Written by:
Ngai-Ming Yip and Yang Zheng
First Published:
17 Oct 2024, 3:26 pm
Tags:
Written by:
Ngai-Ming Yip and Yang Zheng
First Published:
17 Oct 2024, 3:26 pm
Tags:
Condominiums in urban China are shaped by multiple forces including the state actors, the market agents and homeowners’ organisations (HOA). Unlike the private neighbourhood governance models in the West, HOAs in China have limited power in self-administration as the essential legal, social, and political support for their development is lacking. As a result, the condominium system in China suffers from more political intervention by the local state and economic exploitation by property management agents than that in the Western context.
It is against this backdrop that the self-governance campaign, which was initiated by some housing activism leaders in urban China comes to attention. Presented as a mode of direct employment of property management staff by HOAs (bypassing an external property management company), self-governance is also known as partnership management or direct labour management mode. In urban China, this mode transcends the mere promotion of an alternate property management approach. It signifies homeowners’ explicit quest to reclaim the power in governing their condominium, which poses a challenge to both the political intervention by the local state and economic exploitation by property management agents. More importantly, the campaign has been actively promoted by a group of dedicated advocates as a cross-city movement in which homeowners’ “right-defending” actions have been actively involved. This further complicates the political dimension of condo-isation in China.
Utilising a strategic action field perspective, our paper provides an in-depth analysis of how homeowners’ organisations, market agents, and state actors shape condo-isation in China. We first identify the strategic action fields that are involved in condominium governance in urban China. After that, we analyse the impacts of condominium self-governance on the dynamic interaction within and between these fields. With extensive interviews with housing activists and grassroots local officials, we find that the self-governance campaign not only further complicates the interplay among the grassroots state field, the market field, and the condominium field but also brings more risks to housing activism as it has built a close connection with the civil field in China.
Read the full article on Urban Studies OnlineFirst here.