The disintegration and reproduction of communities: A social capital perspective of urban village's urbanisation in China

Abstract

The urbanisation of rural communities with urban villages (chengzhongcun) as intermediates represents both a distinct rural-to-urban transition and a distinct formalization of informal urban settlements. This study examines, from a social capital perspective, how the urban village communities have shifted in their long-term urbanisation process (from rural villages to urban villages and then to urban neighbourhoods) in the past decades. Personal interviews with former villagers who have experienced such a process are the major data sources for this study. Key conclusions include: i) the urban village communities consistently lose social capital since the pre-redevelopment stage, resulting in gradual community disintegration; ii) the social capital loss is both an inevitable result of the internalisation of urban-rural differences in the community and an effective governance approach ensuring the rehousing neighbourhoods are not reproduced into informal settlements; iii) formalization of informal communities with losing social capitals requires significant public investments on public service provision, to compensate to the communities' loss of power over urban space (re)production; therefore, iv) reproduce social capital in the rehousing neighbourhood is in need in the long-term to reduce governance costs and enhance social service provision.