Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space

Housing marketisation provides an opportunity for households to choose their residences. However, not all households benefit equally from residential relocation. This paper uses a recent residential survey in Shanghai to examine different relocation modes and their implications for housing consumption. The findings suggest that better education, absence of work-unit affiliation, higher expectation for housing consumption, and the move from the outer to inner areas are more likely to be associated with active relocation through commodity housing purchase. Residential relocation in urban China has a stronger association with the household's position within the spectrum from state redistribution to market reward than with life cycles and consequent adjustment of housing demand which are the primary reasons for residential mobility in a mature market. Household income, the educational level, and previous housing space are determinants of changing housing consumption. Intraurban residential relocation gives a higher return to those who are better educated and who have been already in possession of larger living space, and to the move from outer to inner areas. Active relocation and workplace-housing allocation generate higher space returns to households than do other modes of relocation. Whereas pragmatic concerns for social stability plus strong tenancy rights help inner-city households gain compensation in residential relocation, urban redevelopment generates the lowest space return. Residential displacement is now becoming a contentious issue. As such, residential relocation is a process that differentiates urban space under market transition.

This paper analyzes the residential mobility rate in Beijing over the period 1980–2001 as revealed by retrospective residential histories collected by a questionnaire survey conducted in early 2001. The results show that there was a sharp increase in residential mobility in the early reform period; however, from the mid-1980s onwards the mobility rate has been oscillating, with a slightly downward trend. Adjusting the gross mobility rate observed by means of logit regression estimation shows that this downward trend is more than a statistical artefact. Structural forces are at work continually to restrain residential moves under the reform. The regression results also show that, although there are similarities between the effects of various life-course variables on residential mobility in Beijing and those in cities in market economies, substantial differences are also found. Age exhibits similar curvilinear effects but mobility peaks at a somewhat later age. Homeownership with partial property rights deters mobility by an even greater margin in Beijing than in cities in the West. Change in marital status is important, but does not automatically bring about a change in residence. Birth of a child, moreover, appears to carry minimal weight in residential change. In this sense, the thesis that residential mobility is a housing-adjustment process is less applicable to the case of Beijing than it is in cities in the West.

Housing reform in urban China has introduced market mechanisms into a previously welfare-oriented housing system. Although microlevel factors such as household characteristics begin to shape housing behavior in urban China as is the case in the West, macrolevel constraints and opportunities defined by not only housing stocks and housing markets but also local government behaviors continue to be crucial. By studying housing choice in Beijing, Chongqing, and Jiangyin, I find that local governments in different cities behave differently in reforming the housing system, which in turn create different housing stocks and housing markets and thus lead to different patterns of housing behavior. A housing stock dominated by public housing, a tight housing market, and a conservative local government all encourage households to choose public housing and rental, as is the case in Beijing, while a diverse housing stock with affordable housing prices, and an aggressive local government often encourage households to choose private housing and homeownership, indicated by the case of Jiangyin.

For a prolonged period of time, the Chinese state had monopolised housing provision. Chinese people had virtually no choice of housing. Much has changed with the deepening of the market-oriented reform launched since 1979. A housing market, though not yet a full-fledged one, has been established. People now have greater freedom to choose their homes. More and more people buy houses from the market. There is, therefore, an urgent need for an inquiry into how housing decisions in China are made, what people's preferences for housing are, and what factors influence their housing choices. To this end, the authors study the joint choice of dwelling and neighbourhood by potential homebuyers in Beijing. Because the housing market in China is still in an embryonic state and highly regulated by the government, one may not be able to get information on actual housing choices to reveal housing preferences. This study thus adopts the stated preference modelling approach. Data were collected in 2001 in Beijing, capital of China. The study shows that, in general, neighbourhood variables are more important than dwelling variables in the choice of housing in Beijing. Associated with this is the importance attached to districts with a good reputation and the concern for dwelling and neighbourhood security.

As a result of the creation of a Scottish Parliament, Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies, and the devolution of power to various regional bodies in England, there has been a substantial territorial refocusing of governance within the United Kingdom. Much has been written in the social and political sciences concerning this change, especially with regard to the formation of new institutions of governance. Less is known concerning the connections between state personnel and this institutional and territorial transformation. In this paper we seek to remedy this deficiency. Drawing on empirical evidence from the English regions, we suggest that devolution is shaped by, and also shapes, the actions and strategies of a variety of state personnel in the different territories. Developing the idea of the state as a ‘peopled organisation’, we thus emphasise the significance of state personnel in actively producing the United Kingdom's new territories and scales of governance. This allows for an examination of the ways in which state personnel, working within different territorial branches and scales of the state, are able to accommodate, revise, or resist broader political

The authors review ideas from the industrial district literature. They argue that district firms possess a number of collective or shared resources that account for firms' membership. These factors include: common reputation, intensity of exchange and combination of resources, and participation of local institutions. Their empirical research drew upon a sample of 220 Spanish manufacturing firms. Findings suggest a significant contribution of the chosen variables to overall discrimination between district member and nonmember firms.

The author considers patterns of population growth and density occurring in Canadian metropolitan areas (CMAs) over the 25-year period 1971–96. Two different sets of data, population and household, are examined with the aid of distance-decay density gradients and enumeration of intrazonal change in census tracts defined as core area (census tracts immediately adjacent to the central business district), inner city, and suburban. Important differences are found when household data are used in lieu of population data. In the core and inner city, household change points towards an overall pattern of recentralization and, in the suburbs, to intensification of development—albeit muted. This contrasts with an accentuated trend to decentralization witnessed in the population-based analyses. The author concludes that centralization is an active force in most CMAs, although it is not as strong a force as decentralization. It is also suggested that there is great diversity between the twenty-two CMAs that make up the dataset. Most important is the demonstration that evidence based on population trends alone is not sufficient to gauge changing patterns of intrametropolitan population distribution.

A mathematical model is proposed which describes the dynamics and the spatial distributions of two population groups, where migration is driven by considerations of socioeconomic status. The model associates segregation with instabilities of spatially uniform mixed population states. These instabilities lead to a wide range of segregation forms including: (a) variable (weak) segregation where the population is everywhere mixed and the spatial variability is controlled by a ‘status-gap’ parameter, (b) strong segregation, where nearby neighbourhoods consists of pure (unmixed) population groups, and (c) intermediate forms involving enclaves of a pure population group in neighbourhoods of mixed population. The model associates tipping-point phenomena with the existence of an unstable mixed population state which introduces a threshold for population inversion. The model predicts that uneven invasions of one population group into another may result from interface instabilities rather than from urban heterogeneities.

Despite its many promises, devolved governance may pose great challenges to environmental conservation, especially in the context of newly democratized polities where local communities tend to be dominated by place-bound clientele networks that pursue developmental interests at the expense of conservation. In this paper the authors examine how a conservation movement in Huben Village of Yunlin County in Taiwan has successfully been organized to save the endangered bird species Fairy Pitta (Pitta nuymphia) against gravel extraction activities that were backed by local clientele networks of politicians and business interests. The case illustrates how challenges of devolved governance can be addressed not necessarily by centralized authority but by connecting grassroots victims of environmental degradation with broader conservation movements supported by networks of civic organizations that transcend narrow geographical interests.