Low-End Accumulation
Spatial Transformation and Social Stratification in a Beijing Urban Village
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12423846 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tzu-Chi Ou (0000-0002-7123-5718, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 619-640 |
| Publication date | 2022-08-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | positions asia critique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1067-9847 • E-ISSN: 1527-8271 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/10679847-9723763 |
| OpenAlex | W4294382940 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 12 |
In late 2017, a tragic fire in southern Beijing led to a massive eviction and demolition campaign that drove out tens of thousands of rural migrant workers in bleak winter weather. While the evictions were widely covered by the mass media, few analyses examined the gongyu 公寓 (apartment complex), a low-rent housing complex where the fire broke out. Based on fieldwork in Beijing's northern fringe, this article examines the spatial transformation of residences from cramped one-story farmhouses to gongyu and how it signals the social stratification of migrant tenants. The emergence of the better-equipped gongyu, as an alternative modernity, caters to the influx of young tenants and migrants working in the service sector. Meanwhile, the rise of the gongyu has propelled an increase in the subcontracting of property management. The rationalization and specialization of the fast-growing private rental housing market have further led to estranged living among migrant tenants and landlords, who experience different forms of displacement in urban villages. Gongyu is the outcome of low-end accumulation, which is intended primarily for constructing low-quality, low-cost rental projects for the “low-end population.” Despite its prevalence, the urban village gongyu represents an overlooked, unrecognized, and undesirable mode of urbanization, which is the target of the recurring housing crackdown in China's capital
Apartment · Beijing · Business · China · Demolition · Economic geography · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Eviction · Geography · Political science · Population · Renting · Sociology · Tourism · Urbanization · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Urbanization and City Planning
Low-income Housing in Chinese Cities
Transcending Boundaries
The New Imperialism
Aestheticisation, rent-seeking, and rural gentrification amidst China's rapid urbanisation
What Drives the Spatial Development of Urban Villages in China
Cosmologies of Credit
Access to Housing in Urban China
Grounding displacement
On Alternative Modernities
They Come in Peasants and Leave Citizens
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |