Invisible fish: Invisible citizens in the new Chinese metropolis

1. Initial interest

We embarked on this article recognizing that China’s economic liberalization and the commodification of housing provision have fuelled extraordinary economic growth over the past three decades. But these changes have also sparked new forms of urban inequality. One notable element of these disparities can be perceived in the emerging landscape of enclave urbanism. Nowadays many enclosed urban spaces containing high-end gated communities and luxury shopping centres denote the commodification and stratification of space – dividing users along class and income.

Our article explored the urban lifestyles and social capital of the new, affluent groups as archetypal examples within elite urban enclaves. To grasp the full dynamics of inequality and segregation in the cities, we endeavoured to get inside the kinds of urban lifestyles, geographies and attitudes of more wealthy residents, seeking to understand more about their patterns of movement and congregation within and beyond enclave spaces. Would ideas in the research literature regarding forms of self-segregation and ‘exit’ strategies of the affluent from urban public spaces hold up under empirical scrutiny in the elite landscapes of a middle-tier Chinese city?

2. Evading and enjoying

The study identified the gated case sites, not as residential containers, but as important nodes within broader activity spaces connected by complex urban infrastructures. The home territory, or domain, offered a place of relatively static residence for elite residents, while facilitating wider connections and movement to other key nodes in the city, using systems of bespoke transportation. In our analysis we unpack the kinds of portable, mobile, and exclusive urban lifestyles of the affluent residents and their strategic ‘disaffiliation’ from urban public spaces.

One crucial aspects of the work that really sprang out was the way that, even in a relatively ‘ordinary’ city, the city’s elites exhibited a highly active, but simultaneously almost invisible, or ‘cloaked’, presence in relation to the wider public city. Because of this carefully coordinated and energetic, but selective, engagement with the city we used the term “invisible fish” to describe the kind of discrete, seamless and hidden movements of the city’s elite. What emerges in the quotes used in the article is a really clearly sense of a group for whom life remains untouched by the struggles and hardships endured by the rest of the urban populace, and who they often actively avoid. The impression here is of a happy, glowing and luxury realm that can be accessed along complex pathways and systems of knowledge that, combined with necessary purchasing power, allow access on this wealthier group.

3. Fishes in other cities

Invisible Fishes is intended as an entry point into ongoing debates within the urban studies community around emerging forms of social inequality, and their relationship to physical space. Chinese cities are continuing to experience rapid social and physical changes and this is having a profound effect on many communities, social networks, and consumption experiences. The article seeks to expand the kind of vocabulary being used to develop insights into mobilities, elite life, and forms of social and spatial divisions in cities. The processes described in ‘Invisible Fishes’ has relevance to other cities around the globe. While there have been many studies published in English on gated communities, we wanted to show how space and urban society is changing in middle-tier Chinese cities, spaces that might appear to be more typical or everyday urban experiences in this evolving urban context with its new class structure, consumption habits and privileged landscapes of residential and leisure use.

4. Looking forward

Invisible Fishes is intended as an entry point into ongoing debates within the urban studies community around emerging forms of social inequality, and their relationship to physical space. Chinese cities are continuing to experience rapid social and physical changes and this is having a profound effect on many communities, social networks, and consumption experiences. The article seeks to expand the kind of vocabulary being used to develop insights into mobilities, elite life, and forms of social and spatial divisions in cities. The processes described in ‘Invisible Fishes’ has relevance to other cities around the globe. While there have been many studies published in English on gated communities, we wanted to show how space and urban society is changing in middle-tier Chinese cities, spaces that might appear to be more typical or everyday urban experiences in this evolving urban context with its new class structure, consumption habits and privileged landscapes of residential and leisure use.

Read the full article on Urban Studies OnlineFirst here.