ENCLAVE URBANISM IN CHINA: CONSEQUENCES AND INTERPRETATIONS

ENCLAVE URBANISM IN CHINA: CONSEQUENCES AND INTERPRETATIONS Mike Douglass Globalization Research Center and Department of Urban & Regional Planning University of Hawaii Bart Wissink1 Department of Public and Social Administration City University of Hong Kong Hong Kong Ronald van Kempen Faculty of Geosciences Utrecht University The Netherlands Abstract: Following reforms enacted since the late 1970s, domestic and foreign investments are resulting in a dramatic transformation of China’s landscape. The concentrated Maoist city with its cellular multifunctional work-unit structure is disappearing. In its place, cities now emerge as patchworks of mono-functional and mono-cultural enclaves, often demarcated by walls and gates. Based on experiences elsewhere, urban theorists criticize such segregated and gated developments because they threaten social integration and social justice. Focusing on residential enclaves, this introductory article considers the relevance of this criticism for urban China. It is argued that residential enclaves might indeed produce substantial negative effects. However, the materialization of these effects depends on local spatial and social realities. Thus an adequate interpretation of Chinese enclave urbanism necessitates the answering of a number of empirical questions. Among the most prominent are: Does the private provision of services in China lead to or exacerbate exclusion? Do residential enclaves limit contacts among groups? And how do various social groups perceive walls and gates in urban China? [Key words: China, enclave urbanism, gated communities, segregation, spatial inequality, privatization.] In the wake of the post-1978 economic reforms, urban China has undergone a remarkable transformation. Vast urban fields replaced the concentrated Maoist city with its clear demarcation between city and countryside. Internally, the functional integration of workunit urbanism has made way for a functional specialization within such urban enclaves as gated housing estates, urbanized villages, specialized shopping streets, shopping malls, university towns, and special economic zones. Whereas everyday life mainly used to take place within the local work-unit, it is now organized within citywide networks, resulting in far more extensive traffic flows. Increasing numbers of rural migrants and rapid economic growth further propel the rapid growth of socioeconomic heterogeneity within metropolitan areas. 1 Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Bart Wissink, Department of Public and Social Administration, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong; telephone: +852 3442 9555; fax: +852 3442 0413; email: [email protected] 167 Urban Geography, 2012, 33, 2, pp. 167–182. http://dx.doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.33.2.167 Copyright © 2012 by Bellwether Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved. 168 DOUGLASS ET AL. With these spatial transformations, inequality becomes increasingly expressed spatially. Through the hukou system of household registration that categorizes people as rural or urban workers, rural migrants are excluded from such urban amenities as schooling and healthcare. Migrants cluster in neighborhoods where rents are low, including urban villages, pre-1949 neighborhoods, factory compounds, and privatized work-units. Meanwhile, the upwardly mobile and rapidly expanding urban middle class buys houses in commodity housing estates (housing developed by developers after 1993), leaving their former neighbors behind in privatized work-unit compounds. Virtually every new estate is walled and gated, and provides collective amenities such as security, exercise facilities, schools, and sometimes even hospitals. Similarly, spaces for work, leisure, and retail also increasingly cater to more specialized socioeconomic groups. The urban studies literature shows that the rapid emergence of enclave urbanism is part of a global process, resulting in mosaics of closed, homogeneous spheres that have replaced open, heterogeneous public spaces. At first glance, China’s cities seem to share many of these features. Do gated estates in China not result from a rush to middle-class modernity by the advantaged elite, dispossessing rural and urban households of land and resources? Do these estates not hide disadvantaged groups from view, while also excluding them from amenities? Does enclave urbanism not lie at the core of growing inequalities in contemporary urban China? In view of these concerns, this article sets out to interpret enclave urbanism in Chinese cities. The aim is to contribute to the growing discussion on the social effects of residential enclaves in China. As will be argued, the particular characteristics of urban China—its history, developing state-market relationships, scale and pace of urban development, and particular sociospatial relationships—should result in China-specific interpretations of the effects of enclave urbanism. We will arrive at this conclusion as the following questions are addressed: What are the dominant perspectives on the effects of enclave urbanism in the urban studies literature? Does Chinese urban form display characteristics of enclave urbanism? What are the social effects of this urban form? And what does the Chinese experience contribute to the urban studies literature? We address these questions in six sections. Following this introduction, the second section discusses dominant perspectives on residential enclaves in the urban studies literature. The third section describes the development of enclave urbanism in China. The fourth and fifth sections discuss the positive and negative effects of residential enclaves in urban China, respectively. The sixth section argues for empirical research into the specific ways in which residential enclaves in China relate to sociospatial practices. Finally, the concluding section summarizes the answers to our research questions. ENCLAVE URBANISM AS NEW URBAN FORM It is by now a well-established maxim that the emergence of the networked postindustrial society coincides with the materialization of a “new” geography. In this new urban form, swift suburbanization causes a global dissolution of city and countryside into hybrid urban fields. New enclaves with innovative governance forms such as special economic zones, gated communities, shopping malls, and factory towns are grafted onto the existing spatial mosaic of neighborhoods, cities, and states. Infrastructures selectively connect these new enclaves to more distant places while disconnecting them from their immediate ENCLAVE URBANISM IN CHINA 169 surroundings. In the new metropolitan landscape, differences are expressed spatially through uneven development between larger regions as well as the components of the increasingly fragmented urban mosaic. The resulting new form of urbanism—enclave urbanism—is marked by an intrametropolitan structure that consists of specialized areas containing distinct combinations of cultural, functional, and economic groups and/or activities (see also Wissink et al., 2012, this issue). Essential to enclave urbanism is the introduction of social, legal, and physical boundaries that demarcate each of these areas. These enclaves are often regulated through specific governance regimes. And with the imposition of various access restrictions, enclave urbanism also introduces new forms of inclusion and exclusion. This interpretation has much in common with Ong’s (1999, p. 7) concept of graduated sovereignty, which denotes “a series of zones that are subjected to different kinds of governmentality and that vary in terms of the mix of disciplinary and civilizing regimes. These zones, which do not necessarily follow political borders, often contain ethnically marked class groupings, which in practice are subjected to regimes of rights and obligations that are different from those in other zones.” Ong’s analysis implies that enclaves should not be interpreted as spatial containers; instead, she stresses the relationships between social practices and urban forms. Enclaves include residential spaces such as gated communities, informal settlements, and mixed neighborhoods, as well as shopping malls, central pedestrian districts, and special economic zones (Cartier, 2001). Because of space limitations, however, the discussion here focuses on residential enclaves; in view of the recent proliferation of barriers and gates in urban China, we will highlight the role of gated communities. A number of scholars, including Mike Davis, Manuel Castells, Stephen Graham, and Simon Marvin, have reported the simultaneous emergence of high-income and marginalized residential zones in the postindustrial metropolis. Gated communities are generally depicted as zones of affluence, and researchers have identified three categories (Blakely and Snyder, 1997). Yet despite this attention for variation, generally, the literature is characterized by a universal interpretation of gated communities. This is expressed by the widely accepted definition of gated communities as “walled or fenced housing developments, to which public access is restricted, characterized by legal agreements which tie the residents to a common code of conduct and (usually) collective responsibility for management” (Atkinson and Blandy, 2005, p. 178). Accordingly, most studies, including many on urban China, portray the emergence of gated communities as a worldwide phenomenon (e.g., Atkinson and Blandy, 2005; Glasze et al., 2006). Whereas scholars agree on the global diffusion of gated communities, they have employed conflicting explanations as to their emergence. Cséfalvay and Webster (2010) discerned four explanations: (1) gated communities result from a fear of crime; (2) they are caused by the withdrawal of the successful; (3) they represent a “flight from blight,” supported by a “gating coalition” of developers, local governments, and middle-class homeowners; or (4) they are the result of neoliberal economics that stress the private provision of club goods in place of public service provision. They further assert that this diversity of explanations stems from a lack of concise empirical research. Likewise, Kenna and Dunn (2009, p. 812) claim that “suggested motives remain largely theoretical and speculative, and much of the literature could be characterized as essays and/or commentaries.” As a result, existing explanations cannot effectively interpret differences among countries. 170 DOUGLASS ET AL. Alternatively, Kenna and Dunn advance their own explanation: gated communities emerge when fiscal and governmental structures constrain local governments from acting as viable public-sector competitors to private estates. In view of these different perspectives, it is not surprising that the recent literature on gated communities in urban China similarly employs different explanations. For instance, Huang (2006) stresses the need for a China-specific explanation, and views gated communities as an expression of a collectivist culture and strong political control. Pow (2009), however, criticizes this “culturalist” explanation. Combining arguments from the clubgood theory with an emphasis on the detachment of the wealthy, he stresses the role of gated communities in producing class-based identities and lifestyles as well as neoliberal urbanism (cf. Zhang, 2010). Other scholars also pay attention to the club-good theory (Wu, 2005; Webster et al., 2006; Xu & Yang, 2009), while Miao (2003) and Wu (2005) focus on the fear of crime. And even though she does not refer to gated communities, Hsing (2010) clearly shows how the Chinese construction boom has been produced by coalitions between local governments, developers, and middle-class homeowners. Her analysis also reminds us that Chinese residential enclaves should always be interpreted against the background of the institutionalization of changing state-market-civil society relations. The lack of concise empirical research not only results in various perspectives on the emergence of gated communities, but also inhibits discussions of their effects. Using the above explanations, different authors emphasize different effects. Some view things positively: gated communities create safe environments, sustain neighborhood community development, and support the efficient provision of amenities. However, most of the literature rates effects negatively: gated communities exclude and further marginalize less affluent and less powerful groups with respect to amenities, while under neoliberalism public policies aimed at ensuring general standards of “leftover” spaces tend to break down. Furthermore, gated communities enhance the withdrawal of the wealthy into pseudo-public spaces, thereby diminishing opportunities for different socioeconomic groups to meet. As we shall see, this negative interpretation of gated communities resonates in the urban China literature. ENCLAVE URBANISM IN CHINA Gates and walls have always been part of the Chinese urban landscape (Wu, 2005; Huang, 2006; Xu and Yang, 2009; Pow, 2009). Prior to the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD), cities had external walls and internal walled-off wards (Xu and Yang, 2009). When these walls eventually came down, residential zones surrounded by main roads kept their distinct character. Although they were freely accessible, the often-linear streets within these residential zones (xiang or hutong) developed into communal spaces for local inhabitants who nurtured a strong sense of community. These roads also provided access to courtyard houses marked by walled, collective living spaces (Xu and Yang, 2009). After the 1949 Communist Revolution, walls and gates regained a more prominent place at the neighborhood level. Following the Russian microrayon model, the Maoist city expanded in the form of a mosaic composed of self-contained cells (Lu, 2006). The core of this structure was the work-unit (or danwei, the basic unit of production). With the abolition of private housing and the new emphasis on production over consumption, work-units had to construct on-site housing for their workers (Ma and Wu, 2005; Lu, 2006). Danwei ENCLAVE URBANISM IN CHINA 171 therefore evolved into self-sufficient microsocieties marked by high levels of functional integration, supported by schools, shops, clinics, transport systems, and other basic services. In the name of security and the need to define boundaries, most danwei were soon walled and gated (Lu, 2006). The post-1978 reforms, including the 1990s policies that allowed private ownership and further opened China for global investment, have altered this urban structure in fundamental ways. Between 1980 and 2010, the urban population grew by a staggering 400 million people (UNPD, 2007). In addition to natural growth and the expansion of municipalities, rural-to-urban migration accounted for more than half of this growth. Over the same period, the average annual GDP growth approached an incredible 10 percent. In tandem, this produced an unprecedented urban explosion. Huge metropolitan expanses have replaced the concentrated Maoist city with its clear demarcation between city and countryside. Within this new landscape, the functional integration of work-unit urbanism has given way to a functional specialization grounded within a plethora of urban enclaves like gated housing estates, urbanized villages, shopping malls, university towns, and special economic zones, all interconnected by various new infrastructures. Today, the end of such metropolitan growth is nowhere in sight. Indeed, projections indicate that the urban population will expand by another 400 million people and surpass one billion inhabitants by 2045 (UNPD, 2007). Although many activities in postreform Chinese cities reorganized within enclaves, enclave urbanism is most sharply expressed in residential developments. Over time, relatively uniform danwei housing had come to dominate the Maoist city, replacing pre-1949 housing as the dominant form of shelter. Following the reforms, however, myriad houses have been developed, usually clustered within clearly demarcated areas. With specific new milieus, they now catered to specific socioeconomic groups. Some pre-1949 housing areas have survived this construction boom, but large-scale demolition has wiped out many more. Inferior housing quality caused many residents to relocate to better houses elsewhere, leaving the less prosperous behind. The out-migrants often hang on to their inner-city houses, subletting them to newly arrived urbanites (Hazelzet and Wissink, 2012, this issue). Meanwhile, danwei houses are sold to residents at very low prices, thereby creating one type of gated commodity housing among others (Webster et al., 2006). Some became comparatively privileged in their location, access to services, and housing stock— most notably university and research institutes, government organizations, and state enterprises that survived the reforms through their control over such monopolies as energy, railways, and telecommunications. However, many more did not have those advantages, and upwardly mobile middle-income residents moved out while low rents attracted new urban migrants. As with pre-1949 inner-city housing, these areas rank at the lower end of the market. The new residential areas in the postreform metropolis fall into several categories. First, there are the factory-housing complexes built by entrepreneurs who needed to house their huge low-wage labor forces. For migrant workers, these compounds often provide the only viable place to live (Chang, 2008). Second, with rapid urbanization many rural villages have been engulfed by cities (Liu et al., 2009). Under the dual land system, villagers collectively owned their rural lands, and they were allowed to develop high-density enclaves. With low rents, these have attracted low-income residents such as rural migrants. Recently, access to these enclaves in Beijing has been restricted by new walls and gates (Jiao, 2010). 172 DOUGLASS ET AL. Even though the vast majority of the villages are not walled or gated, their typical urban form clearly distinguishes them from their surroundings. Third, a phenomenal number of central and suburban commodity housing estates has been constructed for the new middle class. These estates come in many shapes and sizes, including exclusive villa and townhouse developments such as Purple Jade Village in Beijing and large-scale mixed housing estates such as Star River in Guangzhou. Estate amenities come in a variety of forms as well. Developers design housing estates themed in terms of borrowed nostalgia, ultra-modernity, and most recently ecological sustainability (Shen and Wu, 2012, this issue). Overall China’s housing estates tend to be larger in area and residential population than gated communities in most other countries (Miao, 2003). They typically cover 11 to 20 hectares and house 2000–3000 families. And certain enclaves like the ecological New South Town in Kunming, even house hundreds of thousands of residents. Generally, densities range 5–10 times higher than in the United States. To accommodate such densities, buildings are primarily multistoried, typically ranging from 6-story walk-ups to 10-story-plus high-rises. Larger commodity housing estates typically consist of a variety of housing types, with each catering to individual income groups. The Dominance of Walls and Gates Given these developments, the majority of urban residential areas in China today are walled and gated. Through national planning codes, the gating of new housing developments has become standard. New master-planned communities are expected to follow suit, and local governments are now gating preexisting urban housing areas as well. As a result, the quadrupling of residential floor space from 1985 to 2000 mostly took place in new gated commodity housing estates. In Guangdong Province alone some 54,000 communities were built during the 1990s, accounting for more than 70 percent of its urban and rural residential areas and more than 80 percent of the total population. And during the same decade, more than 80 percent of the residential communities in Shanghai were gated (Miao, 2003). State Involvement The production of new housing estates in China substantially involves global as well as domestic developers and investors. But government authorities also participate heavily in real estate development, and state-market relations today are quite complex (Hsing, 2010). For one thing, the state has been central in the shift from social housing to commodity housing through a series of well-documented basic reforms from the late 1980s onward (Wu et al., 2007). First it allowed private ownership of housing (with long-term leases of land), and then followed up by creating the legal mechanisms to pass ownership on to others; in 1999, it announced the end of state provision of housing, leaving the production and sale of housing to the market, albeit with continued strong state regulation of housing production and management (Mak et al., 2007). Public subsidies for housing have continued, but have been increasingly unable to fill the gap between the incomes of most people and the escalating prices of new housing (Webster et al., 2006). Beyond these regulatory efforts by the central government, other state and local government agents such as villages, municipalities, and state enterprises remain actively involved ENCLAVE URBANISM IN CHINA 173 in urban development as well. In this highly competitive contest over income from land leases, residential construction has become part of a strategy of territorial consolidation (Hsing, 2010). Furthermore, government agencies also own a considerable number of China’s domestic developers, and they are directly involved in site selection, land assembly, and basic infrastructure provision (Douglass, 2008; Douglass and Huang, 2010; Hsing, 2010). With increased state-market interlocking, holders of state power have become both public regulators and private beneficiaries. Not surprisingly, public officials have become deeply involved in land grabs and approvals for the construction of new residential enclaves. They have become “entrepreneurs, members of corporate management teams, silent partners, and investors in the private economy” (Ma and Wu, 2005, p. 10). Admittedly, these complex state-market relationships do not necessarily lead to walls and gates, yet they do remind us that empirical research into the proliferation of walls and gates should always consider the role of the state in urban China. POSITIVE EFFECTS OF URBAN RESIDENTIAL ENCLAVES We now turn to the effects of residential enclaves in China, which the urban studies literature views both positively and negatively. As we have seen, the assumed positive effects include increased security, heightened neighborhood community development, and greater efficiency in service provision. What is the relevance of these theoretical arguments for urban China? We answer this question with a discussion of four issues: the quality of gated housing estates; the role of these estates in environmental sustainability; security; and privacy and community development. Residential Quality of Gated Housing Estates Because Chinese commodity housing estates are relatively new, the general quality of their housing and localities are presumed to be higher than in the rest of the city. However, the specific quality of newly gated communities varies markedly. In some cases, these enclaves consist of spacious houses with large gardens and public spaces, but in other neighborhoods housing density is far greater with very limited common space. Thus, whereas many positive experiences undoubtedly exist, gated communities cannot automatically be assumed to be providing the best quality of construction or services. Gated Communities and Environmental Sustainability Commodity housing estates are built to the most modern standards. Therefore, they may be more environmentally sustainable and this is indeed presented as one of the new selling points (SDI, 2007; De Lusignan, 2008). This displays some of the contradictions between internal and regional impacts. On one hand, the government expects each new superblock in China to be self-sufficient in energy and environmental resources such as water, which has encouraged developers to go further and add recycling facilities and other environmentally friendly features (Avril, 2009). Yet the use of water is reported to be wasteful (Giroir, 2006); moreover, suburban developments emphasize automobile ownership, and roads leading to the superblocks are lined with automobile sales offices 174 DOUGLASS ET AL. and gasoline stations. Thus while developers boast about diminished ecological footprints within gated communities, their overall expansion generates mounting traffic congestion and pollution from hydrocarbon emissions. Gated Communities and Security As noted earlier, fear of crime provides a major explanation for the emergence of gated neighborhoods. Surprisingly, studies in many countries have detected no difference in crime rates within the enclaves compared with the rest of the city (Wilson-Doenges, 2000; Low, 2003). In view of limited access control in China (Yip, 2012, this issue), this observation might well be true for China too. Moreover, even though residents claim to feel more secure inside their gated neighborhoods, some researchers have argued that this relative calmness results from walls and gates generating a heightened fear of the metropolis beyond (Bannister and Fyfe, 2001; El Nasser, 2002). Roitman’s (2005) study in Venezuela discovered that residents’ feelings of fear and endangerment from the surrounding city were principally the result of their daily isolation, which minimized both interaction with and knowledge of conditions in the city at large. Enclave developers and vendors play actively on these feelings, leading Wu (2005) to conclude that fear of the urban condition cannot be alleviated by architectural design. Gated Communities and Privacy Some studies show that privacy is an important motive for moving into commodity housing estates (e.g., Fleischer, 2007). This might be a reaction to the intensive socializing mandated by the danwei system and seems to account at least in part for the low level of participation in the state-sponsored “community self-government” (shequ zizhi; Pow, 2009). Household surveys in gated communities in Shanghai found that nearly half the residents did not know their neighbors’ names (Pow, 2009). In a survey of residents in a gated community on the outskirts of Beijing, Fleischer (2007, p. 294) found similar results: “People told me, ‘I have no idea of others [neighbors]. I don’t think people like to associate with each other. People don’t know each other very well here,” or “We seldom interact with other people in the community.’… This image stands in stark contrast to living in danwei compounds or hutongs where residents usually knew each other very well.” Similarly, Farrer’s (2002) study in Shanghai indicated that the intensive social contacts of the old “alleyway” neighborhoods were being replaced by social isolation after moving to newly built high-rise commodity buildings (Hazelzet and Wissink, 2012, this issue). However, as Huang (2006) points out, gated estates might nonetheless contribute to community development in a symbolic way: they provide markers for meaning and identity in an entirely new and constantly changing urban world. NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF URBAN RESIDENTIAL ENCLAVES Notwithstanding attention for the positive effects of gated communities, the urban studies literature displays a great concern with the negative effects of gates and walls. In the literature on China, this negative interpretation is also prevalent. For instance, Miao (2003) stresses that the “Balkanization of space” will result in pitting groups against each ENCLAVE URBANISM IN CHINA 175 other, and Pow (2009) stresses that gated communities intentionally mask the realities of homelessness, poverty, and crime, thereby reducing public awareness of these problems. In line with these criticisms, the focus here is on the role of gating for dispossession and inequality. Gated Communities and Dispossession Widespread mega-construction projects are dispossessing tens of millions of Chinese of their landed assets (Sargeson, 2004; Zhang, 2007). A large share of this confiscated land has been made available for gated housing and new town development. Not surprisingly, even with official levels of compensation the dispossessed are left with diminished assets both in terms of self-provisioning and commodity production, not to mention profound personal injustices (Hsing, 2010). Rural dispossessions, for example, not only displace people but also undermine livelihoods through farmland expropriation and ecological disruptions (Douglass, 2010). Based on the rural-land classification, compensation is generally insufficient to replace confiscated goods. And with land prices jumping 10 to 50 times following conversion to urban use, there are unparalleled opportunities for local government officials to acquire enormous personal incomes (Deng, 2008). Not surprisingly, there are nearly 100,000 officially recorded protests per year (Lum, 2006). Gated Communities in Their Urban Regions: Segregation and Inequality In the Maoist city, there were sharp differences between work-unit amenities (Logan and Bian, 1993), as well as between party cadres and workers. However, Wu (2005) stresses that the socialist city was nonetheless directed toward more egalitarian purposes. In the postreform metropolis, all of this has changed. About four-fifths of Chinese households now own their own homes. However, differences in housing are substantial, and even modest new enclaves that receive state subsidies are beyond the reach of most people (Mak et al., 2007). This creates massive spatial inequalities between those who can and those who cannot afford to live in enclaves. In 2005, for example, the average price of a 60-squaremeter apartment in Beijing was about 10 times the average salaried income nationally— well above the benchmark of 2.5 times the annual income. In metropolitan Shanghai, the average price was nearly 14 times the average annual salary, leaving more than 80 percent of households unable to move up in the housing market by buying a new or better housing unit without substantial state subsidies (Mak et al., 2007). Furthermore, housing subsidies are awarded through an implicit political process to higher-level state workers according to seniority, which precludes most of the urban population. At the lower end of the owner-occupied housing spectrum are the former danwei units, which are small, often dilapidated, and mostly without kitchens and bathrooms (Mak et al., 2007; Dou, 2008). So whereas ownership is very high in China, disparities in housing are enormous and widening. In 2004, less than five percent of houses built were classified as affordable. In high-income economies, a large urban middle class already exists. In China, gatedhousing enclaves are playing an historic role in the creation of a bourgeois urban society by enabling the newly affluent to live in protected urban spaces that match their lifestyle preferences (Pow, 2009). By that measure, Lum (2006) observes the appearance of about 176 DOUGLASS ET AL. 100 million middle-class households, or somewhat less than ten percent of the population of China. However, unable to afford the cost of living in commodity housing estates, all others are excluded from this lifestyle. Lum therefore argues that economic reforms in China have created a two-tiered society of haves and have-nots. The symmetry between the gating of the urban landscape and growing social inequalities is unambiguous. Likewise, Xu (2008, p. 634) warns that gated communities “overwhelmingly entrench China’s profound and accelerating social polarization in urban space.” This process of marketdriven, self-segregation of different socioeconomic groups works against the “social cohesion dynamic of social self-adjustment” needed to respond to China’s societal and environmental challenges that lay ahead (Xu, 2008, p. 650). However, even though it is clear that inequality in China is rising quite rapidly, which is directly expressed in residential differentiation, the specific role of gating in this emerging inequality requires further investigation. URBAN FORM AND SOCIAL PRACTICES The negative reading of residential enclaves in China is in line with the negative view on the effects of gated communities in the urban studies literature. This interpretation regards Chinese gated communities as a general form of urban development that is now emerging in many countries around the world. Recently, however, various scholars stress the need for an interpretation of residential enclaves that focuses on specific Chinese urban characteristics (Huang, 2006; Pow, 2009; Xu and Yang, 2009). These authors suggest that alternative—less negative—interpretations are possible as well. We agree that while the spread of gated communities in China has potentially far-reaching social consequences, at the same time this is not necessarily the case, since consequences can vary with local characteristics. Therefore, the effects of Chinese gated communities should be judged on their own terms. Accordingly, three issues are highlighted: (1) the spatial pattern of endless residential enclaves does not necessarily inhibit contact among different groups; (2) the private provision of amenities through gated commodity housing estates does not necessarily produce exclusion; and (3) perceptions of the importance of generally accessible public spaces for everyone may differ from culture to culture. First, let us consider the assumption that Chinese gated housing estates constrain encounters between various groups. As noted earlier, Chinese estates generally are much larger than their foreign counterparts (Miao, 2003). As a result, they often contain various housing types ranging from exclusive to lower middle class. For instance, in the Shunde estate in Guangzhou municipality, high-income and low-income areas are present in the same development. Moreover, the regional origins of residents of such estates also varies, in part resulting from regulations that provided in-migrants with an urban hukou if they would buy into a commodity housing estate. Of course, this does not mean that all socioeconomic groups are present in these estates; indeed, certain groups are excluded. But the income level of residents of commodity housing estates in China is generally more varied than the international gated-community literature seems to assume. Furthermore, the accessibility of Chinese housing estates also varies considerably as well. While almost all new housing estates are walled and gated, research indicates that it is often relatively easy to pass through these gates (Yip, 2012, this issue). Thus, walls do ENCLAVE URBANISM IN CHINA 177 not necessarily prevent chance encounters in the street. And consequences of commodity housing estates for meeting and mixing with outsiders within the estates also vary. Next, residential places are not the only setting for social encounters, and may not be the main locus of social interaction or integration in the first place (Li et al., 2012, this issue; Wang et al., 2012, this issue). For instance, Iossifova (2009) shows in an ethnographic study of Shanghai’s old and new neighborhoods that the typical Asian mixing of various types of neighborhoods next to each other leads to a continuous mixing of different social groups in transitional zones. And Xu and Yang (2009) show that with high building densities, the boundaries between enclaves change into interactive shopping spaces. Given these arguments, there can be no straightforward assumptions about the influence of the gated residential form on interactions between social groups. Second, let us consider the hypothesis that the private provision of amenities in commodity housing estates leads to exclusion. Surprisingly, it turns out that the accessibility of collective private services in Chinese estates is not necessarily limited to inhabitants of these estates. For instance, the international school in the Shunde estate in Guangzhou is open to anyone who can pay the (high) fees. Likewise, the secondary school on Star River estate in Guangzhou is equally accessible. One of the main reasons for this accessibility is that management companies of private services need to make a profit. So even though issues of inequality are still involved, this inequality is not necessarily the byproduct of the gated urban enclave (after all, there are many parents on the Shunde estate who cannot pay the high fees either). In short, the issue is not whether collective services are provided through housing estates, but rather how this private provision relates to access and/ or exclusion (Young, 2000). Third, walls and gates may be perceived differently in different cultures. They are perceived negatively in the West, but in China they seem to be approached more positively in relation to the enactment of identities and belonging (Huang, 2006; Lu, 2006; Breitung, 2012, this issue). Admittedly, the Chinese reality of rapid urbanization and extreme social mixing presents an enormous challenge for social trust (Hazelzet and Wissink, 2012, this issue). China is in no way unique in these challenges—Europe was similarly confronted with a breakdown of social trust between groups at the end of the 19th century, as it is today (Boyer, 1983; Buruma, 2006); but these challenges need to be addressed urgently. However, although the ideal of an open and accessible city in which people can mix freely is deeply embedded in Western urbanism and culture, it may not necessarily conform to enduring sociospatial practices in China. Here the differentiation between in-groups and out-groups has historically structured meetings with others—and meetings are generally organized through existing contacts. Attitudes toward others, including responsibilities and morality, are largely determined by the question of whether others belong to the in-group or not (Yan, 2009). Therefore, it seems far from certain that open encounters in freely accessible public spaces provide a viable solution in the current Chinese context. On the basis of these observations, it is reasonable to conclude that there is no direct linkage between China’s residential enclaves and specific social practices. The consequences of walled estates for meeting and mixing can vary—because the composition of inhabitants might be different, because the accessibility of walled enclaves might differ, and because there can be outside places to meet others. Privately provided amenities through commodity housing estates might still be available to nonresidents. And attitudes toward publicly accessible spaces as a means to organize social integration can also vary. 178 DOUGLASS ET AL. This does not mean that the spread of gated housing in China will have no negative effects; this can certainly be the case. But speculations about the extent of those effects should be the result of empirical research, not applications of generalized theory derived from other contexts. A gated community is not a universal settlement form that causally determines social practices. Rather, it is a localized urban structure that relates to social practices in essentially local ways, leaving room for a variety of lifestyles and politics (Lu, 2006). Certainly, China faces massive challenges regarding urban development and inequality. But the extent to which Chinese housing estates are involved in the creation or maintenance of those inequalities should be answered on the basis of empirical research, which can draw from broader theorizations and comparative experiences but must also be sensitive to variations among local contexts. CONCLUSIONS This study centered on four related questions: (1) What are the perspectives on the effects of enclave urbanism in the urban studies literature? (2) Does China’s evolving urban form display characteristics of enclave urbanism? (3) What are the social effects of this urban form? And (4) What does the Chinese experience contribute to the urban studies literature? In response to the first question, we found that the urban studies literature directly links the emergence of enclave urbanism with the transition to a postindustrial or network society. Because of practical limitations we limited our attention to residential enclaves, and the discussion of gated communities in particular. This discussion interprets the emergence of gated communities as a general process that takes place in a similar fashion around the world. While there are various explanations for this process, and some do stress the positive aspects of the emergence of gated communities, generally the effects are interpreted negatively. On the one hand, gated communities cause the exclusion of underprivileged groups from basic services; and on the other they limit social contacts between socioeconomic groups. In short, the gated community is seen as an object that has a direct and negative effect on selected groups, thereby constituting and maintaining inequalities. Second, it was seen that the urban transformations of China seems to accord with the wider trend toward enclave urbanism. In the wake of the post-1978 reforms, the Maoist work-unit city with its cellular structure and mixed functions made way for expanding metropolises marked by specialized functional and cultural enclaves. This metamorphosis also affects spatial patterns of residential developments. Besides the former work-units that survive as bounded residential places and the pre-1949 inner-city housing, a number of new residential enclaves have emerged, especially factory dormitories, urban villages, and various types of commodity housing estate. Although each enclave type has specific characteristics, and is sharply bounded, they vary in terms of inhabitants, accessibility, and service provision. Commodity housing estates in China decidedly contrast with gated communities in other countries. These differences especially relate to the scale, pace, and pervasiveness of gated enclave creation. Contrasts also exist in the historic timing of the emergence of gated communities in a country that is rapidly being propelled from a centrally planned command economy to a market economy as well as an agrarian to an urban society—one that relies on pervasive state involvement in social as well as physical change and restructuring. The ENCLAVE URBANISM IN CHINA 179 impacts of China’s gating process are reinforced by dispossessions that combine with the hukou system, which turns tens of millions of people into a floating population of workers who are only able to obtain low-quality housing in the city they find themselves in. The history of gated housing and neighborhoods also underscores China’s lack of sustained experience in open cities, which partly explains the ready acceptance of and acquiescence to yet another form of gating in the form of contemporary commodity housing. Third, as for the social effects of China’s emerging enclave urbanism, much depends on the perspective taken. On one hand, in line with the gated community literature, it was noted that Chinese enclave urbanism threatens social integration and social justice. This literature not only draws attention to the displacement of underprivileged groups by the building of commodity housing estates, it also brings into view the increasing disparities that result from variable housing quality in different types of estates, and from their collective provision of such basic amenities as schooling and security. As a result, the difference between “inside” and “outside” is huge. Also, urban enclaves might stand in the way of opportunities to learn about other groups. But we have argued that the materialization of these risks depends on local characteristics. For instance, it was argued that schools within commodity housing estates may be accessible for outside children; that there are places for social encounters other than in the residential enclave; that many Chinese enclaves are walled, but not gated; and that the idea of public space to meet others is a Western concept that might not readily apply to China. It was therefore concluded that an adequate interpretation of the effects of enclave urbanism in China cannot be deduced from physical form alone, but should be built on answers to various empirical questions. Does the private provision of services in Chinese enclaves lead to socioeconomic exclusion? Does the emergence of residential enclaves limit contacts among socioeconomic groups? And what are the sociopolitical attitudes towards enclave urbanism in China? As for the fourth question, this analysis results in two lessons that the urban studies literature can learn from Chinese enclave urbanism: (1) that urbanism involves not only physical forms, but also the development of sociospatial relations; and (2) that physical forms never directly determine social practices. While there may be exceptions in the physical characteristics of enclave urbanism in China, there also are many similarities with non-Chinese urban form. This might easily result in the conclusion that negative effects are inescapable. However, our first excursion into the crucial aspects of enclave urbanism in China led us to a series of questions that need to be answered contextually and empirically. Without a doubt, such a process will show that residential enclaves in China resemble enclaves elsewhere in the world. 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