern commodity housing neighbourhoods developed through the real estate market, older and physically more deprived neighbourhoods characterised by courtyard housing and provisional shelters have higher levels of this intergroup bridging social interaction. This implies that the government’s extensive redevelopment schemes of older neighbourhoods will likely impede on the social integration of migrants and reduce the habitat of intergroup social ties.

Affective neighbourly relations between migrant and local residents in Shanghai

ABSTRACT In urban China there is growing scholarly interest in neighbourhood social interaction, but most studies focus on overt neighbouring activities whilst less is known about the affective dimension of neighbourhood relations, such as mutual trust and care. By surveying 1,420 residents from Shanghai, this study examines the affective relationship between rural migrants and local urban neighbours and explores whether the frequency of neighbouring and contextual characteristics may affect this outcome. Our results show that residents who interact more with out-group neighbours also tend to describe their relationship with them as more caring and amicable. Furthermore, residents in working class neighbourhoods tend to rely on intergroup neighbouring as means of facilitating mutual trust. In contrast, residents of neighbourhoods with commodified housing stock already possess a strong affective relationship with out-group neighbours because of a shared identity as middle-class homeowners and, therefore, do not rely on neighbourly interactions as a facilitator of neighbourly trust.

Neighbourhood cohesion under the influx of migrants in Shanghai

This study explores the current neighbourhood cohesion in Chinese cities and how it might be affected by the influx of migrants. Our multilevel analysis is based on a 1420 sized household survey conducted in Shanghai in 2013. The results reveal that the influx of migrants does not generate all negative results contrasting existing literature where migrants tend to reduce cohesion in the neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods with a higher share of migrant residents between 20 and 50% have the strongest cohesion potentially because local residents have adjusted to their migrant neighbours. Neighbourhood cohesion is also stronger in migrant-dominated enclaves with more than 50% migrants as migrant residents may have formed their own in-group community. Comparatively, local-dominated neighbourhoods are still adjusting to the gradual influx of migrants and therefore residents tend to have lower levels of social solidarity, sense of belonging and informal social control. Nevertheless, the strongest deterrent of cohesion is the prospect of displacement and lack of resources since low-income areas and traditional courtyard neighbourhoods, which face demolition and redevelopment, have the weakest cohesion.