Gentrifying rural community development: A case study of Bama Panyang River Basin in Guangxi, China

Abstract

Rural gentrification is deeply characterized by institutional context and spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Based on a diachronic field investigation, this paper constructs an analytical framework for gentrifying rural community development (GRCD) with a “community” theoretical perspective and analytical approach, defines the concept of GRCD, and analyzes the main characteristics, formation mechanism and regulation path of a typical gentrifying rural community in the Panyang River Basin of Bama County, Guangxi. Driven by factors such as the complex flow and heterogeneous living space practices of the host-guest community, the longevity “myth” led by commercial capital and consumption demand, and multiple action logics and desertification community governance, great changes have occurred in the social space and material landscape of the rural longevity community. Such changes include comprehensive reconstruction of the resident population, surface interaction and social separation of the host-guest community, residential structure change and settlement landscape renewal, and delocalization of the healing landscape and lifestyle changes. We propose policy insights in three areas: public and localization institutional arrangements, shared and comfortable gentrifying rural community making, and inclusive and synergistic gentrifying rural community governance. Through these aspects, we provide insights from the Chinese case for the gentrification and community development of rural areas in the Global South.