Social Space and Governance in Urban China

Social Space and Governance in Urban China
Author: David Bray
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2005
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780804750387

The danwei (workunit) has been the fundamental social and spatial unit of urban China under socialism. With particular focus on the link between spatial forms and social organization, this book traces the origins and development of this critical institution up to the present day.

The Government Next Door

The Government Next Door
Author: Luigi Tomba
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2014-07-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0801455200

Chinese residential communities are places of intense governing and an arena of active political engagement between state and society. In The Government Next Door, Luigi Tomba investigates how the goals of a government consolidated in a distant authority materialize in citizens' everyday lives. Chinese neighborhoods reveal much about the changing nature of governing practices in the country. Government action is driven by the need to preserve social and political stability, but such priorities must adapt to the progressive privatization of urban residential space and an increasingly complex set of societal forces. Tomba’s vivid ethnographic accounts of neighborhood life and politics in Beijing, Shenyang, and Chengdu depict how such local "translation" of government priorities takes place. Tomba reveals how different clusters of residential space are governed more or less intensely depending on the residents’ social status; how disgruntled communities with high unemployment are still managed with the pastoral strategies typical of the socialist tradition, while high-income neighbors are allowed greater autonomy in exchange for a greater concern for social order. Conflicts are contained by the gated structures of the neighborhoods to prevent systemic challenges to the government, and middle-class lifestyles have become exemplars of a new, responsible form of citizenship. At times of conflict and in daily interactions, the penetration of the state discourse about social stability becomes clear.

The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance

The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance
Author: Sam Jacoby
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-01-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9789811568107

This book proposes a new interdisciplinary understanding of urban design in China based on a study of the transformative effects of socio-spatial design and planning on communities and their governance. This is framed by an examination of the social projects, spaces, and realities that have shaped three contexts critical to the understanding of urban design problems in China: the histories of “collective forms” and “collective spaces”, such as that of the urban danwei (work-unit), which inform current community building and planning; socio-spatial changes in urban and rural development; and disparate practices of “spatialised governmentality”. These contexts and an attendant transformation from planning to design and from government to governance, define the current urban design challenges found in the dominant urban xiaoqu (small district) and shequ (community) development model. Examining the histories, transformations, and practices that have shaped socio-spatial epistemologies and experiences in China – including a specific sense of community and place that is rather based on a concrete “collective” than abstract “public” space and underpinned by socialised governance – this book brings together a diverse range of observations, thoughts, analyses, and projects by urban researchers and practitioners. Thereby discussing emerging interdisciplinary urban design practices in China, this book offers a valuable resource for all academics, practitioners, and stakeholders with an interest in socio-spatial design and development.

New Narratives of Urban Space in Republican Chinese Cities

New Narratives of Urban Space in Republican Chinese Cities
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2013-03-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004249915

The nine empirical studies in New Narratives of Urban Space in Republican Chinese Cities, organized under the general framework of urban space, examine three critical dimensions of the great urban transformation in Republican China—social, legal and governance orders. Together these narratives suggest a new perception of this historical urbanism. While modern economic development was a major drive for Chinese urban transformation, this volume highlights the dimension of the multilayered forces that shape urban space by looking into that less quantifiable, but equally important cultural realm and by exposing the ways in which these forces created new urban narratives, which became themselves shapers of urban space and of our perception of the Republican urbanity.

Handbook on Urban Development in China

Handbook on Urban Development in China
Author: Ray Yep
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2019
Genre: Cities and towns
ISBN: 1786431637

The trajectory and logic of urban development in post-Mao China have been shaped and defined by the contention between domestic and global capital, central and local state and social actors of different class status and endowment. This urban transformation process of historic proportion entails new rules for distribution and negotiation, novel perceptions of citizenship, as well as room for unprecedented spontaneity and creativity. Based on original research by leading experts, this book offers an updated and nuanced analysis of the new logic of urban governance and its implications.

China's Urban Champions

China's Urban Champions
Author: Kyle A. Jaros
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2019-07-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691190739

1. Introduction: Picking Winners in Space --2. Spatial Policy in China --3. The Multilevel Politics of Development --4. Hunan: The Making of an Urban Champion --5. Jiangxi: The Politics of Dispersed Development --6. Shaanxi: Uneven Development Redux --7. Jiangsu: Shifting Tides of Spatial Policy --8. Rethinking Development Politics in China and Beyond --Appendix A. Analyzing Outcomes across China --Appendix B. Cross-National Extensions to Brazil and India.

Silencing Shanghai

Silencing Shanghai
Author: Fang Xu
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2021-06-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1793635323

Silencing Shanghai investigates the paradoxical and counterintuitive contrast between Shanghai’s emergence as a global city and the marginalization of its native population, captured through the rapid decline of the distinctive Shanghai dialect. From this unique vantage point, Fang Xu tells a story of power relations in a cosmopolitan metropolis closely monitored and shaped by an authoritarian state through policies affecting urban redevelopment, internal migration, and language. These state policies favor the rich, the resourceful, and the highly educated, while alienate the poorer and less educated Shanghainese geographically and linguistically. When the state vigorously promotes Mandarin Chinese through legal and administrative means, Shanghainese made the conscious yet reluctant choice of shifting from the dialect to the national language. At the same time, millions of migrants have little incentive to adopt the vernacular given that their relation to the state has already firmly established their legal, financial, and social standing in the city. The recent shift in the urban linguistic scene that silences the Shanghai dialect is ultimately part of the state-led global city-building process. Through the association of the use of national language with realizing the "China Dream," the state further eliminates the unique vernacular characters of Shanghai.

Urban China

Urban China
Author: Xuefei Ren
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2013-04-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745665454

Currently there are more than 125 Chinese cities with a population exceeding one million. The unprecedented urban growth in China presents a crucial development for studies on globalization and urban transformation. This concise and engaging book examines the past trajectories, present conditions, and future prospects of Chinese urbanization, by investigating five key themes - governance, migration, landscape, inequality, and cultural economy. Based on a comprehensive evaluation of the literature and original research materials, Ren offers a critical account of the Chinese urban condition after the first decade of the twenty-first century. She argues that the urban-rural dichotomy that was artificially constructed under socialism is no longer a meaningful lens for analyses and that Chinese cities have become strategic sites for reassembling citizenship rights for both urban residents and rural migrants. The book is essential reading for students and scholars of urban and development studies with a focus on China, and all interested in understanding the relationship between state, capitalism, and urbanization in the global context.

The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance

The Socio-spatial Design of Community and Governance
Author: Sam Jacoby
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2021-01-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9811568111

This book proposes a new interdisciplinary understanding of urban design in China based on a study of the transformative effects of socio-spatial design and planning on communities and their governance. This is framed by an examination of the social projects, spaces, and realities that have shaped three contexts critical to the understanding of urban design problems in China: the histories of “collective forms” and “collective spaces”, such as that of the urban danwei (work-unit), which inform current community building and planning; socio-spatial changes in urban and rural development; and disparate practices of “spatialised governmentality”. These contexts and an attendant transformation from planning to design and from government to governance, define the current urban design challenges found in the dominant urban xiaoqu (small district) and shequ (community) development model. Examining the histories, transformations, and practices that have shaped socio-spatial epistemologies and experiences in China – including a specific sense of community and place that is rather based on a concrete “collective” than abstract “public” space and underpinned by socialised governance – this book brings together a diverse range of observations, thoughts, analyses, and projects by urban researchers and practitioners. Thereby discussing emerging interdisciplinary urban design practices in China, this book offers a valuable resource for all academics, practitioners, and stakeholders with an interest in socio-spatial design and development.

Strangers in the City

Strangers in the City
Author: Li Zhang
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2001
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0804742065

With rapid commercialization, a booming urban economy, and the relaxation of state migratory policies, over 100 million peasants, known as China's "floating population," have streamed into large cities seeking employment and a better life. This book traces the profound transformation this massive flow of rural migrants has caused as it challenges Chinese socialist modes of state control.