Livelihood Transitions During China’s Ecological Urbanization: An Ethnographic Observation

Over the last decade, China’s quest for sustainable development has spawned hundreds of urban sustainability projects. Most of these projects involve displacing original inhabitants to make room for newly constructed residential enclaves courting China’s new middle-class and international elites. Ostensibly, these are new forms of environmental gentrification and housing inequality that adhere to the “accumulation by dispossession” logic commonly seen in cities in the global South. Yet my research on the life transitions of both displaced villagers and new residents in two Chinese eco-city constructions suggests that displacement also leads to new, divergent pathways in individual social mobility. Drawing on on-site observation, interviews, and ethnographic work, I find that villagers relocated from the project construction sites experienced different resettlement trajectories and life transitions, often contingent upon their capacity in acquiring compensation in the form of new property rights. For some, displacement was the first step toward further wealth accumulation. Meanwhile, the newly arrived middle-class residents at the eco-cities were deprived of their original urban lives and social relations, compelled to adjust to the new cities’ lack of infrastructure and amenities. Further compounding their problem is the housing market slump right after their home purchases, which seriously restricted the spatial mobility of the residents. As sustainability projects becomes a prominent agenda in contemporary urban policies, the findings of this research highlight the need to consider the inequality implications, particularly how new developments affect individual social and spatial mobility.