A Study On The Urban Poverty - Stricken Habitat And Its Formation Mechanism In The Transitional

Since Reform and Opening up, new changes have taken place in China’s urban poverty. Loose of the household registration system makes a large number of surplus rural labor swarm into urban as migrant workers, some of these low education, low skills migrant workers are dissociating in poor condition. And with the reorganization of industrial structure and the reform of state-owned enterprises, a large number of laid-off and unemployed people begin to emerge, the land-lost farmers who are on the edge of the city fall into poverty in the process of the rapid of the development of urbanization, at the same time, the sitting low-income workers also have obvious characteristics of poverty. The above crowd constitutes the new of Chinese cities in transitional period. The geographical space isolation intensifies the urban residential space differentiation, aggravates urban social contradiction, and threatens the healthy development of the whole city, so a growing number of government and scholars to focus on it.Xi’an is a city which has a long history in our country, is also one of the fastest-growing cities in the aspect of social, economic and urbanization in northwest China, influenced by city historic and social space, urban development policies and the attraction of subculture which based on geography and kinship, the phenomenon of urban poverty concentration began to emerge and have an effect on sustainable and healthy development of city. Under the existing research results, this study selects Xi’an as empirical area, based on the theory of urban geography, urban sociology and other disciplines, uses Xi’an residents’ income and expenditure survey data, field interview data, related statistical data and research data, through ArcGIS spatial analysis methods, poverty entropy, segregation indices and FGT index, uses three time sections, firstly, examines urban poverty’s scale, composition, characteristics and evolution of spatial distribution; secondly, analyzes the urban poverty concentration’s spatial distribution, evolution and the agglomeration degree, sums up the patterns of urban poverty concentration through typical cases in Xi’an, meanwhile, forecasts the development tendency of poverty concentration in whole space and in different poverty concentration patterns; finally, illustrates the formation mechanism of urban poverty concentration and the impact on society and individuals in Xi’an.The main conclusions of this study are embodied in the following three aspects:(1)Status of urban poverty of Xi’an city in transitional periodOn the demographies’ characteristic, the variation tendency of urban poverty scale increases first and then decreases in Xi’an, but urban poverty is no longer the "three non-personnel", floating population, low-income workers and laid-off workers began to fall into poverty became the new urban poverty. These population show a feature of low level of education, low technical level, high liquidity, and younger as apparent with older, and urban laid-off or unemployment poverty are more likely to perceive poverty on the psychological. On the spatial and temporal evolution, the spatial distribution of urban poverty has certain change from 1990 to 2013. But the northern edge of the city has always been poverty "high incidence area", there are a lot of poor population; some streets near the third circulation line appear "always-poverty" phenomenon, form urban poverty communities; because of the influence of policy, the southern parts of city has a lower incidence of poverty and a smaller size of poverty as well.(2)Urban poverty concentration of Xi’an city in transitional periodOn the spatial and temporal evolution, urban poverty communities are mainly distributed in the circulation line and outside, especially the north and northeast region. On the degree of poverty agglomeration, the number of highly concentrated urban poverty streets is decreasing, but the agglomeration degree of poverty spatial did not reduce and spatial pattern is experiencing the transition of "peripheral location-peripheral and central location"; different social groups have significant agglomeration degree of poverty in urban poverty communities, the poverty agglomeration degree of female, who have an characteristic of low level of education, strong liquidity and low level of technology, is higher than the corresponding groups, and they are more likely to focus on the space. On the patterns of concentration, forms three different urban poverty concentration patterns:floating population community, degradation of state-owned industrial community and land-lost farmers community. On the trend of development, urban poverty concentration is still at an early stage, is experiencing the transition of "peripheral location-peripheral and central location", formed the process of distribution and evolution of "concentration-decentralization", the development pattern is characterized by "peripheral and central location" with embedded mosaic for the time being.(3) Formation mechanism and influence of urban poverty concentrationThe continuation of urban social and historical space, improper of urban develop- ment and government policy, attraction of subculture which based on geography and kinship as well as the reform of housing markets are the main factors for the formation of urban poverty concentration in Xi’an; urban poverty concentration has a positive effect, but also reduces the job opportunities of urban poverty, deteriorate their living environment and limits their social network, meanwhile, aggravates the streets’ financial burden and employment pressure, deepens the "poverty impression" of the streets.