title: Neighbourhood attachment and participation in Chinese cities: A case study of Chengdu
Creators: name: Zhuang, Liyuan
Publisher: name: University of Glasgow
Year: 2021

description: The central aim of this research is to critically examine the experience and determinants of neighbourhood attachment and the extent of neighbourhood participation in different types of urban neighbourhoods in inland cities of China. The study is informed by an increasing amount of theoretical and empirical research regarding the neighbourhood, and also draws upon research that has made linkages between social interaction, physical environment and place. The study is motivated by the fact that there has been limited research on neighbourhood attachment and neighbourhood participation in urban China, especially in inland cities. Existing Chinese case studies only explore a handful of types of urban neighbourhoods, such as work unit compounds and commercial-housing neighbourhoods, while inadequate attention has been paid to other types of urban neighbourhoods, such as the resettlement-housing neighbourhood. This study covers five major types of neighbourhoods which represent the majority of urban neighbourhoods in China. The study employs social capital theory and residential satisfaction theory and takes a constructionist stance and qualitative case study approach, involving 31 in-depth interviews and intensive non-participant observation to investigate neighbourhood attachment and neighbourhood participation in five different types of urban neighbourhoods in urban Chengdu. The main finding of this thesis is that there are varied experiences of neighbourhood attachment and different levels of neighbourhood participation in different types of Chinese urban neighbourhoods. Significantly, compared with current studies which find no evidence of emotional attachment in commercial-housing neighbourhoods, this research argues that residents of the new commercial-housing neighbourhood have emotional attachment which is based mainly on their intensive neighbourly interactions. This study also argues that a good neighbourhood environment, neighbourhood facilities and services not only generate functional attachment but also promote neighbourly interactions which contribute to the development of emotional attachment. Comparing formal participation with informal participation, results indicate that residents are more inclined to participate in informal participation. Findings also show that neighbourhood organisations played a crucial role in promoting high levels of informal participation. There was no conspicuous evidence suggesting that social capital exerted significant effects on informal participation. Regarding neighbourhood attachment, this study found that the majority of residents living in the SOE neighbourhood, resettlement-housing neighbourhood, public institution neighbourhood and new commercial-housing neighbourhood tended to have emotional attachment, while those in the old commercial-housing neighbourhood tended not to have emotional attachment. The majority of residents who live in the resettlement-housing neighbourhood, old commercial-housing neighbourhood and new commercial-housing neighbourhood tended to have functional attachment, while those in the SOE neighbourhood and public institution neighbourhood tended not to have functional attachment. In relation to participation, this study reveals that the SOE neighbourhood residents tended to have a low level of formal participation while the resettlement-housing neighbourhood tended to have a medium to high level of formal participation. Residents from the public institution neighbourhood tended to have a medium level of formal participation while those from the old commercial-housing neighbourhood tended to a have medium to low level of formal participation. Residents in the new commercial-housing neighbourhood tended to have a low level of formal participation. The study shows that residents from the SOE, public institution and new commercial-housing neighbourhoods tended to have a medium to high level of informal participation while those in the resettlement-housing and new commercial-housing neighbourhoods tended to have a high level of informal participation.