Dualities of semi-urbanization villages in social-spatial transition: A case study of Zhoucun village in suburban Nanjing, China

Abstract

In contrast with the classical topics of poverty and exclusion of rural areas, the multiple dualities in the social-spatial dimension of villages in semi-urbanized suburbs of China's large cities have received little attention to date. As this paper demonstrates, such dualities have emerged during China's rapid urbanization since the early 2000s. It is firstly argued that these dual characteristics are derived from the institutional separation of urban and rural entitlements (e.g., hukou, welfare, land property ownership etc.). These distinctions are then projected into social capital differentiation, such as the division between the strong and weak ties of local community residents. Consequentially, the dualities are embodied in the residential space segregation between established residents and rural migrants that is divided into Houses in Single-Family Occupancy (HSFOs) and Houses in Multiple-Family Occupancy (HMFOs). To support these claims, a case study of the village of Zhoucun, a southern suburb of the Nanjing Metropolitan Area on the east coast China, is used. This draws on both quantitative and qualitative data that includes interviews with authorized officers from local government to municipal government, and a questionnaire survey and interviews with both the HSFO and HMFO residents themselves.