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Urban redevelopment, gentrification and gentrifiers in post-reform inland China: A case study of Chengdu, China

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Abstract

Since its process evolved in recent years, the definition of gentrification has expanded to cover different forms of social upgrading, new spaces and new actors around the world. Studies on gentrification in Chinese cities began to take off in the 2000s. However, they all mainly focused on the newly emerging global cities and there has been a lack of investigation on provincial cities. Furthermore, discussions on gentrifiers′ profiles and their motivations for housing choice are absent from literature on Chinese gentrification. Therefore, this paper aims to assess the relevance of the broad definition of gentrification in provincial Chinese cities through empirical research on urban redevelopment projects in Chengdu, and to examine the characteristics of gentrifiers (as new incoming residents) in it. The results show the rationality of gentrification processes as urban redevelopment in Chengdu, and reveal original outcomes on the corresponding gentrifiers′ profiles and the motivations behind their housing choice, which are different from the general features of gentrifiers in standard Western gentrification research.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Professor Akihiko Takagi for his generous support and valuable suggestions on this paper. And we also would like to thank other professors and members in the Department of Geography, Kyushu University for their help and comments on this research. Besides, we are also grateful for three anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Architecture, State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building Science, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510641, China

    Xing Huang

  2. Department of Geography, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 812-8581, Japan

    Xing Huang

  3. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems, School of Resource and Environmental Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Yongchun Yang

  4. College of Urban and Environmental Science, Northwest University, Xi′an, 710127, China

    Yongchun Yang

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  1. Xing Huang
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  2. Yongchun Yang
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Correspondence to Xing Huang.

Additional information

Foundation items: Under the auspices of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41571155, 41171143)

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Huang, X., Yang, Y. Urban redevelopment, gentrification and gentrifiers in post-reform inland China: A case study of Chengdu, China. Chin. Geogr. Sci. 27, 151–164 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-017-0852-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-017-0852-3

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