Study On Restructuring Of Three Gorges Reservoir Area Urban Residential Space

In 1998, in a directive speech over the Three Gorges Project, Li Peng, then chairman of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress, made it clear that resettlement work was critical to the success of the project.The resettlement work is a wide-ranging issue, involving not only the protection of ecological environment and coordinated development in social and economic programs, but also the migrants'living conditions, employment, neighborhood relations and other aspects of daily life in their new habitat. On the part of urban resettlement, a decent residual space is a basic requirement, and is closely linked to employment, quality of daily life and neighborhood interactions.Since the initiation of the construction work in 1993,"in the Reservoir Area, which involves 20 cities/counties and covers an area of over 50,000 km2, millions of people had to undergo tremendous changes triggered by the Three Gorges Project."In the meantime, far-reaching reform toward market economy and transformation of social structure in the industrialization process were also taking place, featuring decentralization in government power, market-oriented housing, as well as a new tax-sharing system between the central and local government. In the context of social and economic restructuring coupled by the Three Gorges Project, a new urban residential space has taken shape in the Reservoir Area over the years. Characterized by a center-margin divide, monopolization of fair views by high-income groups, clusters of low-income groups in remote outskirts and shop-residence areas, this spatial structure has produced such problems as heavy unemployment on the part of non-institutional resettlers, disparity in access to community resources, etc.This dissertation is committed to providing an explanation on the formation of the above-mentioned phenomena from the perspective of structural and active factors. On the structural dimension, behavioral patterns and value orientations, as shaped by the resettlement system, market-based housing system, industrial development and consumption culture, guided the restructuring of urban residential space. While the resettlement system created the center-margin divide in the cities of the Reservoir Area, market-based housing system contributed to the center-margin divide + patch pattern phenomenon. On the active dimension, local government, market capital, institutional resettlers, non-institutional resettlers, and high and middle-income groups interacted with one another within the framework of the structural factors to reshape the urban residential space in the Reservoir Area, and it is the multi-lateral interest coalition promoted by local government that created such things as shop-residence area, incremental residence area, etc. Generally speaking, under the two-track housing system, the coordinated and cooperative behavioral pattern by participants with their respective demands is the principal mechanism in restructuring urban residential space.The main problem thus incurred is the disparity in benefit entitlement among different residential groups. During the transition to market economy interest subjects are getting increasingly pluralistic, and subject consciousness is also gaining ground. In such a context, disparity in benefit entitlement is an unavoidable presence to which the theory of building a harmonious socialist society offers a general approach: minimize the difference and boost benefit sharing. This theory points to the view that benefit sharing must be taken as the orientation of value in restructuring the urban residential space of Three Gorges Reservoir Area. Since this restructuring is shaped by the interaction of institutional, economical, and cultural factors as well as multilateral participating subjects, one must approach the problem from the perspective of these factors accordingly, and try to reach the goal of benefit sharing through critical adaptation in residential and social space.