Institutional co-production at neighbourhood scale: Cases of urban renewal for Shanghai’s ageing population

Abstract

Urban renewal projects at neighbourhood scale have become prevalent in China to better adapt multi-storey residential buildings for the needs of the country’s ageing society. Institutional co-production and actor-network theory were employed in two cases in Shanghai to analyse relationships between administrative departments, policy implementors, and residents. The findings show that while institutional co-production promoted substantial spatial change for elderly residents, and stimulated both administrative change and bottom-up initiatives. However the need for the state to provide a bottom line for more vulnerable actors was highlighted, an over-representation of dominant actors and uneven information assembly in the process also resulted in unequal distributions of benefits among actors. The study contributes empirical insight to research on institutional co-production in governance contexts with powerful state authority, as well as the role of neighbourhood-level actor’s in urban renewal processes in other cities defined by high-density, vertical construction.