Gentrification and Residential Differentiation in Nanjing, China

The institutional environment in China has quite evidently changed during modern socio-economic transitions. Driven both by local government and by marketing force, urban social space was redistributed after the reform of urban land and real estate policies. Urban renewal makes for wide differential rent and therefore gentrification is occurring in China. This paper analyzes the background and institutional environment of gentrification in China, and further discusses the process, characteristics and evolutionary mechanisms in the case of Nanjing, through investigation of the attributes of 1 075 residential communities built during the 1998-2008 at a macro level, and interviewing the residents and analyzing questionnaires in 6 different and typical communities at a micro level. As a socio-spatial course of two-way interaction, gentrification is divided into 3 stages of incubation, occurrence and fast development, according to the time of landmark events and policy reform on the leasehold of land in Nanjing during socio-economic transition. In terms of the socio-spatial characteristics of gentrification in Nanjing, the gentrification process under the trajectory of urban renewal makes urban social space present a new circle-layer structure; the rise of quite a number of gated communities results in the fragmentation of social space and privatization of public space; the management mode of modern communities and the change of life style have aggravated the indifference of neighborhood relationship of gentrified communities. Based on the empirical evidence of this study, this paper indicates that gentrification is quite different between China and western countries with respect to spatio-temporal order, dominant forces, paths of realization and spatial expression, and it further reveals the dynamic mechanism of gentrification developing in China at the present stage.