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Commodification of Tangjiajia and Sustainable Governance in Question

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Rural Revitalization Through State-led Programs

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Abstract

This chapter examines the commodification process initiated through a series of state-led programs and questions the sustainable public goods provision in rural China. I challenge the unilateral understanding of spontaneous commodification by the profit-seeking community and argue that the influence exerted by the Chinese government cannot be ignored. It is found that a preliminary partnership among the state, private investors, and villagers was formed to create a hot spring village called Tangjiajia in suburban Nanjing. The reconstruction was the result of a state-led renovation of the built environment, but it also catalyzed villager entrepreneurship and boosted community consensus. Regarding the public goods provision, stakeholders in the village now enjoy high-quality facilities and services provided by the government for free but have failed to foster reciprocal cooperation to replenish the subtractability of the rural commons. It is claimed that state intervention is temporal but not a cure-all. A pricing mechanism for the sustainable delivery of public goods is urgently needed in the community. The state-led commodification has undermined the previous low-level equilibrium of rural governance. From the stance of rural sustainability, only self-organization of the rural community can solve the dilemma.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Interview with a planner , July 2015.

  2. 2.

    One ethnic group living in Yunnan, China .

  3. 3.

    Interview with a village cadre of Tanggang , July 2015.

  4. 4.

    Interview with a hot-spring inn owner, July 2015.

  5. 5.

    Interview with a hot-spring inn owner, December 2015.

  6. 6.

    Interview with an official of Tangshan sub-district office, July 2015.

  7. 7.

    Ibid.

  8. 8.

    Interview with the CPC secretary of Tanggang , December 2015.

  9. 9.

    I had some short conversations with the villagers who were not engaged in the eco-tourism . They were largely unconcerned about what happened in the village and kept their former life.

  10. 10.

    In an academic dialogue on urban governance , Bing Zou, an urban planner serving Shenzhen government, also mentioned this viewpoint with a case of “violating rights of urban residents to enjoy sunshine.” See Sun et al. (2015, p.84).

  11. 11.

    Interview with a hot-spring inn owner, December 2015.

  12. 12.

    Interview with the CPC secretary of Tanggang , December 2015.

  13. 13.

    Telephone interview with a village cadre of Tanggang , March 2016.

  14. 14.

    Interview with the CPC secretary of Tanggang , December 2015.

  15. 15.

    Chien and Zhao (2015) revealed the mediated role of the state in the advancement of the less developed regions in China , in which the state used a unique and centralized personnel management system to shift knowledge and resources.

  16. 16.

    Unlike the urban pro-growth coalition in which urban dwellers are excluded, the situation in rural area is likely to form a non-growth or anti-growth coalition , and individuals and neighborhoods are no longer ignored but active players in the governance regime, see Hin and Xin (2011), Zhang (2014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Assist. Prof. Mingrui Shen

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Correspondence to Mingrui Shen .

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Shen, M. (2020). Commodification of Tangjiajia and Sustainable Governance in Question. In: Rural Revitalization Through State-led Programs. Springer Geography. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1660-3_5

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