Although changes in urban space often mean a restructuring of social relations, few studies elucidate why network-related frameworks are inherently related to residential outcomes in urban neighborhoods. By proposing a relational account of neighborhood governance, we investigate outcomes of neighborhood governance by incorporating a series of measures of network forms of organization, network-based social capital, and neighborly interactions. Based on a collaborative survey project conducted in Guangzhou, we find that neighborhood ties and neighborly interactions are positively associated with neighborhood attachment and cohesion, whereas uneven power relations between grassroots governments and civic homeowners associations are negatively associated with these two measures. These results not only reveal new social dynamics in urban space but also lend support to a relational account of neighborhood governance.
BlakelyE. J.SnyderM. G. (1997). Fortress America: Gated communities in the United States. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
2.
BourdieuP. (1986). The forms of social capital. In RichardsonJ. (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241-258). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
3.
BrayD. (2006). Building “community”: New strategies of governance in urban China. Economy and Society, 35, 530-549.
4.
BrownB.PerkinsD. D.BrownG. (2003). Place attachment in a revitalizing neighborhood: Individual and block levels of analysis. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 23, 259-271.
5.
BrowningC. R.CagneyK. A. (2002). Neighborhood structural disadvantage, collective efficacy, and self-rated physical health in an urban setting. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 43, 383-399.
6.
ColemanJ. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
7.
DuncanT. E.DuncanS. C.OkutH.StryckerL. A.Hix-SmallH. (2003). A multilevel contextual model of neighborhood collective efficacy. American Journal of Community Psychology, 32, 245-252.
8.
FuQ. (2014). The contentious democracy: Homeowners associations in China through the lens of civil society. New York, NY: Routledge.
9.
FuQ.LinN. (2013). Local state marketism: An institutional analysis of China’s urban housing and land market. Chinese Sociological Review, 46(1), 3-24.
10.
GansH. J. (1969). Planning for people, not buildings. Environment and Planning A, 1, 33-46.
11.
HarveyD. (2010). Social justice and the city. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
HsingY.-t. (2010). The great urban transformation: Politics of land and property in China. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
14.
HuangY. (2003). A room of one’s own: Housing consumption and residential crowding in transitional urban China. Environment and Planning A, 35, 591-614.
15.
LiS.-m. (2004). Life course and residential mobility in Beijing, China. Environment and Planning A, 36, 27-44.
16.
LinN. (Ed.). (1982). Social resources and instrumental action. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
17.
LinN. (2001). Social capital: A theory of social structure and action. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
18.
LiuY.HeS.WuF. (2012). Housing differentiation under market transition in Nanjing, China. The Professional Geographer, 64, 554-571.
19.
LoganJ. R.MolotchH. L. (2007). Urban fortunes: The political economy of place. Berkeley: University of California Press.
20.
LowS. M. (1992). Symbolic ties that bind. In AltmanI.LowS. (Eds.), Place attachment (pp. 165-185). New York, NY: Springer.
21.
ManzoL. C.PerkinsD. D. (2006). Finding common ground: The importance of place attachment to community participation and planning. Journal of Planning Literature, 20, 335-350.
22.
MartinD. G. (2003). “Place-framing” as place-making: Constituting a neighborhood for organizing and activism. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 93, 730-750.
PerkinsD. D.BrownB. B.TaylorR. B. (1996). The ecology of empowerment: Predicting participation in community organizations. Journal of Social Issues, 52, 85-110.
25.
PowellW. W. (1990). Neither market nor hierarchy: Network forms of organization. Research in Organizational Behavior, 12, 295-336.
26.
PutnamR. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
27.
ReadB. L. (2003). Democratizing the neighbourhood? New private housing and home-owner self-organization in urban China. China Journal, 49, 31-59.
28.
SampsonR. J.RaudenbushS. W.EarlsF. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277, 918-924.
29.
ShumakerS. A.TaylorR. B. (1983). Toward a clarification of people-place relationships: A model of attachment to place. In FeimerN.GellerE. S. (Eds.), Environmental psychology: Directions and perspectives (pp. 19-25). New York, NY: Praeger.
30.
The Supreme People’s Court. (2009). Provisions of the supreme people’s court on several issues concerning the application of laws in the property management cases (Document No. 8). Bejing, China: Author.
31.
TombaL. (2004). Creating an urban middle class: Social engineering in Beijing. China Journal, 51, 1-26.
32.
WellmanB. (2005). Community: From neighborhood to network. Communications of the ACM, 48, 53-55.
33.
WuF. (2002). China’s changing urban governance in the transition towards a more market-oriented economy. Urban Studies, 39, 1071-1093.
34.
ZhuY.BreitungW.LiS.-m. (2012). The changing meaning of neighbourhood attachment in Chinese commodity housing estates: Evidence from guangzhou. Urban Studies, 49, 2439-2457.
