Search

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Based on ethnographic research during 2013–2015, this study describes an alternative form of gentrification in a traditional urban neighbourhood in Shanghai, unpacking how the notion architectural uniqueness of an urban heritage neighbourhood has imbued itself with cultural capital in the eyes of the new residents. By understanding how the original residents mobilise their knowledge of this particular selling point to benefit themselves economically by becoming renters, this study presents a case exemplifying a process of social change in which the ‘original residents’ themselves are active actors. The results of this process are the socioeconomic and ethic diversification of the neighbourhood as well as upward social mobility without any intervention by the local government or real estate developers. By suggesting an alternative process of gentrification in which not all residents are displaced unwillingly, this paper shows that the idea of gentrification demands more attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The future of cities in China is becoming increasingly important, not just within China but globally. China's urban population has grown from about 200 million in 1980 to about 800 million or 59% in 2018: that is about twice the total population of the USA and 1.5 times the total population of the EU. China has over 100 cities with over a million people. There are also more and more papers being written about urbanisation in China. However, urban development in China is very unlike urban development in the west or in many other developing countries. Despite the growth of a large, dynamic market sector, China is still a Communist country in terms of the pervasive and leading role of the party and the state. The question posed in this commentary is whether urbanisation in China is unique; or, to be more precise, whether the post-reform Chinese experience of urbanisation since around 1980 is so unusual that it constitutes an entirely unique case which lies outside conventional generalisations about urban change processes. This question links to recent discussions of comparative urbanism in which various scholars have grappled with questions about the generalisability of urban theory and experience. The tentative conclusion is that Chinese urbanisation may be unique and is certainly not easily subsumed into standard discussions about urban development and urban change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mega-events such as the Olympic Games tend to be accompanied by copious media coverage of the negative social impacts of these events, and people in the affected areas are often thought to share similar experiences. The research in this paper, which focused on the Beijing Summer Olympic Games of 2008, unpacks the heterogeneous groups in a particular sector of the housing market to gain a better understanding of how the Games affected different resident groups. The paper critically examines the experience of migrant tenants and Beijing citizens (landlords in particular) in “villages-in-the-city” (known as cheongzhongcun), drawing on their first-hand accounts of the citywide preparations for the Games and the pervasive demolition threats to their neighbourhoods. The paper argues that the Beijing Summer Olympiad produced an uneven, often exclusionary, Games experience for a certain segment of the urban population. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the evolution of the size distribution of Chinese cities. Since the relaxation of restrictions on rural-urban migration in the 1980s, China has experienced rapid urban growth. However, cities of different sizes have experienced varying patterns of growth. First, the evolution of city size distribution in China is described by documenting the growth in city size and in the number of existing cities. Then, focusing on the period from 1990 to 2000, the urban evolutionary trend is analysed by means of the Pareto law estimation and the mobility of cities between different size groups is examined with the Markov transition matrix. The convergence hypothesis in the city population growth process is also tested. The results suggest that, contrary to the expected dominance of large city growth, the Chinese city size distribution evened out during the 1990s, with small cities growing more rapidly than large cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The overall purpose of this study is to examine the moderating roles of gender and generation in the effects of perceived destination image on tourist attitude and visit intention among Chinese potential tourists to Australia. Australia is one of the preferred destinations to Chinese tourists, and the China market emerges to be increasingly important to destination marketing organizations in Australia. Echoing the call for more gender studies in the tourism literature and also based on the generation theory, this study employed a cross-sectional questionnaire survey design and used structural equation modelling in its analysis. Survey data were collected through convenience sampling in the Chinese city Harbin at various public venues where urban residents can be found. The study identified Services and Tourism Provisions, Natural Environment and Quality of Life as three destination image dimensions perceived by Chinese urban residents towards Australia. Services and Tourism Provisions and Natural Environment both positively affected tourist attitude, which in turn levered up visit intention. The study found that the effect of Services and Tourism Provisions on attitude was stronger for men than for women, while the effect of Natural Environment on attitude was stronger for women than for men; for the post-1980s/1990s generation, the effect of Natural Environment on attitude was significantly stronger than that for the post-1960s/1970s generation. Implications for tourism marketers and managers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of commercial and local government social credit systems (SCSs) are now being implemented in China in order to steer the behavior of Chinese individuals, businesses, social organizations, and government agencies. Previous research finds that these SCSs are employed by the Chinese state as “surveillance infrastructure” and for social management. This article focuses on a different angle: the public’s opinion of SCSs. Based on a cross-regional survey, the study finds a surprisingly high degree of approval of SCSs across respondent groups. Interestingly, more socially advantaged citizens (wealthier, better-educated, and urban residents) show the strongest approval of SCSs, along with older people. While one might expect such knowledgeable citizens to be most concerned about the privacy implications of SCS, they instead appear to embrace SCSs because they interpret it through frames of benefit-generation and promoting honest dealings in society and the economy instead of privacy-violation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aimed to examine differences in depressive symptoms between urban and rural workers in mainland China and to identify community factors that could contribute to such residential differences. Methods: This study used nationally representative data from the 2014 China’s Labor Force Dynamic Survey. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews on a sample of 22,073 participants from 29 provinces of China, including 15,098 rural workers (Mage = 44.92, standard deviation (SD) = 14.85) and 6,975 urban workers (Mage = 43.28, SD = 13.62). Mediators included community cohesion, foreseeable community threat, supportive network size and medical benefit coverage. Mediation analyses were conducted using Hayes’ SPSS Macro Process for multiple mediators. Results: Urban participants reported fewer depressive symptoms than their rural counterparts. Lower levels of community cohesion, higher community foreseeable threat and poorer medical coverage were related to fewer depressive symptoms. Rural–urban differences were mediated by community cohesion (B = −0.12, p < .01), foreseeable community threat (B = −0.08, p < .01) and medical benefit coverage (B = 0.25, p < .01). Conclusion: This study sheds light on distinctive roles of community factors in explaining rural–urban differences in depressive symptoms. Policies or programs should be designed to promote strengths and address weaknesses in rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban development in China is strongly influenced by state policy in a context where even the emerging market actors are closely tied to government. The state role is reinforced by the absence of formal mechanisms for community participation in urban decision making and the limited citizenship rights of the large minority of urban residents who migrated from rural areas. Increasingly, however, scholars are becoming aware of the complexities of a political system that involves many vertical layers of governance, competition between localities and an ever-changing balance between centralisation and decentralisation. In addition, scholars are looking more closely at how urban residents adapt to the constraints and opportunities of a situation that is imposed on them, and how they develop strategies for their own advancement within it. In these ways, research on urban China offers a reconceptualisation of state-centred theories of urbanism and urbanisation in the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the density effect and the optimum density of the urban population using panel data from China’s 284 cities from 2006 to 2010. Considering the endogeneity problem from the employment density in the density effect, we employ the density of the public transport passenger volume instead, and we control the size effect and the structure effect to obtain more reasonable results. Our results indicate that, using the dependent variables of product per labour and wage, the density effect shows an inverted U shape. Further study shows that the optimum urban population density gauged by the total urban population divided by the built-up area is approximately 13,000 people per km2 for the prefecture-level cities in China. The results are robust. Based on the concept and value of the optimum urban population density, China has a huge potential urban land use capacity of approximately 28% of total built-up area. China’s expansion of the city built-up area and the process of population urbanisation should be coordinated by the optimum urban population density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article puts the policy goal of the Urban Minimum Living Standard Guarantee (UMLSG) in China into question and it aims to expose the assertion ‘covering whoever is eligible’ as a myth. An exploratory study of the implementation of the UMLSG eligibility criteria was launched in Guangzhou. Interviews were conducted with twenty-five poor people and local bureaucrats. In addition to people’s meeting the income requirement, it was discovered that there were three unwritten principles flexibly used by local bureaucrats in assessment: the ability to work, the family unit and clientelism. The prevalence of street-level bureaucracy in the UMLSG administration not only hampered state resources from reaching the families living in urban poverty, but also seriously contradicted the reformulated ideologies and undermined the party’s legitimacy. The findings of this study suggest that variations in UMLSG eligibility, which are causing a serious problem of under-coverage, should attract immediate attention from both officials and academics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]