Poverty and Residential Environment in Nanjing

Abstract

In China the transition between two economic systems is accompanied by an increase of inequalities and the creation of new forms of poverty and social marginalization. The responsible factors can be viewed as the result of the overlap between recent reforms and socially and spatially inherited urban structures. We studied these questions in the context of Nanjing, an eastern Chinese city affected by the course of fast social and economic changes. These changes happen in a spatial context that carries the marks of past social and economical organisation. This paper analyses the role of the environment in the different patterns of social exclusion and in the way people face their situations. Evidence suggests that each type of poor call different responses to poverty and that these responses vary according to their place in the city, highlighting the importance of inherited spatial structure as well as present potential of these places.