Summary of WP5’s findings

Summary of WP5’s findings Date: December 19,2014 Author: Prof. S. Feuchtwang

WP5 Field research • Between March 2012 and April 2014, six researchers selected and conducted field research in a total of 20 field sites, 6 in Shanghai, 6 in Chongqing, and 4 each in Huangshan and Kunming. In each city each researcher worked in 2 field sites. The sites were the areas of the jurisdiction of the organ of ‘self-government’ – a Residents’ Committee (RC). Each was selected for its broad range of housing types and life-styles, but making sure it included residents with low and middle-range incomes. One site of the 2 in each city was from a central district, the other from a newly formed peripheral district. We also made sure to include sites of special interest, such as the new public rental housing projects in Chongqing and old alley-way housing areas in Shanghai. December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 The main achievements of urban development in China • Improved quality of housing for most urban residents • provision of social services and of utilities and waste removal • landscaped spaces and squares, small and large, and cultural centres, well used • Mobilisation of volunteers to care for infirm neighbours and provide after-school care and homework for children of late workers December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Top-down planning and ‘community’ formation • Top-down regulation, policies of economic growth, property development and planning control have caused destruction and loss: • top-down replacement of work unit with local, territorial administration of social security and a top-down project to develop new senses of neighbourhood in urban ‘communities’ (shequ). • have been at the centre of our Work • Programme’s attention. How well is the still • evolving system of urban community governance • working? December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Precarity The sense of threatened dislocation by further redevelopment projects even after a first phase of redevelopment is pervasive except among the residents of high-priced estates. December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Erosion or destruction of solidarities • Both urban (old work-unit) • And rural (incorporate villages) • Yet creating community (xiao shequ) is the task of the local RC and Party – an example of the top-down approach and of remodelling everything? • RC – two committees, one work station, and hardly an organ of self-management/government as decreed • Street control of nominations of representatives. Poor turnout for elections except for one model old work-unit area in Chongqing December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Deskilling and denigration of urbanised farmers • Low-level training and menial jobs • gambling December 19 2014l Paris l WP2

WP5 Lack of facilities and local jobs in new projects • Job fares – one good Street initiative in Chongqing • If travel to reasonably nearby jobs and other facilities (shops, schools, hospitals) are not forthcoming, the suburb will remain a commuter dormitory or a dark suburb of empty dwellings of those with lower incomes who have moved back closer to their work. The left-behind, old and grandchildren suffer reduced social life and poorer schools and medical facilities. December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Property management, security, and maintenance problems • Property management companies (PMCs) have a national association that lobbies for and against laws • Home-owners’ associations in Beijing, Guangzhou and elsewhere have formed networks and associations that also lobby for changes in the law despite attempts by PMCs, Street and Rcs to control them • Shanghai’s RCs history of pro-actively forming and controlling Home-owners’ associations is exceptional • All this leaves low-middle-income residents relying on RCs and PMCs whose income is too low to provide security services and maintenance December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Low status of RC staff and volunteer ‘masses’: gender • RC heads and staff (most are women) are overworked by demands of Street office tasks/targets and police registration, leaving insufficient time to know residents, except one good example of monthly tours in Shanghai • Professionalisation (social work training) of RC staff treating their work as a desk job and a career further distances them from residents • Reliance on local Party, especially retired cadres and officials, largely women, as volunteer assistants and community (mass) mobilisers December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Self-organisation of retired residents • The use of landscaped spaces and piazzas • And of the RC cultural centre • Links with volunteers, but the recreational (dance, exercise, card-playing…but also roller-blading) associations are self-sustaining, not official ‘community’ • ‘Community’ is largely though not entirely didactic eg lectures and civilising missions but there is overlap with use of RC for cooking for fellow retired, looking after infirm retired, and after-school for children of long-hours poor working parents December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Dereliction and over-control • Except for high-price housing estates, developer-built facilities, such as playgrounds, swimming pools and basket-ball courts not maintained and disused • By contrast street food and produce stalls, cherished by residents, along with small services are rounded up and made to move into covered markets in the name of ‘civilisation’ December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Stigmatisation of migrant workers and stall-holders; some justified complaints • Problems of thefts (eg of electric bicycles) unjustly blamed on migrant worker (renting) residents • Problems of litter and noise (home late from long hours of work) also blamed on them; both by RC staff and fellow residents because they are not sufficiently urban=civilised • Fact that they do not expect to be long-term does mean they care far less about upkeep December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Shortfall in social housing • The elderly in old work-unit housing in central neighbourhoods whose children have moved to more desirable housing rent rooms to people who have been moved far from their jobs or to migrant workers at rents lower than for instance the Chongqing public rented housing estates charge; nevertheless, the latter are a heroic experiment • Low-cost commercial housing prices rise on resale and many such apartments are empty, waiting for resale December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Surprising lack of data and problems of feedback • District planners all complained that they were overwhelmed by the large number of migrant tenants in their areas even after thirty years of rural-urban migration. Impossible to estimate? • Block representatives, RC staff and local government office staff feed back problems of policy implementation and needs for changes in policy, but officials complained of the indefinite delay in acknowledging feedback and making policy changes • Ministries and levels of government have research offices, but their visits are short and they do not share information December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

WP5 Fast urbanisation is still in process • Lack of response to feedback, lack of maintenance, insufficient provision of basic facilities may be remedied in the course of the next years of completing the urbanisation projects we studied; • but further urbanisation, including incorporation of villages and removal of residents from high-priced developments, is planned and there are the usuals problems of policy implementation: inconsistencies of policy and so-called ‘fragmented authoritarianism’ • Will the examples of good practice we have found be generalised? December 19 2014l Paris l WP5

Thank you! Prof. S. Feuchtwang s.feuchtwang@lse.ac.uk www.urbachina.eu

Summary of WP5’s findings