Residential relocation and the remaking of socialist workers through state-facilitated urban redevelopment in Chengdu, China

Abstract

This article discusses the unevenness in the social effects of state-facilitated urban redevelopment in China by examining the social transformation experienced by the housing class of socialist workers in two inner-city redevelopment projects in Chengdu. After government compensation schemes, former public tenants and subsidised owners associated with socialist work-units are far more privileged through cash compensation or relocation in new self-owned apartments than two other housing classes – migrant tenants and homeowners of commodity or rural housing – impacted by the same urban redevelopment. The objective and subjective transformation of socialist workers during the process of resettlement are examined from field interviews, with their status changing from welfare recipients in danwei compounds to proprietors in new gated communities. We conclude that state-facilitated urban redevelopment in the Chinese city is interdependent with, and mutually reinforced by, state-led working-class transformation in market society, so as to balance the two critical national objectives of economic growth and social stability. State dominance in conferring variable opportunities via launching unequal housing trajectories among social groups determines the significant disparity of impacts from urban redevelopment in China.