Review on Social Sustainability of Subsidized Housing Estates in China and Its Planning Strategy: Towards an Analytical Framework
Publication: ICCREM 2023
ABSTRACT
Although social sustainability is a global issue, obtaining increasingly more recognition, its achievement hinges on the local context. Given that the social sustainability performance of residential communities in China is still an under-researched area, it is worthwhile to investigate how social sustainable subsidized housing estates (SHEs) are. This paper aims to develop an analytical framework for evaluating the social sustainability performance of SHEs in China to achieve more socially sustainable SHEs. Initially, the evolution and social issues of Guangzhou’s SHEs are explored, followed by a detailed literature review on social sustainability. A model is proposed for examining the social sustainability performance of Guangzhou’s SHEs, and an analytical framework is constructed to investigate the underlying forces influencing their planning. This paper argues that, given the peculiar issues associated with the reforms in China, improvements in the SHE planning for enhancing social sustainability must be based on an in-depth understanding of the forces underlying the planning practices.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Abu-Ghazzeh, T.M. (1999). “Housing layout, social interaction, and the place of contact in Abu-Nuseir, Jordan.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, 19(1), 41-73.
Agyeman, J., and Evans, T. (2003). “Toward just sustainability in urban communities: building equity rights with sustainable solutions.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 590(1), 35-53.
Ancell, S., and Thompson-Fawcett, M. (2008). “The social sustainability of medium density housing: A conceptual model and Christchurch case study.” Housing Studies, 23(3),423-442.
Barron, L., and Gauntlett, E. (2002). “Housing and Sustainable Communities Indicators Project.” Sustaining our Communities’ International Local Agenda 21 Conference, Adelaide, 3-6 March, 2002. <http://www.regional.org.au/au/soc/2002/4/barron_gauntlett.htm> (May. 10, 2015).
Bossel, H. (1999). Indicators for Sustainable Development: Theory, Method, Applications. International Institute for Sustainable Development, Winnipeg.
Bramley, G., Dempsey, N., Power, S., and Brown, C. (2006). “What is ‘social sustainability’, and how do our existing urban forms perform in nurturing it.” Sustainable Communities and Green Futures Conference, Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, London.
Bramley, G., and Power, S. (2009). “Urban form and social sustainability: The role of density and housing type.” Environment and planning. B, Planning & design, 36(1), 30-48.
Bunker, R. (1985). “Urban consolidation and Australian cities.” Built Environment, 11(2), 83-96.
Burton, E. (2000). “The compact city: Just or just compact? A preliminary analysis.” Urban Studies, 37(11), 1969-2006.
Chan, E.H.W., and Lee, G.K.L. (2007). “Critical factors for improving social sustainability of urban renewal projects.” Social Indicators Research, 85(2), 243-246.
Chen, J., Yang, Z., and Wang, Y.P. (2014a). “The new Chinese model of public housing: A step forward or backward?” Housing Studies, 29(4), 534-550.
Chen, J., and Deng, L. (2014b). “Financing affordable housing through compulsory saving: The two-decade experience of housing provident fund in China.” Housing Studies, 29(7), 937-958.
Chen, T.T. (2015). Job-housing Imbalance and Mobility of Social Housing Residents in China: The Case of Guangzhou. Unpublished PhD degree thesis, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
Choguill, C.L. (2008). “Developing sustainable neighborhoods.” Habitat International, 32(1), 41-48.
Colantonio, A. (2009). Social sustainability: Linking research to policy and practice. Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development, Oxford Brooks University, Oxford.
Colantonio, A. (2010). “Urban social sustainability themes and assessment methods.” Proceedings of the ICE-Urban Design and Planning, 163(2), 79-88.
Congreve, A. (2012). “Sustainable Communities.” International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home, Elsevier, San Diego, 97-110.
Corbett, J. and Corbett, M. (2000). Designing Sustainable Communities: Learning from Village Homes, Island Press, Canada.
Cuthbert, A.R., and Dimitriou, H.T. (1992). “Redeveloping the fifth quarter: A case study of redevelopment in Hong Kong.” Cities, 9(3), 186-204.
Dempsey, N. (2005). Future Forms and Design for Sustainable Cities, Routledge, London.
Dempsey, N., Bramley, G., Power, S., and Brown, C. (2011). “The social dimension of sustainable development: Defining urban social sustainability.” Sustainable Development, 19(5), 289-300.
Dempsey, N., Brown, C., and Bramley, G. (2012). “The key to sustainable urban development in UK cities? The influence of density on social sustainability.” Progress in Planning, 77(3), 89-141.
Dresner, S. (2008). The Principles of sustainability, Earthscan, London, UK.
Ewing, R., and Rong, F. (2008). “The impact of urban form on U.S. residential energy use.” Housing Policy Debate, 19(1), 1-30.
Fraser, E., Dougill, A., Mabee, W., and Reed, M. (2006). “McAlpine, P. Bottom up and top down: Analysis of participatory processes for sustainability indicator identification as a pathway to community empowerment and sustainable environmental management.” Journal of Environmental Management, 78, 114-127.
Gehl, J. (1987). Life Between Buildings, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, USA.
Giuliano, G., and Small, K.A. (1993). “Is the journey to work explained by urban structure?” Urban Studies, 30(9), 1485-1500.
Gordon, P., and Richardson, H.W. (1997). “Are compact cities a desirable planning goal?” Journal of the American Planning Association, 63(1), 95-106.
Ha, S.K. (2008). “Social housing estates and sustainable community development in South Korea.” Habitat International, 32(3), 349-363.
Haughton, G., and Hunter, C. (1994). Sustainable Cities, Regional Policy and Development Series, Regional Studies Association, London.
Jackson, L.E. (2003). “The relationship of urban design to human health and condition.” Landscape and Urban Planning, 64(4), 191-200.
Jarvis, H., Pratt, A. C., and Wu, PCC. (2001). The Secret Life of Cities: The Social Reproduction of Everyday Life, Routledge, London.
Karuppannan, S., and Sivam, A. (2011). “Social sustainability and neighborhood design: An investigation of residents’ satisfaction in Delhi.” Local Environment, 16(9), 849-870.
Kim, K.B. (2005). “Towards sustainable neighborhood design: A sustainability evaluation framework and a case study of the Greenwich Millennium Village Project.” Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 22(3), 181-203.
Li, M.M., and Brown, H.J. (1980). “Micro-neighborhood externalities and hedonic housing prices.” Land Economics, 21(5), 125-141.
Li, Z.G., and Wu, F.L. (2006). “Residential disparity in urban China: A case study of three neighborhoods in Shanghai.” Housing Studies, 21(5), 695-717.
Littig, B. and Griessler, E. (2005). “Social sustainability: A catchword between political pragmatism and social theory.” International Journal of Sustainable Development, 8(1), 65-79.
Liu, Y.T. and Wu, F.L. (2006). “Urban poverty neighbourhoods: Poverty concentration and typology under China’s market transition, a case study of Nanjing.” Geoforum, 37(4), 610-626.
Ma, X.Y. (2010). The Developing Features and Their Influenced Mechanism of Guangzhou's Government subsidized Settlements. Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. (in Chinese).
Ma, X.Y., Yuan, Q.F., and Zhao, X.J. (2012). “Sociospatial characteristics of Guangzhou’s indemnificatory community.” Geographical Research, 31(11), 2080-2093. (in Chinese).
Manzi, T., Lucas K., Jone T. L., Allen J., and Manzi, T. (2010). “Creating sustainable neighbourhoods? The development and management of mixed-income communities.” Social Sustainability in Urban Areas: Communities, Connectivity, and the Urban Fabric, Routledge, London, 35-48.
Mckenzie, S. (2004). “Social Sustainability: Towards Some Definitions.” <https://atn.edu.au/Documents/EASS/HRI/working-papers/wp27.pdf> (Sep. 10, 2015).
Mohamed, A.N., Elmokadem, A.A., Ali, S.M., and Badawey, N. (2022). “Improve Urban Form to Achieve High Social Sustainability in a Residential Neighborhood Salam New City as a Case Study.” Buildings, 12(11), 1935.
Munier, N. (2007). Handbook on Urban Sustainability, Springer, Dordrecht.
Neuman, M. (2005). “The compact city fallacy.” Journal of Planning Education and Research, 25(1), 11-26.
Oktay, D. (2004). “Urban design for sustainability: A study on the Turkish city.” The International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 11(1), 24-35.
Pareja-Eastaway, M., and Smith S.J. (2012). “Social Sustainability.” International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home, San Diego: Elsevier, 502-505.
Partridge, E. (2005). “Social sustainability: A useful theoretical framework.” Proceedings of Australasian political science association annual conference, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Pazhuhan, M., Azadi, H., López-Carr, D., Barbir, J., Shahzadi, I., and Fürst, C. (2023). “Social sustainability of residential squares: Evidence from Narmak neighborhood, Tehran.” Habitat International, 136(6), 102811.
Polese, M., and Stren, R.E. (2000). The Social Sustainability of Cities: Diversity and The Management of Change. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Canada.
Raco, M. (2003). “Remaking place and securitising space: Urban regeneration and the strategies, tactics and practices of policing in the UK.” Urban Studies, 40(9), 1869-1887.
Roseland, M. (2000). “Sustainable community development: Integrating environmental, economic, and social objectives.” Progress in planning, 54(2), 73-132.
Rothenberg, J. (1969). Economic Evaluation of Urban Renewal: Conceptual Foundation of Benefit-cost Analysis, The Brookings Institution, Washington.
Sugandha, Freestone, R., and Favaro, P. (2022). “The social sustainability of smart cities: A conceptual framework.” City, Culture and Society, 29(6), 100460.
Talen, E., and Ellis, C. (2002). “Beyond Relativism Reclaiming the Search for Good City Form.” Journal of Planning Education and Research, 22(1), 36-49.
Vallance, S., Perkins, H.C., and Dixon, J.E. (2011). “What is social sustainability? A clarification of concepts.” Geoforum, 42(3), 342-348.
Wei, Z.C., Chen, T.T., Chiu, R.L.H., and Chan, E.H. (2017). “Policy transferability on public housing at the city level: Singapore to Guangzhou in China.” Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 143(3), 05017010.
Wei, Z.C., and Chiu, R.L.H. (2018). “Livability of subsidized housing estates in marketized socialist China: An institutional interpretation.” Cities, 83, 108-117.
Wei, Z.C., Liu, Y.T., He, S.J., and Mo, H.T. (2020). “Housing differentiation in transitional urban China.” Cities, 96, 102469.
Weingaertner, C., and Moberg, A. (2011). “Exploring social sustainability: Learning from perspectives on urban development and companies and products.” Sustainable Development, 22(2), 122-133.
Yang, J., Zhang, S., and Wang, D.N. (2009). “Site selection strategies of middle and low income housing.” City Planning Review, 33(12), 56-61. (in Chinese).
Yiftachel, O., and Hedgcock, D. (1993). “Urban social sustainability: The planning of an Australian city.” Cities, 10(2), 139-157.
Zhang, J., and Li, A. (2013). “Research on the Construction of Indemnificatory Housing and Its Social-spatial Effects: Case Study of Typical Settlements in Nanjing.” Urban Planning International, 28(1), 87-93. (in Chinese).
Zheng, S., and Zhang, Y. (2010). “Location patterns of social indemnificatory housing: Theories, international practices and the reality in China.” Modern Urban Research, (25) 9, 18-23. (in Chinese).
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
ICCREM 2023
Pages: 323 - 336
History
Published online: Nov 30, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Bibliographies
- Buildings
- Business management
- Construction engineering
- Construction methods
- Engineering fundamentals
- Fastening
- Green buildings
- Hinges
- Housing
- Information management
- Infrastructure
- Practice and Profession
- Residential location
- Social factors
- Structural engineering
- Structures (by type)
- Sustainable development
- Urban and regional development
- Urban areas
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.