Developmental Urbanism, City Image Branding and the “Right to the City” in Transitional China

Abstract

From the 1980s, urban-led economic pursuits, city image building, and residency control of rural migrants have been three key elements which are complementary yet conflicting in China’s development path. Whilst the two former are pro-growth oriented, the “low-image” and “potential risk to slum formation” of rural migrants are found by the state to be incompatible with the modernist urbanism sought after. Under the state’s ambitious city branding and intensive-cum-high value operations, the paper revisits Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey’s notions on the “right to the city”. It highlights the social injustice issue of differentiated citizenship in terms of inequity of access to services and inequality between urban and rural origins. City-branding efforts have indeed contributed towards economic efficiency and land use rationalization but are characterized by an asymmetrical power and spatial redistribution process filled with inequalities against migrant workers and deprivation of rights. Recent developments have shown that the state has compromised and become more people-oriented and inclusive in its approach towards rural migrants.

自1980 年代以降, 中国发展道路上出现了三个既互补又矛盾的关键因素: 城市引领的经济发展、城市形象建设和农民工的户籍控制。前两个因素都有利于增长, 但政府认为农民工 “形象 不好”, “存在形成贫民区的风险”, 因而与他们追求的现代都市化格格不入。在政府大力推广 城市宣传, 集中推出昂贵的措施之时, 本文重提列斐伏尔（Henri Lefebvre）和哈维（David Harvey）关于 ”城市使用权” 的论述。文章强调了市民获得服务的不平等以及城乡居民的不平 等。城市形象宣传的确有助于经济发展与土地使用合理性，但也存在权力不对称的问题, 空间 再分配过程对农民工很不公平, 剥夺了他们的权利。最近, 政府已做出让步, 开始以人为本, 在农民工问题上更加包容了.

KEY WORDS:

• Right to the city
• equity
• citizen equality
• branding
• migrant workers
• state ambition

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Fulong Wu for his suggestions on an earlier draft, and the two reviewers for their constructive comments based on which improvements were made. Jonathan Rigg is also thanked for his help in editorial check. Any errors, if any, are those of the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Hukou system is a residency permit system that separates the rural population from urban population, and the local population from the non-local. It is generally acknowledged that the hukou system confers a wide range of welfare benefits and rights on the urban population, while denying them to rural population.

2. Restrictive rules and regulations include forbidding basements of buildings to be used for human habitation and rural collective lands for rental housing. Forced dismantling of illegal and squatter houses has been carried out frequently by enforcement officers.

3. The “developed North” is somewhat equivalent to the “First World”, comprising of largely higher income market economies practicing generally electoral democracies. The “developed North” includes countries of Western Europe plus the richer countries of the former British Empire (USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand) and Japan.

4. In 2010, Shunyi and Daxing built higher end housing and higher end industries that require higher skilled workforce. This approach has slowed down low-wage migrant growth, and small businesses employing unskilled migrant workers were shut down. Migrant workers in the low-end services were given a renewable three-month temporary residency card.