| This dissertation frames urban history as a tension between municipal expectations and possibilities. It examines the decade-long process of turning Nanjing, a slow-paced, provincial city, into the capital of the Republic of China. By looking at the evolution of municipal policies towards specific groups of lower-class people—prostitutes, refugees, the local poor, beggars, and slum dwellers—I examine Nationalist attempts at social engineering as well as efforts to create a national self-consciousness.; Nanjing was to be constructed as a modern, model city, an ideal capital that had no room for the underclasses and the problems they posed. The underclasses, however, were the vast majority of the city's population, and their existence could not be ignored. The municipal government, therefore, had constantly to negotiate the gap between ideals and reality, its own goals and the needs of its population.; In this process, appearances became crucial. Nanjing could be a capital only if it looked like one. In the early years of the Nanjing Decade, policies attempted to create an impressive facade at the expense of the population. The government tried to push undesirable elements out of sight. Beggars in the spring of 1928 were told to vanish in three days, whereas fortune-tellers and prostitutes were given an ultimatum to change profession or be expelled. In the later years of the decade, after these attempts failed, the government had to find more profound solutions, which combined social reform with welfare.; Circumstances counteracted the city's efforts, and it could never implement its plans on a large-enough scale. Although the government had fairly clear goals, it did not know how to realize them, nor had the means to do so. It had similar objectives for various groups of lower class people, yet did not adopt uniform policies to deal with them. State power was multi-faceted: inclusive of some groups and exclusive of others. The same people, categorized in different groups, were subjected to different treatment. My dissertation follows municipal efforts at social engineering, analyzing Nationalist concepts of state-society relations, the changing roles of government, and the way the people reacted to transforming ideas. |
