Construction Of Urban Spaces And Renovation Of A Community Of Shanghai

Since the economic reform in the late 1970's, China has undergone tremendous changes in political, social and cultural aspects. Two of the most important transformations are the urban growth and the flow of internal migration which is unprecedented in the history of China. This flow of internal migration has transformed the urban population.The objective of my thesis is to analyze the complexity of relationships between migrants from rural China and the indigenous inhabitants, who are often former migrants, in the context of ownership of an urban space (a poor community of Shanghai) which is dedicated to the renovation. These issues affect urban dynamics of contemporary China. In our research, we have conducted a thorough analysis of previous empirical research, both western and Chinese. The close link between migration and the city has directed us towards a broader debate, particularly on internal migration and urban dynamics. We adopted the method of micro-sociology and regarded Yuanhenong, a poor neighborhood of Shanghai, as the unit of observationMy thesis seeks not only to describe the transformation of Shanghai through a neighborhood. It intends to show more generally: 1) that one must study the urban transformations from the activities and choices of people who "organize" the city (not just from the projects of city planning and the intentions of urban policy), 2) how the internal migration and the mobility of population are transforming the cities of the emerging countries and how to build the new urban societies, and 3) the need to consider the question of Chinese specificities and its limits. While Shanghai may be regarded as a laboratory for China today, as Chicago was in the late nineteenth century, we can hope that the case in shanghai contributes to renew the questions that the social sciences have arisen.