Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum

Urban poverty neighbourhoods: Typology and spatial concentrationunder China’s market transition, a case study of Nanjing

Yuting Liu a, Fulong Wu b,¤

a School of Geography, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UKb School of City and Regional Planning, CardiV University, CardiV CF10 3WA, UK

Received 11 January 2005; received in revised form 31 October 2005

Abstract

Since the transition of the economic system in the early 1990s, urban poverty has become a prominent social problem and attractedattention among Chinese oYcials and academics. However, there have been few studies on the spatiality of urban poverty. The purpose ofthis paper is to examine the spatial pattern of urban poverty in China and the mechanism of spatial concentration. Urban poverty hasbegun to concentrate in speciWc locations, mainly in three types of poverty neighbourhoods: inner-city dilapidated residence, degradedworkers’ villages and rural migrants’ enclaves. We argue that the emergence of concentrated poverty is rooted in the state-led urbandevelopment and the socialist housing provision system. Based on Weldwork in typical poverty neighbourhoods in the city of Nanjing, theconcentration of poverty is examined, and its creation mechanism is analysed. Further discussion indicates that poverty concentration inparticular neighbourhoods is diVerent from slums or ghettoes in advanced western economies.© 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Urban poverty; Poverty neighbourhood; Poverty concentration; Nanjing; China

1. Introduction

Since the 1990s, along with the market transition of theeconomic system, urban poverty has become an obvioussocial problem in China. In particular, the new urban pov-erty composed mainly of the unemployed, laid-oV workersand poor rural migrants has emerged, which has trans-formed the social structure and spatial pattern in urbanareas. Although considerable research attention has beendevoted to urban inequalities and the cause of Chinese newurban poverty (Chan, 1996; Gu and Kesteloot, 2002; Guand Liu, 2002; Gustafsson and Zhong, 2000; Fan andTaubmann, 2002; Khan and Riskin, 2001; Qian and Wong,2000; Solinger, 1999, 2001; Wang, 2002; W.P. Wu, 2002,2004; F.L. Wu, 2004), less is known about its spatial distri-bution within the city. The objectives of this paper are to

* Corresponding author.E-mail addresses: njlyt2002@yahoo.com.cn (Y. Liu), WuF@cardiV.ac.

uk (F. Wu).

0016-7185/$ - see front matter © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2005.11.006

draw the literature of urban poverty concentration inwealthier western economies to highlight the diVerence andsimilarities between Chinese urban poverty and westernsocial exclusion, to highlight the role of the state-led devel-opment and redevelopment in the spatiality of urban pov-erty, and to examine the spatial distribution of urbanpoverty through a case study of typical neighbourhoods inthe city of Nanjing.

In many western cities, since the shift towards the post-Fordist society in the mid-1970s, new urban poverty hasemerged and has been encapsulated in a broad debateabout social and spatial transformations (Badcock, 1997;Mingione, 1996). In general, two concomitant processes—economic restructuring and the social polarization of urbansociety—can be held responsible for the emergence of newurban poverty and the socially fragmented character ofwestern cities (Mingione, 1993; Kempen, 1994). The socialecology of the post-Fordist global city may be character-ized by increasing social complexity and diVerentiationamong, between and within neighbourhoods (Walker, 2001,

Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626 611

p. 440). Marcuse (1996) pointed out that the post-Fordistcity today may be seen as divided into the following quar-ters: luxury housing spots, the gentriWed city, the suburbancity, the tenement city and the abandoned city. Therefore,the abandoned city is the area of concentration of theurban poor, the unemployed and the excluded. The growthin size of the abandoned city, namely increasing ghettoiza-tion, is one of the particular spatial characteristics of thepost-Fordist city (Marcuse, 1996). In other words, withincreasing poverty in advanced industrialized countries, thespatial concentration of poverty appeared, resulting in anincrease in the number of poverty areas in large cities(McCulloch, 2001; Small and Newman, 2001; Friedrichsand Blasius, 2003). OrWeld (1998) considers that polariza-tion was to some extent the result of the emigration of themiddle class from the central cities, which left behind anisolated and socially pathological zone of concentratedpoverty. Concentrated poverty ‘is a cancer, and it is deepen-ing in intensity and spreading in scope’ (OrWeld, 1998;p. 15). Consequently, the spatial concentration of povertyhas threatened the health of the entire metropolis, andexacerbated a wide variety of social pathologies (Wilson,1987, 1996). However, Crump (2002, p. 581) refutes the useof spatial metaphors, such as the ‘concentration of poverty’or the ‘deconcentration of the poor’, as disguising the socialand political processes behind poverty and helping to pro-vide the justiWcation for simplistic spatial solutions to com-plex social, economic, and political problems. SpeciWcally,in the USA, the spatial metaphor of concentrated povertyhelps to obscure the fact that the urban ghetto is the resultof institutional racism, which deploys government policiesto purposefully segregate urban space (Wacquant, 1997). Infact, within their home census tracts, poor people are notonly concentrated but also isolated from other social clas-ses (Carter et al., 1998).

Although there has been a wide-ranging debate aboutwhether the concentration of poverty is the major cause ofsocial problems, ‘concentrated poverty’ has spread rapidlyin many Western cities. Using three dimensions of the con-cept of life chances (ligatures, provisions and entitlements)as an ordering device, Kempen (1994) argues that the roleof the spatial concentration of poverty becomes clearerwhen ‘modern poverty’ is linked to the idea of life chances.He concludes that ‘whereas living in a poverty concentra-tion area results from the restricted life chances of theurban poor, living there restricts their life chances still fur-ther’ (p. 1012). In other words, the spatial concentration ofpoverty is both an outcome and a part of the restricted lifechances of the urban poor (Kempen, 1994).

In China, economic reform over the last two decades hasincreased the gap between the rich and the poor (Loganand Bian, 1993; Nee and Matthews, 1996; Wang, 2002;Zhou, 2000). The introduction of the market economy sys-tem since the early 1990s and relevant institutional changeshave led to the new urban poverty. SpeciWcally, the adjust-ment of economic structure and the reform of state-ownedenterprises (SOEs) have resulted in larger numbers of

unemployed and laid-oV workers. Meanwhile, poor work-ers and poor retirees have emerged because of the failure ofSOEs. In addition, while enormous numbers of rurallabourers have immigrated to urban areas with the relaxa-tion of controls on population movement, most live in poorconditions under the restriction of the household registra-tion system and related policies of inequality. In fact, inten-siWed economic reform in the state sector since the 1990sand large-scale rural–urban migration have broken thesocial solidarity and spatial balance established in citiesduring the planned economy period (Wang, 2000, 2002).Accompanied by economic and social changes in China, theurban spatial structure based on workplace compounds inthe pre-reform period has gradually been damaged, andspatial and residential reorganization has been in progress(Huang, 2005; Wang, 2000; Wang and Li, 2004; Wang andMurie, 2000). Neighbourhoods of similar income or statushave appeared (Wang, 2002), certainly including povertyneighbourhoods, which show the concentration of theurban poor. Evidence suggests that there are mainly threetypes of poverty neighbourhoods—inner-city dilapidatedneighbourhoods, workers’ villages and rural migrantenclaves (F.L. Wu, 2004; W.P. Wu, 2004). The emergence ofpoverty neighbourhoods in Chinese cities indicates that thenew urban socio-spatial structure and the spatial featuresof urban poverty in China are important topics forresearch.

The dominant conceptualization of urban poverty thatviews space as static, a container or neutral backdrop inwhich action unfolds, is problematic. The importance ofspace lies in understanding it as a material product of socialrelations and their manifestation (Gotham, 2003). Theabove literature about western cities has pointed out thateconomic restructuring and social polarization are two fac-tors responsible for the emergence of new urban povertyand the concentration of the urban poor. The large povertyareas, such as the abandoned city and decayed inner city,have been produced under market-led urban development,which increased socio-spatial diVerentiation and to someextent exacerbated a wide range of social pathologies.However, the urban structure in Chinese cities has histori-cally been very diVerent from that in western cities, withhigh densities, limited suburbanisation, mixed work-unitcompounds and closer integration between industrial andresidential uses (Wu, 2005). State-led urban development inthe socialist era, on the one hand, was only limited into theconstruction of a few model workers’ residence in innerareas, leading to housing shortage. The old-city areas wereleft out of urban development. On the other hand, state-leddevelopment developed large-scale industrial areas towardsthe inner suburbs, leading to the emergence of worker’scommunities. Under market transition, while the state-ledurban development drives urban regeneration and urbanexpansion through constructing the commercial centresand commodity housing with the help of the market force,the redevelopment of the poverty residences are ignored.Under this background, while urban redevelopment and

612 Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626

urban expansion under housing marketization haveincreased the socio-spatial diVerentiation of contemporaryChinese cities, the spatial concentration of the new urbanpoor is to a great extent the direct result of state-led urbandevelopment and the socialist housing provision system.Evidence from Nanjing is used to sustain the argument.More speciWcally, through examining the changes in threetypes of poverty neighbourhoods in Nanjing, the aforemen-tioned cause of poverty concentration is tested and vali-dated. In the context of changing socio-spatial structure inurban China, we examine the spatial features of povertyconcentration in neighbourhoods and especially analyse itscreation mechanism from the perspective of urban develop-ment policy and housing provision. Discussion of the spati-ality of Chinese new urban poverty helps to develop acomparative understanding of the phenomenon.

2. Poverty concentration in urban China

The transition towards a market-oriented economy sincethe 1990s has given rise to new urban poverty in China. Theemergence of the new urban poor and increasing incomestratiWcation has contributed to the formation of a newsocio-spatial order. Considering the particular history andpolitical economy of Chinese cities, with a spatial dimen-sion of emerging social polarization to be taken into con-sideration, the spatial distribution of the new urban poorshould be examined following the development trajectoryof Chinese cities. SpeciWcally, our attention will be paidmore to the relationships between state-led urban develop-ment policies, changes in the housing provision system andthe concentration of poverty.

During the period of the socialist planning economy,despite signiWcant distinctions between rural and urbanareas, egalitarianism was the predominant ideology inChina (Chan, 1996; Solinger, 1999), and urban poverty wasnot a noticeable issue. Urban residents enjoyed a relativelyhomogeneous living standard designated by the relativelyegalitarian urban policy, which meant that there was noobvious segregation according to socioeconomic status inurban areas (Gu and Kesteloot, 2002; Yeh et al., 1995).Spatially, urban development was driven by the policy ofconcentrating limited capital to build industrial areas ininner suburbs, and thus of under-investment in the oldurban areas. On the one hand, the development of indus-trial areas along with the construction of workers’ villagesled to the concentration of workers in state manufacturingindustries in the inner suburbs. On the other hand, for thoseworkers in a collective unit or a non-state-owned work unit,there was no housing provision, and they were domiciled inthe housing provided by the municipal housing bureau inold urban areas. The change in urban landscape is mainlyrepresented as the development of the workplace com-pounds (Huang, 2005; Wu, 1996; Zhou and Logan, 1996).In general, urban spatial structure was characterized by a‘cellular structure’ based on the workplace compounds andold urban mixed residences. Consequently, the socialist

urban spatial diVerentiation rested mainly on occupationalareas rather than on social stratiWcation. For example,workers tended to live near industrial areas, whereas intel-lectuals were clustered near schools and universities (Yehet al., 1995). By and large, under the socialist housing provi-sion based on the work-unit housing and municipal hous-ing, several types of residences were produced, such as oldurban neighbourhoods, individual work-unit quarters andcomprehensive workers’ villages. As far as urban povertywas concerned, the number of the urban poor was limitedto the so-called ‘Three Nos’ (no relatives or dependents, noworking capacity and no source of income) qualiWed by theMinistry of Civil AVairs. The number of the ‘Three Nos’was very small, and spatially their distribution was dis-persed and did not show a regular pattern. In fact, therewere no obvious concentrations of poverty in socialistcities.

Market transition and relevant institutional changessince the 1990s have led to new urban poverty. A trend ofsocial polarization has appeared in urban China (Gu andKesteloot, 2002; Gu and Liu, 2002). Its spatial manifesta-tion is emerging residential segregation, which is alteringthe residential landscape previously characterized byhomogenous work-unit compounds in the period of thesocialist planned economy (Huang, 2005; Gu and Keste-loot, 2002). In fact, residential segregation in Chinese citiesis exacerbated by increasing social stratiWcation.

Seen from the angle of housing provision, the urbanhousing system is gradually changing from welfare to ‘com-modity housing’, in line with the gradual economic reforms.On the one hand, housing marketization gives a choice ofresidential location to individual households; on the otherhand, while residential relocation is partially hindered bythe persistent link between the workplace and housing pro-vision (Huang, 2005; Li, 2004; Wang and Murie, 2000; F.L.Wu, 2004; W.P. Wu, 2004) and the obtaining of currenthousing ownership (Li, 2004), urban residents possess theright of self-constituted residential mobility. As a result,housing commodiWcation and increasing freedom of hous-ing choice have contributed to the creation of residentialdiVerentiation. It should be noted that, although the intro-duction of the market mechanism has given the opportu-nity to households to choose their preferred residences, notall households are empowered by the market transition.Actually, income, wealth, and taste are paramount in hous-ing location, resulting in residential segregation accordingto social status and wealth.

Two related processes—‘residualisation’ and ‘clusterisa-tion’—lead to the spatial concentration of the new urbanpoor in Chinese cities. In Britain, better oV residents havebegun to move out of council housing, which has resultedin the concentration of minorities and low-income and low-skilled tenants in council housing, a process referred to as‘residualisation’ (Burrows, 1999; Forrest and Murie, 1990;Hamnett, 1991, 2001). Similarly, under housing commodiW-cation, rich and high-income residents have left municipalhousing in the dilapidated old urban areas and the work

Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626 613

unit housing in degraded workers’ villages in Chinese cities,which has led to the concentration of the residual unem-ployed, laid-oV workers, low-income workers and retireesin these residences. As for the rural migrants, because oftheir rural residence registration they have no right to enjoylow-rent municipal housing and are excluded from the pub-lic service domain in urban areas. Housing marketizationgives them a chance to live in the urban areas, but themajority of them, especially poor rural migrants, can onlyaVord low-rent housing in certain urban villages andbecome clustered into these villages due to the restriction oflow socioeconomic status. As a result of reinforced marketand institutional inequalities, social stratiWcation has grad-ually transformed into area-based poverty. Following theirown preferences, the rich and the middle classes havemoved into gracious neighbourhoods such as villa com-plexes and commodity housing communities producedunder housing marketisation, whereas the marginalizedgroups (such as laid-oV workers, the unemployed and ruralmigrants) are excluded from the choice of residential relo-cation because of their lower socioeconomic status, andremain either in old urban dilapidated neighbourhoods orin degraded workers’ villages in the inner suburbs, or clus-tered in rural migrant enclaves in the urban periphery.Accordingly, three types of poverty neighbourhoods haveformed in urban China: old urban dilapidated residences,workers’ villages and rural migrant enclaves, each producedby a diVerent mechanism.

3. Typology of poverty neighbourhoods

The spatiality of the new urban poverty reminds us ofthe historical root of uneven urbanization under socialismand its new manifestation under market transition. Accord-ingly, the spatial representation of urban poverty should beconsidered as a process that follows Chinese urban devel-opment. So the emergence and evolution of the three types

of poverty neighbourhoods can be traced from the histori-cal dimension (Fig. 1).

3.1. Inner-city dilapidated residences

Since the Chinese socialist system was constructed in1949, real estate in Chinese cities has been owned by thestate. As the result, those old urban residences that wereowned by private households in the pre-revolution periodwere transformed into state-owned ones. Accordingly, thehousing area in the old city created a special type of urbancommunity, where housing was managed by the municipalhousing bureau. Under the socialist planning economy,state-led urban development focused on establishing thefactory system and constructing the work-unit compound.Accordingly, the dilapidated old urban residences thatlargely conform to the distribution of shantytowns andshack dwellings in the pre-1949 period were left out of realestate development. In other words, these areas were notthoroughly redeveloped in the socialist era, not onlybecause urban development was limited to a few workers’villages due to the policy of constraining consumption, butalso as a result of the state-led industrialization strategy,which favoured large-scale, capital-intensive and heavyindustries. Correspondingly, the municipal housing in thedilapidated old urban residences is aVordable at a low levelof rent for those residents who are employed in small, low-ranking, or non-state-owned work units, which have nocapability of providing housing.

In the 1990s, the state-led urban development in Chinabegan to follow the market rules to arrange land use and toadjust its functional structure, which may be represented asurban regeneration and urban sprawl with incentives fromthe boom in real estate development. Consequently, urbanresidential spaces have seen a great change, and present thecoexistence of dilapidated neighbourhoods and gentriWca-tion neighbourhoods in the inner city, the residential

\Fig. 1. The spatial concentration of urban poverty and its creation mechanism.

Old-city neighbourhoods

Workers’ villages Urban villagesCommodity

housing community

State-led urban development

Housing marketization

Old-city dilapidated residences

Degraded workers’ villages

Rural migrants’ enclaves

Socialist housing provision

The unit The state Developer

The urban poor Poor migrants

Local villager

Better off residents

Mechanisms

Housing provider

Urban communities

Housing demand

Poverty neighbourhoods

614 Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626

relocation of middle-to-low classes to suburban areas, theconstruction of top-grade communities near suburbs andthe emergence of ‘urban villages’ in the urban–rural fringearea. In general, the boom in real estate development hastwo main aspects: redevelopment in the inner city and thedevelopment of commodity housing in the urban periphery.As far as the old urban areas are concerned, the redevelop-ment has been selective. Although the urban regenerationlaunched by the state with the help of real estate agents hashad a great impact on the old urban area, many dilapidatedtraditional residences have been left out of redevelopmentdue to the high density of urban poverty groups and thehigh socioeconomic cost. Wealthy residents who had bene-Wted and proWted from the economic reform or from theirown employment units could not endure the over-crowdingand poor living conditions, and have gradually moved outof these old urban residences through commodity housingpurchase. The residual residents are mainly composed ofthe elderly, laid-oV workers, the unemployed and low-income families, who cannot aVord to move. Meanwhile, inview of the central location and lower rents, many ruralmigrants are attracted to these residences through privaterental. In fact, these residences have been the areas of con-centration for the new urban poverty groups. A shabbybuilding landscape, a poor living environment and a con-centration of poverty groups are the obvious characteristicsof these dilapidated old urban residences.

3.2. Degraded workers’ villages

As mentioned earlier, in urban China the socialist statebuilt industrial areas in the inner suburbs. Consequently,work units’ provision of housing for their employees as awelfare system led to the emergence of comprehensiveworkers’ villages (Ai and Wang, 2001) and the concentra-tion of workers in state manufacturing industries in thesevillages. Furthermore, since the early 1980s, in order toimprove housing conditions for the workers of SOEs andprovide housing for returned xiafang population (xiafang,literally meaning ‘sending-down’—urban residents weresent down the countryside in the anti-urban campaign inthe mid and late 1960s) mainly employed in SOEs, the stateand the SOEs collaborated in the large-scale constructionof workers’ villages in the inner suburbs, which has furthercontributed to the concentration of state industrial employ-ees. However, to reduce cost, the workers’ housing wasdeveloped according to the principle of the maximization ofaccess to the workplace and the minimization of construc-tion costs, using low design standards and a high buildingdensity.

The construction of these workers’ villages as a result ofstate policy in the socialist planning system sowed the seedsof poverty concentration during the period of economicrestructuring. As Winter and Bryson (1998) point out, inAustralia the construction of ‘Holdenist’ suburbia throughstate intervention presents the following characteristics:‘[houses were] built by government on a large scale and

with a uniform appearance; constructed from poor quality,cheap materials; on land adjacent to manufacturingemployment; home to, by national standards, high percent-ages of public renters; predominantly working class; andassociated with a stigmatised image’ (p. 61). They arguethat political choices in housing provision in the 1950s and1960s such as the construction of Holdenist suburbia havecontributed to the concentration of urban poverty. ‘Theunforeseeable consequences of economic restructuring dur-ing the 1970s and 1980s then magniWed the shortcomings ofthese earlier decisions’ (p. 61). Similarly, with the adjust-ment of industrial structure and the reform of the SOEssince the 1990s, there have been two most dramatic changesin workers’ villages in urban China. Although not all work-ers’ villages are poverty-stricken areas, many were amongthe worst hit by the redundancies accompanying SOEreform and became areas where the housing of laid-oVworkers and the unemployed is now concentrated. Becauseof the lack of maintenance, together with the initial lowquality, these workers’ communities are now deterioratinginto degraded residential areas.

3.3. Rural migrants’ enclaves

Urban sprawl is one of the major characteristics of rapidurbanization in China. The large-scale construction ofindustrial areas and commodity housing has been put intopractice in suburban areas. Under the state-led urban devel-opment (the state takes the responsibility for requisitionland and relocation of local residents to support the enter-prises and the real estate developers in construction), whilethe large quantity of farmland has been conWscated, therural villages have been left to the local villagers (the villagecollective) to avoid the higher relocation compensation. Asa result, many urban–rural fringe villages have beenencroached, which has led to the emergence of ‘urban vil-lages’ (chengzhongcun). Due to the co-existence of two landuse systems (the urban land lease system and collective landownership in rural areas), the urban village is thereforecharacterized by chaotic land uses and a dense mixture ofhousing tenures (Zhang et al., 2003). It is easier for local vil-lagers to lease rooms because of the lack of regulation, andit is cheaper for migrants to Wnd private rental housing inthese villages. The concentration of rural migrants in urbanvillages is to some extent the result of institutional restric-tions. There is a general disadvantage to all migrants inaccess to urban housing as they are largely excluded fromthe mainstream housing distribution system. Althoughsome rural migrants can indirectly rent municipal housingthrough private subleases, it is impossible for the majorityof rural migrants to acquire the right of use or ownership ofwork-unit or municipal housing in urban areas. While a fewmigrants possess higher socioeconomic status, most ofthem are limited to heavy, dirty, dangerous and low-paidjobs, leading to lower socioeconomic status. As a result,although housing marketization gives migrants the right topurchase commodity housing, most migrants, especially

Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626 615

poor rural migrants, do not have the economic ability togain access to such housing. Consequently, renting hasbecome the best choice for migrants who live in urbanareas.

The emergence of the urban village provides the possibil-ity of accommodation for the majority of rural migrants.First, urban villages are mainly located in the urban fringein which economic functions are concentrated in the formof industrial areas and the great wholesale market. Increas-ing employment opportunities attract migrants to concen-trate in these areas and rent housing in urban villages.Second, the availability of rental housing, especially at alower rent and with a larger living space, is another factorattracting migrants to live in urban villages. Consequently,the concentration of rural migrants in these chengzhongcunhas de facto made them become ‘migrant enclaves’ (Maand Xiang, 1998; W.P. Wu, 2002). Private rental housinghas brought a steady income to local farmers in urban vil-lages, and local governments sometimes beneWt from charg-ing a fee on migrants, which further encourages illegalconstruction and exacerbates residential crowding. How-ever, with the lack of eYcient management and planning,some enclaves of poor migrants appear as dilapidated andcrowded bungalows, illegal shacks in narrow alleys,unpaved and often Wlthy streets amidst the typical urbanlandscape of the suburbs.

In sum, the spatial concentration of the new urban pooris to a great extent the result of state-led urban develop-ment and the socialist housing provision system. Althoughthe emergence of ‘urban villages’ in a Xourishing urbansprawl potentially adds a new residential form of newurban poverty (that is ‘poor migrant enclaves’ with aconvergence of poor rural migrants), the existence of threetypical neighbourhoods of poverty concentration indicatesthat the spatial distribution of new urban poverty has aweakened relationship with housing marketization. Inother words, poverty neighbourhoods are being left behindurban redevelopment and urban expansion under realestate marketization. Furthermore, from the viewpoint ofthe individual motivation of residential choice, althoughresidents can choose their housing according to their ownresidential preferences since the system of workplace-basedhousing provision was abolished and the reform of housingmarketization was implemented in 1998, there still exists adistinction of residential preference between the diVerentsocial classes according to their socioeconomic status. Theupper middle classes with a higher socioeconomic statuscan choose ideal residences in the housing market accord-ing to their own preference, while urban poverty groups areunable to exert their right of independent residential choicedue to their lack of socioeconomic capacity. Urban povertygroups usually choose their residences according to whatthey can aVord, which is limited by their lower socioeco-nomic status. As a result, the urban poor can only choose toreside in the old urban areas and the workers’ communities,and poor rural migrants only rent housing in the inner-cityareas and urban villages after considering factors such as

the low level of rents and traYc accessibility. The residen-tial distribution of urban poverty groups presents a cluster-ing phenomenon in some neighbourhoods. To sum up, thestate-led urban development, available housing provisionand the vulnerable group’s lower socio-economic abilitywork together to produce poverty concentration in thethree types of neighbourhoods.

In the following two sections, we examine the distribu-tion of the urban poor and trace the development andchange of three typical poverty neighbourhoods in Nan-jing.

4. Urban development and poverty concentration: a case study of Nanjing

Nanjing is a typical large city in the coastal region ofChina, combining a centuries-old history and modern char-acteristics. In Chinese history, Nanjing was the capital of 10dynasties. Before the CCP came into power in 1949, it wasthe capital of the Nationalist government. Now, as the cap-ital of Jiangsu province, Nanjing, with an administrativearea of 6515 km2 and a total population of 5.72 million, isone of the political, economic and cultural centres in theYangtze River Delta, which is the most prosperous andpromising area in China.

Without doubt, historical legacy has partly contributedto the distribution of the urban poor in Nanjing. Accordingto ‘the Capital Construction Plan’ under the nationalistgovernment before 1949, Nanjing was divided into severalobvious functional areas such as political, industrial, com-mercial, cultural and educational, and residential areas.The construction of the Xingjiekou commercial centre andthe gracious Yihelu residence (please see Fig. 4, also for thenames mentioned in the following text) are representativeof how the northern part of Nanjing city became the prior-ity area for urban development at that time. Meanwhile,most governmental sectors and universities being concen-trated into the northern part, where Gulou and Xuanwudistricts are now, along with the up-scale construction ofresidential areas, the northern part of the city was the edu-cational and administrative area with a concentration ofintellectuals and political elites. In contrast, the southernpart of the city—Chengnan, literally ‘southern city’ whichbroadly covers the area between Xinjiekou and Yuhuatairemained as a traditional old urban region in which handi-craft workers, small stores and other ordinary urbanitesconcentrated. Chengnan also was the area in which ruralmigrants and refugees were concentrated during and afterthe war years. In 1949, over 0.2 million people lived in 309shanty areas scattered over Chengnan, primarily along therailway or near the city wall (Chen et al., 2006). The north–south segregation (the rich north and the poor south) of thecity was the prominent characteristic of urban developmentin that era.

Since the 1950s, the socialist state-led urban develop-ment has become the dominant factor to form the urbanspatial structure of Nanjing and inXuenced the distribution

616 Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626

of the urban population. The municipality of Nanjing cityprioritized investment in the construction of industrialareas in the inner suburbs. Like other socialist cities, thecity of Nanjing was characterized by a lower level of urban-ization compared with the level of industrialization. As aresult, and considering also the restriction of natural condi-tions by the Yangtze river in the west of city and Zijingmountain in the east, the city’s development has sprawledfurther towards the north of the city outside the CentralGate (Zhongyang Meng) of the city wall and the southwestinner suburbs, while many houses built in the Qing Dynastyhave remained in the old urban areas of Chengnan. The his-torical shanty areas and dilapidated old urban areas inChengnan have still been left out of redevelopment. Mostresidents there are tenants of municipal housing, and thearea has seen an over-representation of the aged, theretired, the jobless, low-income households and employeesin low-ranking collective units. On the other hand, as one ofthe most important industrial cities, Nanjing deployedmany large-scale state-owned enterprises in traditionalindustrial sectors during the period of the centrally plannedeconomy. New industrial areas were built, extending fromthe Central Gate to Maigaoqiao (originally a small ruralvillage) in the northern part of the city and from Yuhuataito Banqiao in the south-western inner suburb of the city,containing the machinery and electronic industries respec-tively. Most neighbourhoods in these industrial areas weredominated by a few large state work-units, presenting asareas in which the residences of industrial workers wereconcentrated.

Coming into the 1980s, the municipality of Nanjing cityimplemented a policy of urban development, ‘regenerationof the old city integrating with development of the newareas’, to deal with the housing shortage. Consequently,most of the shanty areas and some old urban neighbour-hoods were redeveloped into mixed residences togetherwith other functional uses such as commercial areas understate-led regeneration. Since the 1990s, because the Wnancialability of the state to renew the old city is limited, redevel-opment in old urban areas has been transformed to bebased on the market factor. However, market-oriented realestate development is less eVective in regenerating the worstdilapidated residential areas. In those areas that have loweraccessibility or a high concentration of poorer residentssuch as the east part and west part of Zhonghua gate in theChengnan old urban area, redevelopment has becomeextremely diYcult. Better-oV residents have graduallymoved out of these areas, and residents there are mainlycomposed of the aged, the jobless, the laid-oV and unem-ployed persons and their families.

Accordingly, the development of new areas was pre-sented as the large-scale construction of workers’ commu-nities in the 1980s as a way of providing housing forworkers (including returned xiafang persons) in these SOEsin the urban fringe, such as Nanhu to the southwest of thecity, Wubaicun in the northwest, Wusuocun in the northetc., which resulted in the further concentration of indus-

trial workers. Since the 1990s, however, Nanjing city hasexperienced industrial restructuring, from labour-intensiveindustries to capital-intensive and technology-intensiveindustries, from traditional manufacturing sectors to mod-ern manufacturing sectors and services. Consequently,state-owned enterprises in the traditional manufacturingsector are facing close-down and transformation, which hasled to increasing unemployment and lay-oVs. Laid-oVworkers and unemployed persons accounted for 14.2% and3.6% respectively of the labour force in Nanjing in 2001(NSB, 2002). The closure of the work-unit had a disastrouseVect on many workers’ villages and workers’ communities,many of them becoming areas of concentration of laid-oVworkers and unemployed persons, such as Nanhu, Wubai-cun and Wusuocun etc. In Nanhu in the south-westerninner suburbs, the proWle of residents is dominated by low-status employees. About 82% of residents are industrialworkers, while technical staV account for only 1.6% andenterprise cadres only about 3.6% (Wu, 2001). This commu-nity has now deteriorated due to the concentration of laid-oV workers.

Through the location quotients for the new urban poor,the residential concentration of the new urban poor in astreet-oYce area (sub-district) can be measured quantita-tively in comparison with the concentration of urban pov-erty throughout the urban areas. According to the MLSP(Minimum Living Standard Programme) recipients dis-aggregated into the street-oYce area in Nanjing in 2002, thenumber of the new urban poor (including retirees, laid-oVworkers, unemployed persons, low-paid workers and theirfamilies) could be accounted for by subtracting the “ThreeNos”. The location quotients range from 0.2 to 2.71 in 42street-oYce areas of the city zone, and all of these street-oYce areas are divided into 5 categories based on the classi-Wcation of equal interval. The top two categories withhigher values represent street-oYce areas with greater con-centrations. As Fig. 2 shows, there are several obviouspockets of poverty concentration: Mufushan and Bao-taqiao in Xiaguan district, Jiankanglu in Baixiaqu district,and Nanhu in Jianye district. Mufushan and Baotaqiaobelong to the traditional industrial areas near the portalong the Yangtze River in the north of the city, Jiankanglurepresents the old urban dilapidated areas in Chengnan, andNanhu is a typical worker’s village in the southwest of thecity. Fig. 2 also indicates, as a whole, that the southern partof the city, the southwest and the north outside ZhongyangMeng have seen higher poverty concentration, because theyeither belong to the old areas or have developed into indus-trial uses and workers’ villages. In contrast, the central andeast districts such as Gulou and Xuanwu function as thepolitical, cultural, educational and commercial centres andhave lower poverty concentration.

In addition, as Nanjing is the provincial capital and amodern large city, a great number of rural migrants havebeen attracted to migrate into its urban area since the1980s. According to the data of the Fifth Population Cen-sus, there is a migrant population of 0.75 million in Nanjing

Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626 617

city, amounting to 17.0% of the total population (NCO,2002). While few rural migrants rent housing in some inner-city areas with a central location such as Gulou, Jianye andBaixia, the increasing employment opportunities in theurban fringe or the inner suburbs, due to the concentrationof construction of industrial areas (such as the northernindustrial area of the city outside the Central Gate) andvaried large-scale wholesale markets (such as the southernwholesale market groups of structural materials), attractthe majority of rural migrants to cluster in these areas. Fur-thermore, the emergence of urban villages in the urbanfringe resulting from the urban sprawl provide cheap pri-vate rental housing for rural migrants, making possible theconcentration of rural migrants there. As a result, sometypical rural migrant enclaves have emerged, such as Suojie(Henancun) and Xiyingcun etc. Fig. 3 maps the locationquotients for the migrant population in the Fifth Popula-tion Census on the street-oYce areas, which validates theabove argument. The location quotient ranges from 0.5 to2.59 in 55 street-oYce areas of the city zone and the innersuburbs. Similarly, all of these street-oYce areas are dividedinto 5 categories, based on the classiWcation of equal inter-val, and the top two categories with higher values representthe street-oYce areas with greater concentrations ofmigrant population. From Fig. 3, we can see that the higherconcentration subdistricts of the migrant populationinclude Maigaoqiao in Qixia district, Hongshan in Xuanwudistrict, Jiangdong in Gulou district, Shimenkan in Baixia

district, Honghua in Qinhuai district, Xinglong in Jiangyedistrict, and Shazhou and Ningnan in Yuhua district. All ofthese areas are located in the urban fringe or the inner sub-urbs.

In sum, the state-led urban development and housingprovision in Nanjing city have made a great contribution tothe concentration of new urban poverty groups, whichpresent as concentrations into certain communities in theold urban areas, inner suburbs and the urban fringe.Despite the above two Wgures showing that the distributionpattern of the new urban poverty is concentration at thestreet-oYce level, the scale of the street-oYce area might bestill too coarse to reXect the diVerentiation among smallerspatial units such as neighbourhoods or residents’ commit-tee areas (juweihui). To deepen the understanding of thecauses of the creation of poverty concentration at theneighbourhood level, in the following section three typicalpoverty neighbourhoods are selected for analysis of theirdevelopment.

5. Dynamics of poverty neighbourhoods in Nanjing

Pingshijie, Wubaicun and Xiyingcun are selected as repre-sentatives of the neighbourhood of poverty concentration,and respectively represent the old urban dilapidated resi-dences, the degraded workers’ village and the rural migrants’enclave. Their locations are shown in Fig. 4. The survey wasconducted in these three poverty neighbourhoods in 2004.

Fig. 2. Location quotients for the urban poor (measured in MLSP recipients) in Nanjing. Source: Calculated from Nanjing Civil AVair Bureau (2002).

618 Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626

We Wrstly select the three typical poor neighbourhoodsbased on the analysis of the oYcial statistics, which holdhigh concentrations of MLSP recipients and the migrantpopulations. In June 2004, we conducted the in-depth inter-views in these neighbourhoods with 20 urban poverty house-holds and 15 poor rural migrant households; they wereselected through address-based random sampling. The streetoYce cadres and residents’ committees (a neighbourhoodorganization) help us reach them. The directors of the resi-dents’ committee were also interviewed so as to understandthe history, changes in the socio-economic composition ofhouseholds, management of these typical poor neighbour-hoods. The oYcial statistical data at neighbourhoods’ levelwere provided by three residents’ committee.

5.1. Pingshijie: a deteriorating old urban residence

Pingshijie is situated in the southern old urban area ofNanjing in which the ordinary residents traditionally lived,and is near the southwest of Xinjiekou—the modern com-mercial centre of Nanjing city. The neighbourhood wasoriginally built in the Ming Dynasty of the 15th century,and matured in the late Qing Dynasty of the late 19th cen-tury. All of the one to two storey buildings in this neigh-bourhood were wooden, and every large residentialbuilding has Wve to six cascading entry doors, forming thearchitectural style of the strip courtyard. In the feudal era,

this neighbourhood was the area in which the commonpeople were concentrated, and typical cafes and restaurantswere laid out along the Pingshijie road. In World War Two,Nanjing city was invaded and destroyed, and subsequentlythe former prosperity of Pingshijie disappeared. Fortu-nately, those buildings of the late Qing Dynasty remained.In the last years under the nationalist government, as tradi-tional commercial streets and the residence of the commonpeople, this neighbourhood became in turn a communitywith a concentration of middle- to low-income retailers andcraftsmen.

After the coming to power of the Chinese CommunistParty, China implemented the planned economic system,transforming private economy into state-owned or collec-tively-owned economy. All of these retailers and craftsmenwere recruited into collective units to be industrial workersaccording to the co-operation system of the public and theprivate (gongsi heying). Meanwhile, against the backgroundof the concentrated construction of industrial areas in theinner suburbs of Nanjing, Pingshijie as well as the wholeold urban area were left out of redevelopment due to thelack of investment. Due to long-term war and lack of hous-ing construction, the housing shortage was the basic prob-lem in Nanjing as in other socialist Chinese cities. Since thehousing in Pingshijie was assigned to be managed by themunicipal housing bureau under public transition of prop-erty, in addition to a few inherited private houses (about

Fig. 3. Location quotients for migrant population (in Fifth Population Census) in Nanjing. Source: Nanjing Statistic Bureau, the Fifth Population Census(2000).

Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626 619

1% of all housing) with restricted rights to sell, some work-ers in small and collectively owned enterprises which couldnot provide living quarters for their employees wereorganized to crush into this neighbourhood and share itshousing. As the result, several households had to live inpartitioned housing that had previously served for a singlefamily. As a whole, with a high population density, Pings-hijie had become a neighbourhood with a concentration ofthe elderly, the jobless and employees in small, low-rankedunits.

Since the 1980s, despite the redevelopment of the old cityin Nanjing driven by the state, this area has still beenneglected by government-led redevelopment because of thehigh population density in this central location. Underhousing marketization in the 1990s, the neighbourhood wasstill overlooked by the municipality and real estate develop-ers because of the high cost of relocation compensation. Infact, Pingshijie has now become a typical old dilapidatedurban residence surrounded by modern buildings (Figs. 5and 6), with a population of about 4000 and an area of 8 ha.Buildings in this area still retain the architectural styles ofthe late Qing Dynasty; however, many of these old woodenhouses have deteriorated and become dangerous (Fig. 7)due to a lack of maintenance. Moreover, due to the highnatural growth in population and the consequent enlarge-ment of household size (average 3.4 persons per household,in contrast with the Nanjing city average of 2.9 persons),

the population density here has increased by 100%. Nowalmost every large residential building is shared by more

Fig. 5. The built environment of Pingshijie.

Fig. 4. Locations of poverty neighbourhoods and some districts in Nanjing.

620 Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626

than 20 households, and many extended families are oftenpacked into one Xat of less than 25 m2. In terms of Xoorspace (Xoor space refers to the gross housing area, which ishigher than the actual dwelling area), Pingshijie possessesonly 6.0 m2 per capita, while the average Xoor space of Nan-jing is 20 m2 per capita. Consequently, some residents havechosen to construct shanties around their houses to enlargetheir housing space.

Fig. 6. Panorama of Pingshijie.

Fig. 7. Building in Pingshijie.

Overcrowding and bad living conditions have become theprimary problem in Pingshijie. Intolerable housing condi-tions have driven relatively wealthy families (about 21% ofthe total number of families, more than 1000 population) torelocate into other areas through purchasing commodityhousing. The houses vacated from these families were notshared by the other local residents, and instead they havebeen subleased to rural migrants. The rural migrants, about8% of the total population in this neighbourhood, have grad-ually occupied the houses through private rental, attractedby its central location. The residual local residents are nowmainly composed of older people, laid-oV workers, and theunemployed and low-income families who cannot aVord tomove. According to the oYcial statistical data from resi-dents’ committee, older people above 60 years comprise one-Wfth of the total population, and registered laid-oV workersand the unemployed who were originally employed in collec-tive enterprises (the majority of them having become bank-rupt in the market transition) occupy about 10% of the totalpopulation. Therefore, Pingshijie has become a povertyneighbourhood. According to the statistics, the income levelhere is very low. About 70% of households have an incomelevel below 1000 Yuan (about $120) per month (about 303Yuan per capita), and the highest monthly householdincome level is only between 1500 and 2000 Yuan. The statis-tics indicate that the percentage of people in absolute pov-erty in the total urban population, that is the percentage ofthe MLSP recipients (the minimum living standard is 220Yuan per person per month, about $26.5), is 4.5%, which isfar higher than the Nanjing city average of 1.6%.

5.2. Wubaicun: a degraded workers’ village

Wubaicun, with a population of about 5000 and an areaof 7.5 ha, is located in the northern industrial area of Nan-jing, with the Zhongyang Meng of Nanjing city near to itssouth. Its neighbouring east and north contain industrialfactories, and some good enterprises have developed resi-dential communities with good living conditions to the nearwest and south of this worker’s village. Before 1979, it was avegetable plantation and a self-sown rural village in thenorthern inner suburbs of Nanjing city. In 1979, consider-ing the low-cost allocation in the urban periphery, the stateinitiated the construction of a worker’s village in this areato provide housing for the returned xiafang population,who were employed in collective or small state-ownedenterprises because of their low skills and low qualiWca-tions. Meanwhile, the original villagers were transformedinto urban residents and employed in the above type ofenterprises. Consequently, the physical and the sociologicalcharacteristics of the neighbourhood have been modiWedby the development of the state-led housing estate. Theconcentration of 5000 people in public housing meant aconcentration of industrial workers.

This residence counts 58 apartment blocks, all of themhaving two to six levels (Figs. 8 and 9). Most of theapartments have 1 or 2 bedrooms and a few of them have 3

Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626 621

bedrooms. The Xoor space of an apartment is on average35 m2, at most 60 m2 and at least 20 m2. At the beginning,the state promised that these apartments were only tempo-rary accommodation for returned workers, for about 5–8years. As a result, the construction quality is very poor, andthere are no balconies or toilets in the buildings. However,the promise of the state did not materialize. So far themajority of the initial residents still live in these degradedapartments. Most of this social housing has degraded intodangerous buildings, due to the poor construction qualityand the lack of maintenance. Furthermore, 20 years havegone by and the descendants of the initial residents have

Fig. 8. The built environment of Wubaicun.

Fig. 9. Landscape in Wubaicun.

grown up. Consequently, the average dwelling area of 25 m2

initially distributed to each household is no longer enoughfor the extended family. To enlarge their housing space, res-idents have randomly constructed shanties near their hous-ing. These appear as disorderly bungalows and illegalshacks, without green land or public places except for onemain street (Wubaicun road), along with some stores.

Since the 1990s, Wubaicun has become encompassedwithin the urban district due to urban sprawl. The con-struction of this residence in the late 1970s aimed to pro-vide housing for returned xiafang people. Since thereturned xiafang populations are of relatively low qualityand low education level, most of them were employed incollective or small state-owned industrial enterprises. As aresult, this village became a concentrated community oftraditional industrial workers. However, the majority ofthese district-owned or subdistrict-owned collective unitswent bankrupt one after the other under the industrialrestructuring and reform of SOEs in the late 1990s, whichconsequently led to a higher percentage of laid-oV in thiscommunity than in other areas in which there has been amore diversiWed occupation structure. Furthermore, it isdiYcult for these laid-oV workers to be reemployed in mod-ern enterprises or service sectors, because most of themhave a low education level and are older. In fact, this resi-dence has now become a typical degraded workers’ village,with a concentration of laid-oV workers and unemployedpopulation. According to the statistics, the percentage ofthe registered laid-oV workers and unemployed people inthe total residents is about 40%. At the same time, olderpeople also occupy a higher percentage, about 17% of totalpopulation. Because most of these old people are also theolder low-quality returned xifang populations from thattime, their descendants’ education has been neglected andtheir quality is accordingly lower. Consequently, while mostold people are able to have a retirement pension, theirhouseholds live in poverty conditions as their descendantseither cannot Wnd good jobs or are jobless. According toour interviews, adults depending on their older parents (laoyang xiao, literally the elderly fostering the younger genera-tion) is a general phenomenon in Wubaicun. Householdpoverty is one of the prominent problems of this degradedworkers’ village. According to the statistics, the percentageof people in absolute poverty in the total urban populationis as high as 5%. About 65% of households have an incomelevel below 1000 Yuan per month (about 303 Yuan percapita), and households with an income level below 1500Yuan even reach 93% of all households.

5.3. Xiyingcun: a marginal rural migrants’ enclave

Xiyingcun is situated in the southern inner suburbs ofNanjing city, and its area is 5.5 ha. Originally, this neigh-bourhood is a self-sown rural village similar to Wubaicun.Due to urban spread and the construction of the industrialarea, Xiyingcun has, since the late 1980s, gradually beenencompassed by the urban built-up area and industrial

622 Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626

uses. Dating back to 1982, Nanjing Lumber Company, astate-owned enterprise, Wrstly requisitioned the near westlot of Xiyingcun to construct a lumber yard. Subsequently,some small timber retail companies settled nearby. By thelate 1980s, the timber market group Saihongqiao JiancaiShichang (construction materials market) had formed inthe west and north of Xiyingcun. In the early 1990s, someliving quarters for state-owned enterprises were con-structed in the near east and south of Xiyingcun. Further-more, commercial buildings such as Yingqiao WholesaleMarket and Runtai Market have gradually encroached onthe residual farmland. Consequently, Xiyingcun has beensurrounded and become an isolated urban village. In 1994it was transformed from a suburban village into a resi-dents’ committee area administered by Saihongqiao sub-district. While its rural farmland was requisitioned to meetthe demands of industrial development and urban exten-sion, the built-up village land is still owned by the villagecollective (actually all of the local villagers) in order toavoid the payment of high compensation for the relocationof residents.

Accordingly, changes have taken place in the socioeco-nomic proWle of the population in Xiyingcun. Since thelate 1980s, the local villagers in Xiyingcun have graduallybeen recruited into collective enterprises such as the Nan-jing Sartorius Factory and Boiler Factory, and havebecome industrial workers as compensation for losingfarmland. Moreover, with the transformation from villageto residents’ committee area in 1994, all of the local villag-ers were changed to urban residents with urban hukou(residential household registration). In recent years,because these collective enterprises have closed down oneafter the other, these villagers have become unemployed.Fortunately, they still possess the use right of the land plotfor their houses in the built-up village. Since the mid-1990s, with the construction of many great wholesale mar-kets near Xiyingcun such as Saihongqiao Timber Market,Kuashiji Decoration City and Yinqiao Market, Xiyingcunand nearby areas have become concentration areas for the

rural migrants employed in these markets. Furthermore,due to their location in the urban fringe, their low rentsand relatively convenient traYc routes have attractedmany rural migrants to move into this village since the1990s. Moreover, when many migrants found jobs there,their spouses and children came to accompany them. As aresult, the number of rural migrants in Xiyingcun hasgreatly increased in the last few years. While the numberof local villagers in Xiyingcun is 843 persons, the numberof rural migrants shows a seasonal Xuctuation from 4000persons at least to 6000 persons at most. Rural migrantsconstitute over 70% of the total population in Xiyingcun.Furthermore, most rural migrants have low-paid manualwork, such as construction, repair and delivery, and alsolarger numbers of dependants, resulting in bad living con-ditions. About 82% of migrant households have an incomelevel below 1000 Yuan per month (about 295 Yuan percapita), and almost all migrant households have anincome level below 1500 Yuan.

In addition, overcrowding, jumbled buildings and poorinfrastructure are prominent problems in Xiyingcun (Figs.10 and 11). Since numerous rural migrants have concen-trated in this residence, the local villagers have made large-scale illegal constructions, mainly two to four-storeybuildings, to acquire higher income from rent. The localhouseholds in Xiyingcun have on average 20 rooms perhousehold. The local residents live in the biggest room,about 15 m2. Other rooms, averaging 6–8 m2, are rented tomigrants. In Xiyingcun, there is almost no green land orpublic space except for one main street along with manyretail stores and disorderly stalls (Fig. 12). With a lack oftoilets in these rented rooms, two public water closets arenot enough for so many migrants. Furthermore, no publicspace can be aVorded for the construction of public waterclosets. Additionally, because of too much population andtheir low quality, litter is often thrown away. Environmen-tal sanitation is very poor in Xiyingcun. By and large, Xiy-ingcun has become an enclave with numerous poor ruralmigrants and poor living conditions.

Fig. 10. Location and the built environment of Xiyingcun.

Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626 623

6. Conclusion and discussion

Since the mid-1990s Chinese urban poverty has becomean obvious social problem along with the market transitionof the economic system. This paper analyses the spatialfeatures of Chinese urban poverty as evidenced in Nanjingcity. This is a topic that has been relatively under-researched in comparison with the considerable researchattention on the causes of urban poverty in China. Based

Fig. 11. Crowded living environment in Xiyingcun.

Fig. 12. Main street in Xiyingcun.

on the research contained herein, it appears that, asthe direct result of state-led urban development and social-ist housing provision, Chinese urban poverty spatiallypresents the concentration of the urban poor at theneighbourhood level. That is to say, the urban poor are con-centrated into several types of poverty neighbourhoods.

SpeciWcally, the study indicates that the residential dis-tribution of urban poverty groups has been producedmainly under state-led urban development and socialisthousing provision. State-led urban development in social-ist China focused on the construction of industrial areas inthe inner suburbs, retaining the under-investment in theredevelopment of the old urban areas. On the one hand,the development of industrial areas consequentiallyaccompanied the construction of workers’ villages underworkplace-based housing provision, which led to the con-centration of workers in state manufacturing industries inthe inner suburbs. On the other hand, workers in collectiveunits or non-state-owned work units which could not pro-vide housing for their employees were domiciled in hous-ing managed by the municipal housing bureaus in oldurban areas. By this token, the current old dilapidatedurban residences and degraded workers’ villages aredescended from the neighbourhoods where the potentialurban poor in the social planned economy clustered. Inother words, some workers’ villages and old urban resi-dences with concentrations of traditional industrial work-ers have now degraded to become the new povertyneighbourhoods.

Since the 1990s, under market transition of economicsystem, the state has gradually employed market factor toquicken urban development and urban regenerationthrough the blooming real estate sector. While the munici-pality encourages real estate developers to develop com-mercial areas and construct the large-scale commodityhousing for the middle-top classes so as to drive the eco-nomic growth, the housing problem of the urban poor hasbeen laid aside, and the residence of poverty concentrationsuch as workers’ village and old urban residences are leftout of redevelopment considering the high redevelopmentcost. Consequently, ‘residualisation’ has taken place in theaforementioned two types of neighbourhoods. While theprovision of commodity housing has given the rich andthe middle class the opportunity to move out of the oldurban dilapidated neighbourhoods and degraded workers’villages since the reform of housing marketization inthe mid-1990s, these two types of neighbourhood havebecome residences with concentrations of residual margin-alized groups such as laid-oV workers, the unemployed,retirees and low-income households, as a result of theindustrial restructuring and the reform of the SOEs. Addi-tionally, for the rural migrants, despite having no rightto enjoy social housing, they have obtained the chance tolive in urban areas through private rental under housingmarketization. However, the majority of them, especiallythe poor rural migrants, can only aVord low-rent hous-ing in some urban villages due to the restriction of low

624 Y. Liu, F. Wu / Geoforum 37 (2006) 610–626

socioeconomic status, which has led to the concentrationof poor rural migrants in urban villages. In sum, the exis-tence of three typical neighbourhoods of poverty concen-tration indicates that the spatial distribution of urbanpoverty is not just dependent upon market-based realestate development. All of these poverty neighbourhoodsare de facto the derelicts of the state-led urban redevelop-ment and urban sprawl.

The case study of Nanjing has revealed the distributionfeature of the urban poor and the diVerent developmentpaths of three poverty neighbourhoods. Pingshijie, as anold dilapidated urban residence, has been left out of urbanredevelopment due to its high population density and rela-tively high regeneration cost, and has become a clusteringarea for the urban poor and rural migrants. Wubaicun, asa workers’ village constructed in the late 1970s, hasdegraded into a poverty neighbourhood, mainly concen-trating laid-oV workers, unemployed persons and earlyretirees. And Xiyingcun, as an encroached urban villagesince the early 1990s, has attracted many rural migrants torent housing there due to its location near large-scalewholesale markets, and has become a poor rural migrants’enclave. In sum, low socioeconomic status and poor livingconditions constitute the common proWle of these threepoverty neighbourhoods. In contrast, although there aresome disputes about the after-eVects of poverty concentra-tion in many western cities, much research indicates thatthe spatial concentration of poverty is a major cause ofsocial problems such as joblessness, poverty and crime(Jencks, 1992; Massey et al., 1994; Wilson, 1987, 1996;MacDonald, 1997; Galster and Zobel, 1998). However, oursurvey of the consequences of poverty concentration inNanjing city does not reach a similar conclusion. Exceptfor the above common proWles of the three poverty neigh-bourhoods, the study does not Wnd that serious socialproblems have resulted from poverty concentration, exceptfor poverty per se. The smaller spatial scale and the shorterformation time of these poverty neighbourhoods are prob-ably the reasons for this. Many poor households areengaged in informal sector work. Because in general theeconomy is growing and expanding, this informal sectorstill provides an important source of income.

First, despite the emergence of three types of neighbour-hoods of poverty concentration, there are no concentratedpoverty zones at the city-wide level, due to the Xourishingsituation of urban redevelopment and suburban develop-ment in current Chinese cities. The overall residentialpattern in Chinese cities is currently characterized by theco-existence and geographic proximity between poor andwealthy neighbourhoods in both inner cities and suburbs,which is diVerent from the clear segregation betweendecayed inner cities and wealthy suburbs in many westerncountries (Huang, 2005). Moreover, the government policyof urban renewal and urban planning are combating thetendency towards poverty concentration by eliminating‘problem areas’. So far, we have not seen a clear boundarydividing the poorest areas from the rest of the city. Second,

the formation time of poverty neighbourhoods is shorter.While the old urban residences and the workers’ villageshave a longer development trajectory, the poverty neigh-bourhood or the concentration neighbourhood of the urbanpoor, as well as the emergence of poor rural migrants’enclaves, has only occurred over the last decade. In such ashort formation time, the so-called poverty culture (Lewis,1966) or negative poverty attitude (Greenstone, 1991) couldnot be produced. According to our interviews with theurban poor in Nanjing, the majority of them have still notgiven up hope. On the contrary, they all try hard to attachthemselves to the current mainstream urban socioeconomicenvironment. In addition, as mentioned above, the govern-ment policy of urban renewal and urban planning hasbegun to consider regeneration of poverty neighbourhoods.According to our study in Nanjing, these poverty neigh-bourhoods are planned for redevelopment in the nearfuture. The questions for future research are where theurban poor in current poverty neighbourhoods will be relo-cated, and whether new neighbourhoods of poverty con-centration will be produced along with the residentialrelocation of the urban poor.

In sum, this paper examines the spatial distribution ofurban poverty and explores the creation mechanisms ofpoverty concentration using three poverty neighbourhoodsin Nanjing as a case study. At the very least, the researchreveals that the root of poverty concentration lies in thestate-led urban development policy and the socialist hous-ing provision system. On the whole, this research hasfocused on the impacts of institutional factors on the spati-ality of Chinese urban poverty; however, it has not shedlight on the individual factors of poverty and the lifechances of the urban poor. Future research should paymore attention to the trajectories which have led the urbanpoor (and their households) into the trap of poverty, andalso to the life chances of the urban poor in poverty neigh-bourhoods, asking how urban development policy mayintersect with individual trajectories to produce spatialinequality and the concentration of poverty.

Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the British Academy LargerGrant Scheme (LRG-37484). Dr. Yuting Liu thanks theBritish Council Higher Education Link Programme (SHA/992/313) and the British Academy Visiting Fellowship, whichhave enabled him to visit the School of Geography atthe University of Southampton as a post-doctoral researcher.We thank the comments of anonymous reviewers.

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