Housing
Interests

Under the concurrence of economic liberalization and political domination in post-reform China, a new mode of urban governance emerged, involving market and societal forces under the orchestration of state entrepreneurialism. However, empirical analysis investigating governance practices in urban neighborhoods through the lens of entrepreneurial urbanism is still lacking. Drawing on comparative case studies of Shanghai and Guangzhou, this study focuses on the coproduction of consensus-oriented neighborhood governance under the influence of state entrepreneurialism and the entrepreneurial society, and develops a typology of homeowner associations (HOAs). This study enriches the concept of state entrepreneurialism by revealing how HOAs are exploited strategically as a societal instrument to achieve extra-economic governance goals in post-reform China. Our examination of civic engagement suggests a rethinking of the ambiguous manifestation of “politics” and its relevance to the entrepreneurial nature of neighborhood governance in Chinese cities. Our research foregrounds the necessity and importance of studying urban governance at the neighborhood scale.

The dramatic growth of long-term rental apartments (LRAs) in China's megacities since 2015, spurred by a series of state policies encouraging the development of the private rental sector (PRS), has culminated in many LRA firms encountering capital chain rupture and even going bankrupt within a short period. As a result, thousands of tenants were rendered homeless and many property owners were left unpaid. The present study analyses the boom and bust of LRA development in China under housing financialisation and explores the relationship between the transformative institutions – characterised by policy deregulation/re-regulation – and market performance stimulated by capital speculation. The findings of this study reveal the institutional changes in China's PRS to have been closely linked to the socio-economic changes emanated from endogenous opportunism and exogenous shocks. Specifically, the policy drift in the PRS was closely associated with deregulation and capital speculation, while policy layering was employed to institutionalise, regulate and legalise the PRS, thus mitigating the housing shortage crisis and ensuring the retention of social stability. Adapting to the volatile politico-economic circumstances as a form of punctuated equilibrium, policies governing the PRS require constant assessment and reflection to safeguard people's basic housing rights.

Previous studies have scrutinised the proliferation of privately governed neighbourhoods and the role of homeowner associations (HOAs) in governing the neighbourhood and residents' conducts in different contexts, while little attention has been paid to individual residents' agency. This research introduces a novel perspective to examine the role of neighbourhood residents and their perception of property rights, which carry significant weight in governing the private neighbourhoods in transitional urban China.