State-sponsored Rural Gentrification And Its Characteristics,Mechanism And Effect

The traditional model of rural development caused many contradictions,leading to the phenomenon of frequent rural decline.The decay of the rural material space,the prominent problems of social livelihood issues,the loss of rural characteristics and the breakdown of rural culture seem to indicate that decline or even disappearance could be the inevitable trend of most rural areas.The highlight of rural issues has aroused widespread concern of the state and all sectors of society,around which the urban middle class is trying to explore pathways of rural renaissance by return and feedback.These"urban people" with capital,culture and rural complex are typical gentrifiers in the gentrification context,and their returning movements are true pictures of the rural gentrification in our country at the present stage.The concept of rural gentrification originated in Britain,which describes the phenomenon that middle classes move to the rural areas,causing changes in the structure of the rural social structure,space,culture and so on.However,the rural gentrification of western countries represented by Britain is mostly the spontaneous choice behavior of gentrifiers based on free market,which means gentrifiers are the most common triggers and leaders in the process of rural gentrification.While,the practices of rural construction in China show that the state plays a predominant role throughout the rural gentrification process.Penetrating into the rural gentrification with Chinese characteristics is not only a perspective and interpretation of the special phenomenon occurring in our country,but also a "localization" attempt of research on gentrification theory.This study attempts to define this kind of phenomenon as state-sponsored rural gentrification based on the logical framework of "characteristics-mechanism-effect".By taking Bulao Village of Nanjing as an example,this paper reviews the process of state-sponsored rural gentrification and then analyses its characteristics,mechanism and effect.The specific research techniques adopted include document retrieval,In-depth individual,questionnaires and so on.Firstly,this paper combines the process of state-sponsored rural gentrification from the vertical angle and tries to analyze the similarities and differences between western rural gentrification and state-sponsored one.On the one hand,state-sponsored rural gentrification achieves the rural material space update,social restructuring and industrial development transformation,which are similar to those of western rural gentrification.On the other hand,differing from western rural gentrification,state-sponsored rural gentrification has these characteristics:First of all,the rural space is updated rapidly and comprehensively by the local government.Secondly,gentrifiers move into the village after most villagers’ emigration.Last but not least,commercial activities are implanted after the exit of the agricultural industry.Secondly,this paper analyzes the participants in the process of state-sponsored rural gentrification and their roles and effects from the horizontal angle.There is a "government-led" and "multi-stakeholder"growth coalition behind state-sponsored rural gentrification.In the growth coalition,the state is the controller of gentrification,the agents are assistants of the government,the gentrifiers are the guided immigrants,and indigenous people are policy-driven migrants.On the basis of the deconstruction of the subjective relationships,this paper analyzes the formation mechanism of state-sponsored rural gentrification and discovered that rural development achievements,entrepreneurial behaviors and local development and decision-making rights are the subjective motivations,while path dependence under the prevailing institutional environment,government practices of land system reform and rural strategic choices during the process of the urbanization are the objective motivations which caused the dominant role of the state.Finally,this paper explores the effects of state-sponsored rural gentrification from the micro and macro levels.Differing from the negative effects that the indigenous low-income class are excluded and pushed,state-sponsored rural gentrification implements urbanization willingness,promotes the transformation of the indigenous people’s production and life style,and avoids social contradictions.It also promotes the return of urban elements and rural values,and ultimately achieves the reconstruction of urban-rural relationship and rural renaissance.Therefore,based on the case study of Bulao Village,state-sponsored rural gentrification may be a useful attempt and effective model of rural renaissance.The whole thesis contains about 49000 words,57 pictures and charts.