The re-making of Chinese urban neighbourhoods: Case studies in Tianjin, Chengdu and Hangzhou 2016-2019

Wang, Ya Ping and Sun, Tao and Wu, Fan and Zhai, Lei and Li, Chenguang and Sun, Xuan and Hu, Wen and Du, Ping and Zhang, Limei and Zheng, Feibei and Liu, Jianwen and Wang, Yan and Liu, Yunxia and Zong, Jiafeng and Kintrea, Keith and Duckett, Jane and Yao, Jing and Madgin, Rebecca and Miao, J. Tian (2021). The re-making of Chinese urban neighbourhoods: Case studies in Tianjin, Chengdu and Hangzhou 2016-2019. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-854334

Concurrent processes of urbanisation, marketisation, industrialisation and service sector development have fundamentally transformed China's cities. This interdisciplinary project focuses on the interplay of spatial and socio-economic transformations and their consequences for people's experiences of urban neighbourhoods and access to public services. It examines how urbanisation together with in-migration and social re-stratification, are remaking urban neighbourhoods and Chinese urban dwellers' day-to-day lives.
The project brings together 16 UK and Chinese specialists in urban development, planning, housing, public policy and China studies. This enables the team to draw on UK and European research on urbanisation, planning, neighbourhoods and deprivation, and public service provision to theoretically and conceptually inform understandings of the processes underway in China and policy recommendations.
The project has four distinct work packages: in Work Package 1 the team will use quantitative data and spatial analytics to identify the precise characteristics of socio-spatial change in three Chinese cities. Work Package 2, which will run alongside Work Package 1, involves analysing land use planning and policies that have guided change in the three cities in the last fifteen years. These findings will then help to inform the selection of neighbourhoods with different social-economic profiles and migrant-local compositions for case study research in Work Package 3. The team will conduct in-depth analysis of residents' experiences of urbanisation, paying particular attention to social stratification and access to jobs, education, health care, and housing. Here we aim to understand how urbanites form and re-form socio-economic networks, access services and negotiate the changing physical landscape to satisfy their daily needs. These findings will in turn allow the team to work towards an integrative analysis in Work Package 4. Here the focus will be on making contributions to both theory and practice. We aim to re-conceptualise 'neighbourhood' and contribute to theory on neighbourhood transformations under urbanisation, industrialisation and de-industrialisation. Just as importantly we also aim to make recommendations that will enable Chinese policy makers and urban planners to better provide public services for all in cities.

Data description (abstract)

This set of qualitative and quantitative (household survey) data was collected in Tianjin, China, between January 2018 and December 2019. The project aims to examine current urbanisation processes in China from the perspective of the neighbourhood, and therefore to better understand the processes of migration, social and spatial differentiation, and their implications for emerging intra- and inter-neighbourhood inequalities and access to public services. Group interviews, focus group discussions, and household survey were conducted in three cities located in different regions of China to understand the recent urban development and transformation. The household survey aims to establish the socio-economic and demographic profiles and changes of neighbourhood population, housing tenure and choice, housing costs, living conditions, and asset and property ownership. It seeks to understand the basis of residential decision making and everyday lives of residents in different types of city neighbourhoods, especially access to and use of key public services - schools, healthcare, and employment support and training. It also covers social networks and social integration. The interviews and focus groups help to understand the organisation, management and administration of urban neighbourhoods and the provision of local public services.

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