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Rediscovering the ‘gate’ under market transition: from work-unit compounds to commodity housing enclaves

Rediscovering the ‘gate’ under market transition: from work-unit compounds to commodity housing enclaves
Rediscovering the ‘gate’ under market transition: from work-unit compounds to commodity housing enclaves
This paper applies two major explanations in gated community studies, namely the club realm of consumption and the discourse of fear, to examine the changing forms of urban 'gated communities', i.e. the transition from work-unit compounds to gated commodity housing enclaves, in urban China. While the gate has existed in China for a long time as a physical form, it has now been rediscovered as an instrument for the partitioning of derelict socialist landscapes produced by 'economising urbanisation' and a post-socialist imagined 'good life'. The study highlights that the function of gating is dependent upon social and economic contexts: under socialism, gating reinforces political control and collective consumption organised by the state; in the post-reform era, the gate demarcates emerging consumer clubs in response to the retreat of the state from the provision of public goods. While the discourse of fear seems less applicable to the Chinese city, urban fragmentation is paving the way to a new urban experience of insecurity, which has begun to appear in the discourse of 'community building' in urban China.
Gated community, urban China, social inequalities, urban governance, commodity housing
0267-3037
235-254
Wu, F.
8e851da7-93c0-4ba2-a5ae-8a4cf0779895
Wu, F.
8e851da7-93c0-4ba2-a5ae-8a4cf0779895

Wu, F. (2005) Rediscovering the ‘gate’ under market transition: from work-unit compounds to commodity housing enclaves. Housing Studies, 20 (2), 235-254. (doi:10.1080/026730303042000331754).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper applies two major explanations in gated community studies, namely the club realm of consumption and the discourse of fear, to examine the changing forms of urban 'gated communities', i.e. the transition from work-unit compounds to gated commodity housing enclaves, in urban China. While the gate has existed in China for a long time as a physical form, it has now been rediscovered as an instrument for the partitioning of derelict socialist landscapes produced by 'economising urbanisation' and a post-socialist imagined 'good life'. The study highlights that the function of gating is dependent upon social and economic contexts: under socialism, gating reinforces political control and collective consumption organised by the state; in the post-reform era, the gate demarcates emerging consumer clubs in response to the retreat of the state from the provision of public goods. While the discourse of fear seems less applicable to the Chinese city, urban fragmentation is paving the way to a new urban experience of insecurity, which has begun to appear in the discourse of 'community building' in urban China.

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More information

Published date: 2005
Keywords: Gated community, urban China, social inequalities, urban governance, commodity housing

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 15904
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/15904
ISSN: 0267-3037
PURE UUID: e5e0d81a-6bc0-4ac2-b953-91ab72a19e68

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Date deposited: 13 Jun 2005
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 05:44

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Author: F. Wu

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