Grid Governance Between Spatial Efficiency and Social Segregation: Chinese Gated Communities Socio-spatial Responses Amidst COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

The paper analyzes how the urban model of Chinese gated communities (GCs) is changing living spaces and administrative organization, starting from the implications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Gated Communities represent a consolidated sociospatial model within the urban landscape of contemporary China. Its wide diffusion, which has its roots both in the historic city and in the models of collectivization of the space of the socialist era, has allowed real estate investment companies to experiment with forms and solutions aimed at supporting a rapidly growing market. Likewise, their segregation has prompted government authorities to promote reforms to reduce their diffusion and encourage new forms of integration. The pandemic has projected the morphological pattern of GCs into a new urban role, proposing itself as a model of effective fight against the spread of the disease thanks to the activation of spatial structures capable of separating and hierarchizing homogeneous social groups, as well as aligning state administrative power at the local level and the spatial layout of the urban grid. Residents are thus transferring new hierarchies of values ​​to GCs, influencing future market prices, implementation in the regulatory field and design practices.