Urban renewal without gentrification: toward dual goals of neighborhood revitalization and community preservation?

Abstract

This study contributes to the debate on the psychological dimensions of displacement in urban renewal (UR) literature by examining how different modes of UR may disrupt or reconstruct the sense of home for affected residents in urban China. The forms of UR in China have evolved from the intensive pro-growth urban redevelopment that was prevalent in the 1990s and early 2000s to the emerging trend of micro-renewal, which features neighborhood renovation without physical displacement or the remaking of social classes. We distinguish between wholesale redevelopment and micro-renewal, then examine the impacts of these different modes of UR on post-renewal neighborhood attachment (NA). We found that micro-renewal is less likely than redevelopment to disrupt residents’ NA. However, it was the socio-spatial restructuring of their neighborhood, rather than physical relocation, that contributed to the change in residents’ NA. The perceived neighborhood change was also conditional on individuals’ pre-renewal residential satisfaction and post-renewal economic prospects.