Urban Geography

ISSN: 0272-3638 (Print) 1938-2847 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rurb20

Enclave Urbanism in China: Attitudes Towards

Gated Communities in Guangzhou
Werner Breitung
To cite this article: Werner Breitung (2012) Enclave Urbanism in China: Attitudes
Towards Gated Communities in Guangzhou, Urban Geography, 33:2, 278-294, DOI:
10.2747/0272-3638.33.2.278
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.33.2.278

Published online: 16 May 2013.

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ENCLAVE URBANISM IN CHINA: ATTITUDES TOWARDS

GATED COMMUNITIES IN GUANGZHOU1

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Werner Breitung2
School of Geography and Planning
Sun Yat-sen University
Guangzhou, China
Abstract: Under the conditions of differentiated local governance emerging in urban China,
enclave spaces have become fundamental features of the spatial structure of Chinese cities. With
an interest in the rationale and consequences of intra-urban boundaries, this study investigates
residents attitudes towards gated living in private commodity-housing estates, using surveys and
interviews conducted with residents living both inside and outside three such estates in Guangzhou. Results show a strong desire for separating insiders from outsiders. Insiders justify
the practice of gating with the interrelated arguments of heightened security, sense of belonging,
symbolic functions, and the production of a good living environment. Even residents outside the
estates show a considerable acceptance of gates and walls, which challenges the widely accepted
view that gating exacerbates local social tensions. [Key words: China, enclave urbanism, gated
community, attitudes, boundary, differentiated governance.]

Housing areas in Chinese cities these days are almost as a rule produced in the form
of gated communities (Miao, 2003; Wu, 2005). Although this mode is widely criticized in
the Western discourse, it is viewed not only as unproblematic but even as desirable among
urban residents in China. The central purpose of this study is to understand the particular
meanings ascribed to gates and gating practices by residents in and near gated communities. It focuses on Guangzhou, which has been among the first and most significant cities
for housing commodification in China, but has received less scholarly attention in terms of
gated communities than Beijing (Wu and Webber, 2004; Giroir, 2005) and Shanghai (Pow
and Kong, 2007).
With its focus on attitudes towards gating, this article takes a consumer rather than
producer of space perspective. This has two merits. First, in the process of marketization,
the production of residential space in China is increasingly driven also by the demand
side, whereas existing research typically looks at changes on the supply side, e.g., land
issues and the institutional framework. Second, the attitudes may unveil significant differences between China and other regional contexts. This article begins with the juxtaposition
of a China-centered account of what we call enclave urbanism against the international
literature on gated communities. It is argued that the prevalence of gated communities in
Guangzhou must be seen in a broader context of urban transformation and fragmentation.
The question of local versus global explanations will be revisited at the end of the article.
The author owes thanks to Michael Arri, Zhu Yushu, and Feng Dan for their contributions to the fieldwork, to
Ronald van Kempen, Sarah Blandy, Deborah Davis, and three anonymous referees for their comments on earlier
versions of this article, and to the German Science Foundation (DFG) for their research grant no. BR 3546/1-1.
More quotes from the interviews can be found in an earlier conference paper (Breitung, 2009).
2
Correspondence concerning this article should be directed to Werner Breitung, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, 135 Xingang Xi Lu, Guangzhou 510275, China; telephone: +86-20-84114105;
email: breitung@gmail.com
1

278
Urban Geography, 2012, 33, 2, pp. 278294. http://dx.doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.33.2.278
Copyright 2012 by Bellwether Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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In the empirical section, quantitative results are presented only in passing because we feel
that the actual wealth of information lies in our qualitative interviews, which were conducted inside and outside three commodity-housing estates.

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ENCLAVE URBANISM IN CHINA

Pre-reform Chinese cities were characterized by a high degree of social homogeneity,
by proximity of workplace and residence, and by the structuring element of the work-unit
compound (Gaubatz, 1999). The cellular structure of the entire society was reflected in
cellular cities. The different cells (work-units) differed in status, but they were functionally
and socially mixed. Today, under the forces of rural-to-urban migration and of marketization, a new but equally cellular pattern emerges. In contrast to the previous urban era, the
new residential enclaves are mostly separated from workplaces, and they are distinguished
by their social status.
In Guangzhou, four categories of bounded residential spaces can be identified:
(1) Traditional work-unit housing (danweifang), which has been privatized and sold
to the former residents (reform housing, fanggaifang). Some owners use the new
property to generate rental income to purchase better homes. Although attachment
to particular work-units is loosening, many estates have not really integrated with
surrounding urban areas.
(2) Post-reform commercially built commodity housing (shangpingfang): mostly
gated communities, privately managed and designed according to the tastes of the
growing urban middle class.
(3) Former villages, which as a result of metropolitan expansion are now surrounded
by urban space. The village collectives utilize their land-use rights to cater to the
demands of migrants who have only limited access to urban housing markets. The
villages thereby became densely built-up migrant enclaves (urbanized villages,
chengzhongcun).
(4) Staff quarters within factory compounds (enterprise-provided housing, yuangong sushe).
These enclave spaces are obviously not only distinguished by their spatial form, but
also by their social characteristics as well as their mode of neighborhood governance. Private and state actors play different roles in the different types, and residents are involved in
different ways. The broadly defined modes of neighborhood governance are summarized
in Table 1.
The increasing differentiation is driven both by changes on the side of the producers
of space (governments, private developers, planners) and on the side of the users. Privatization brings new and different producers to the scene, such as private development and
management firms, former village collectives now acting as commercial enterprises, and
manufacturers providing accommodations. However, the changes on the user side are just
as prominent. Differentiated governance and gated communities are closely related to a

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Table 1. Differentiated Neighborhood Governance in Guangzhou

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Neighborhood type

Mode of neighborhood
governance

Brief description

Socialist work-unit
housing

Welfare-style governance

Work-unit membership provides access to subsidized

housing and other benefits by the state-owned units

Privatized housing

Administrative governance

Links to the work-unit dissolved; property merely

administered; mentality of the owners still passive

Commodity
housing

Ownership-based
governance

Key actors such as developers and home owners derive

their power through commercial ownership

Urbanized villages

Collective-based governance

Persistent decision-making structure based on rural

collective land-use rights and clan membership

Enterprise housing

Paternalistic, employmentbased governance

Employer unilaterally provides housing; limited rights

of residents based on employment status

differentiation of urban societies along several dimensions. Obvious dimensions are rich
vs. poor, urban vs. rural, and local vs. immigrant. These all affect attitudes towards the
ensuing boundaries, but there is also another dimension. More individualistic lifestyle
milieus emerge, which differ from the traditional, hierarchically organized milieus based
on seniority, education, and state power, and value entrepreneurialism and personal economic success instead. These new milieus are the main target of real estate advertisements
(Pow and Kong, 2007), because they put a premium on the symbolic reassurance of their
lifestyle and success. More traditional milieus are likelier to mobilize social resources to
obtain good subsidized housing.
From the states producer-of-space perspective, the main function of privately managed
commodity housing lies in the mobilization of the developers and home-buyers money to
finance Chinas burgeoning urban growth. The state alone would not be able to shoulder
the related expenses and managerial challenges. Real estate is also a welcome channel to
allow the nouveaux riche to spend their surplus wealth domestically rather than on foreign
cars, branded lifestyle products, and overseas travel. In return, a better life and accelerated
development is promised to those who can pay for it.
This differentiation is only possible if it comes with the creation of different spaces for
different groups. People are willing to pay higher property prices and management fees
for a quieter environment, more cleanliness, and the absence of strangers. Therefore, the
exchange of people with the outside world must be controlled. To make their business
model work, the property developers have a major interest in keeping free riders out,
and offering services and environment exclusively to their clients. In that way, the private,
ownership-based mode of governance follows the model of the club economy (Glasze,
2005) and requires the gated character of the estate.
This view of Chinese enclave urbanism as an outcome of domestic social and institutional change is conclusive, yet it is not the only reasonable interpretation. There is also
the globalization argument that underscores similar developments of fragmentation and
bordering in cities around the world, and suggests that enclave urbanism in China is not
a transitional phenomenon but is here to stay as a result of global neoliberal policies. The
term neoliberalism may generally be inappropriate for China (at least, there is no legacy of

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primary liberalism to refer to), but it is still worth pointing out the global embeddedness of
urban China (e.g., Wu, 2008).
With this interpretation in mind, before considering Western conceptualizations of
enclave urbanism, it is important not to overlook the third, path-dependency argument. In
China, the phenomena of bounding, borders, walls, and gates do indeed have deep cultural
roots. We can relate such built forms and social practices to the cellular structure of Chinese
society, or to walls, gates, and different levels of enclosure as characteristic features of both
the pre-socialist and the socialist Chinese city. Some authors draw an intriguing historical
trajectory from these two phenomena to the current practice of bounding in Chinese cities
(Mnch, 2004; Wu, 2005). With some reservation regarding the actual degree of continuity in the peoples perception and allowing for South Chinese regional deviations, we
can assume overall that attitudes toward gated living are influenced by past experiences.
Indeed, some interviewees were surprised as to why walls and gates around an estate should
be a research topic at all, because they had never experienced nongated cities.
THE CONTEXT OF WESTERN LITERATURE
In the globalization discourse, gated communities, retail and office parks, export processing zones, and tourist resorts are viewed as unifunctional, insufficiently connected,
and exclusive urban enclaves. Indeed, they are discussed as manifestations of graduated
sovereignties (Sidaway, 2007a, 2007b) and as borders between the first world and the
third world now appearing within, rather than between, countries (Van Houtum and Van
Naerssen, 2002). This is relevant especially in the global South, where, for instance, the
gates of urban enclaves separate expatriate communities from the poorer local or immigrant population.
Marcuse (1997) had similar relationships between social disparities and spatial fragmentation in mind when he distinguished residential enclaves, citadels, and ghettoes. Dear and Flusty (1998) identified the formation of enclaves as a general tendency
in postmodern urbanism, when they introduced the term patchwork city. Graham and
Marvin (2001), taking infrastructural networks as the constructive elements of the city,
coined the term splintering urbanism to describe selective access to communication as
a cause of urban fragmentation. The concept of differentiated governance is introduced in
this article as another explanatory approach.
Gated communities are the most prominent manifestations of urban fragmentation.
They have been most widely studied in North America (Blakely and Snyder, 1997; McKenzie, 2005), but studies have emanated from everywhere, including Europe (Glasze,
2003; Atkinson and Flint, 2004), Asia (Leisch, 2002; Wu, 2005), Latin America (Coy,
2006; Alvarez-Rivadulla, 2007), and South Africa (Jrgens and Gnad, 2002). These cases
certainly represent different experiences, depending on the respective stage of development as well as specific social and cultural conditions. Although different authors have
always pointed to these differences in their studies, the phenomenon of gated community as such is generally regarded as a global, not a homegrown phenomenon (Webster
et al., 2002).
This supports the earlier globalization argument. In the case of Chinas Pearl River
Delta, for example, many of the gated enclaves were established by Hong Kong money and
served foreign or Hong Kong interests. Ironically, many Hongkongers like to transcend

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their still bounded territory to establish themselves in other bounded spaces that in many
ways imitate Hong Kong style. The appearance, management, and financingand even
some inhabitantsof the commodity-housing estates in the Pearl River Delta region are
therefore not homegrown but reflect external influences.
As for the functions of gated estates, Blakely and Snyders (1997) well-known study has
related them to the desire for security, social inclusion/exclusion, and lifestyle expression.
Later, more detailed typologies emphasized the actual diversity of existing gated communities (Wehrhahn, 2003; Grant, 2004). Most empirical studies, however, stressed the issue
of security as the most important driving force from the point of view of residents. This
is especially true for countries known for their high crime rates such as South Africa and
Brazil (Caldeira, 2000). Nonetheless, Janoschka (2002) has questioned whether the security argument might also be used by interested parties to conceal other motives.
Although some recent statements include positive evaluations with reference to club
goods theory (e.g., Manzi and Schmith-Bowers, 2005) or to spillover effects benefitting
the poor (Sabatini and Salcedo, 2007), the mainstream research criticizes residential segregation and social exclusion (Blakely and Snyder, 1997; Caldeira, 1999; Low, 2003) as well
as the disconnect with local places (Sorkin, 1992). Much of this criticism is reasonable, yet
it is also quite normative. A fresh examination of the local peoples attitudes is therefore
needed to obtain a better understanding of the gating phenomenon in China.
RESEARCH METHODS AND CASE STUDIES
To understand the roles of walls and gates in Chinese commodity-housing estates from
the perspective of residents, and to see how these roles are constructed, perceived, and
discussed, this article draws on two years of research inside and outside three such estates
in Guangzhou that elicited both survey data and in-depth interviews. Inside the estates,
23 semi-structured, in-depth interviews and a quantitative survey based on 662 questionnaires were completed in 2007. In addition, participant observation and about 50 qualitative interviews were conducted in areas surrounding the selected estates.
The case studies were chosen to represent commodity-housing estates of different
locations (urban, suburban, peri-urban), different sizes, and different socioeconomic compositions. The three may be considered representative of the housing environments of a
significant proportion of Guangzhous gated commodity-housing estates, which together
constitute more than one-third of the citys housing stock (32%, according to Chinas 2005
micro-census). The three case studies are:
Xuri Estate (124 respondents): a small estate with 300 households consisting of
five residential towers and a small gated park. It is located in a busy area near
Guangzhous CBD in Tianhe. Of our respondents, 74% were between 26 and 40
years old, and most were local Guangzhou people. Judging from their education and
occupation, Xuri is a lower-middle-class estate.
Lijiang Garden (263 respondents): a large estate (ca. 10,000 households) at the
urban fringe of Guangzhou. The estate as a whole is not strictly gated, but is subdivided into subunits with tighter access control, most of them with high-rise buildings, but a number of more exclusive ones also with low-rises. Lijiang Garden is
a typical suburban development with a high concentration of middle-class urban

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migrants. An astonishing 46% of the respondents here had an urban household registration (hukou) not from Guangzhou. Compared to the local population in Xuri, the
residents of Lijiang Garden have a lower education level, but interestingly occupy
higher job positions. They also are older than residents of Xuri.
Shunde Country Garden (275 respondents) lies farther to the southwest at the
administrative border of Guangzhou. It is a very large estate (369 sq. km) with
predominantly American-style low-rise buildings that house about 16,000 households. Many are second or retirement homes of Hong Kong residents. This is typical
of earlier developments in suburban Guangzhou. In the survey, 41% of the respondents were non-mainland China citizens. The proportion of elderly residents was
the greatest of all three estates. The estate also contained the largest share of higherranking job positions (but the smallest of people with academic degrees!). It clearly
is an upper-middle-class community.
Because of different accessibility conditions, the sampling method in the quantitative
survey differed among the three estates. In Xuri, door-to-door interviews were conducted
over three days turning out a sample size of nearly half of all households. The respondents
in the two larger estates were selected at public spots, which probably resulted in a less
representative sample, although steps were taken to ensure a balance regarding age, gender,
and activities performed when being approached. The subjects for qualitative interviews
were selected from the respondents who agreed to leave their contact information during
the survey. The in-depth interviews were semi-structured and driven by a list of questions.
Their duration varied from 30 to 60 minutes. The interview quotes below are direct translations from Chinese.
THE INSIDE VIEW: ATTITUDES OF GATED COMMUNITY RESIDENTS
Three factors often critically discussed in connection with gated communities are social
segregation, private governance, and lack of access. In the West, especially in Europe,
segregation is widely seen as a problem, and active measures are proposed or implemented
for social mixing in neighborhoods. However, segregation in China tends to be viewed as
a solution to the problem of social diversity in growing cities. Most of the survey respondents approved of, or at least accepted, social segregation. Less than a quarter said they
would personally prefer a socially mixed neighborhood (Fig. 1).
Even clearer were the opinions about gatedness. Although all respondents lived in gated
communities, 64% of them desired even stricter access controls. Only 7.6% preferred a
more relaxed mode, and virtually nobody preferred free access to their estate (0.9%). Even
the suggestion to increase the number of entrances to the estate found approval of only
17.5% of the respondents. Overall, strict control of access follows a strong demand. The
two questions derived from this are (a) why exactly do people prefer gated communities?,
and (b) how is this seen from outside the estates?
Functions of Gates and Walls
When asked to choose among four levels of approval with respect to 13 statements
about the walls and gates (Fig. 2), 80% chose yes, I agree absolutely or yes, I think

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Fig. 1. Attitudes toward sociospatial segregation. Responses to the question: In former times, members of a danwei used to live together in a compound, regardless of their job position. Nowadays the workers, white-collar workers, and managers often live in different compounds. Which of the following statements fits your opinion best?

you can say so for the security-related statement. Other positive statements (feeling of
belonging, symbolic function, privacy, reduction of traffic) also gained more than 70%
approval. In contrast, all five critical statements received very low approval rates. Figure 2
aggregates the figures for the three case studies; there were significant differences between
the cases, illustrating the diversity of gated communities.
In Xuri, located in a busy neighborhood, the reduction of traffic was the biggest concern
(88%), followed by security and a sense of belonging (both about 82%). The least cited
aspects were segregation, reflection of social status, and symbolism of the estate. With
mostly local lower-middle-class residents, the social gap between those inside and outside
was relatively small.
In Lijiang Garden, different functions of the main gate and the subunit gates emerged.
The main gate was related mainly to sense of belonging (74%), symbolic function (74%),
and security (73%); the subunit gates were linked to security (78%), sense of belonging
(73%), and traffic reduction (72%).
In Shunde Country Garden (SCG), security received the strongest response (85%), but
the figures for privacy (82%) and the symbolism of the estate (80%) were also high; sense
of belonging, reduction of traffic, and the prevention of strangers ranked above average.
Being surrounded by a more rural environment, these urbanites seem to value privacy, the
absence of strangers, and segregation more highly, as well as the symbolic status that the
gates confer.
These quantitative results help to gain a general understanding of attitudes and to identify
the key perceptions of gating for residents. To really understand the underlying processes,
we need to focus on the qualitative findings and listen to our respondents accounts. The
four leading perceptions can now be deconstructed.
Exclusion: The Idea of Security
Most respondents first reaction, when asked about the function of gates and walls, was
that these ensure security by keeping xianzaren (people who are not supposed to be there)

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Fig. 2. Attitudes regarding the functions of gates: The gates and walls of this estate: (a) prevent
people with no good intentions from entering, and ensure security (security); (b) help to create a feeling
of belonging (sense of belonging); (c) are a symbol of the estate (symbol); (d) help to reduce traffic
(traffic); (e) improve privacy (privacy); (f) prevent people I do not like to meet from entering (prevent
stranger); (g) express the residents social status (social status); (h) help to separate people (segregation); (i) damage our compounds esthetics (destroy appearance); (j) restrict my mobility (estate
inconvenience); (k) are rather useless (useless); (l) hinder me in interacting with the neighborhood
(communication); (m) are annoying (annoying).

out of the estates. Many see them as a potential threat and associate them with crimes such
as burglary and robbery. Most residents expressed their anxieties similar to the following
quotes (which actually seem much exaggerated):
Sometimes outsiders such as those people distributing fliers are let in and they even
ring the bell, which could endanger security in the estate. (Xuri resident)
Compared to the work-unit compound I lived in before, it is better here because the
population is relatively homogeneous and stable. There were too many tenants who
rented flats over there. I do not wish my neighbors to change all the time. I would
feel unsafe and worried. (Another Xuri resident)
This suggests that people associate security with more than an absence of crime. It also
entails clearly marked social structures, stability, and homogeneity. The world outside is
too complex, too dynamic, and too uncertain to provide a sufficient level of security.
The gates, walls, and fences provide a sense of security, even though some are hardly
impenetrable for serious criminals, and they do nothing to prevent crime among residents
inside. Therefore, they do not necessarily protect:
[The subunits fence] does not work against malicious people as it is very low. Even
my son [around 7 years old] can climb over it. So far, I go in by climbing over the

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gates every day. Would you pass through the main gate if it takes more than 10 minutes to get home from the main gate when climbing over a side gate would lead you
straight to your house? (Lijiang resident)

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Despite this, most residents still think that walls and gates enhance security. This study
does not examine whether the physical borders actually reduce crime, but instead looks
at how these barriers psychologically draw boundaries of a presumed safe space (WilsonDoenges, 2000). Many of the interviewees expressed a different sense of security inside
and outside the estate.
The outside world is in disorder. Once I took a bus, because I had waited for a taxi
for half an hour and I had no choice but go on a bus. The moment I got on the bus,
I intuitively sensed that several men were staring at me. I knew I became a target of
them. I guess I gave them the wrong impression that I was rich. After such a terrifying experience, never again have I taken a bus. (SCG resident)
There are many immigrants in Guangzhou. Therefore, security is a concern. Without
walls and gates, I would feel less safe psychologically. When I walk outside holding
my little son, I dare not put him on the ground. But once I come through the gate of
the estate, I feel like, well, you could walk yourself. Because outside I am afraid he
would be knocked down by a car or person, or even robbed. (Lijiang resident)
Outsiders are seen as a source of disorder, danger, and impurity. Thus the insiders try
to defend their own space by purifying it and drawing boundaries between themselves
and the other (Sibley, 1994; Dixon, 2001).
[No] owner would like outsiders to come in who are heterogeneous and have no
awareness of public sanitation. (Xuri resident)
Who knows what kind of places those people would come from? They are complicated, and it is unsafe to let them in. (SCG resident)
If we want to understand the profound distrust and aversion against unknown persons,
we need to realize that security in Chinese society heavily relies on social ties. Sanctions
and control through personal networks are much more effective than through the overall
society and law-enforcement agencies. Those outside these networks such as immigrants
of unknown origin and tenants, who may not bother to develop social ties, are seen as a
threat to security. Only within the enclosed territory do residents share a basic trust.
Inclusion: Sense of Belonging
It may therefore be assumed that the exclusion of outsiders goes along with the building of a community of insiders. Boundaries are thought to foster inter-group contacts and
solidarity (Dixon, 2001). Yet this is not what has been observed. It was found that 45%
of respondents were not acquainted with or hardly knew those in the same or neighboring
buildings (Xuri, 35%; Lijiang, 49%; SCG, 45%). They had some contacts in public spaces,
but interaction was limited to greeting and chatting. Often, distance is kept deliberately.

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We would ask the management office if we need anything. There is no need at all
to go for a neighbor. They wont have the stuff, either. Things are different here from
my hometown where you ask your neighbor for salt, noodles, or rice anytime you
need them. You can buy anything you need easily outside. (Lijiang resident)

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Most residents in my building are colleagues and they are quite amicable. But since
we live in the same building, its better to keep some privacy. We do not know each
other well. It would be inappropriate to have some strangers visit our home.
We may say hello to each other sometimes, but no more deeper interaction. (Xuri
resident)
This is interesting, because it points to two things. First, there is a desire for privacy,
which stands in contrast to the reality of social control and state monitoring experienced
in the socialist work-unit. This desire is a major reason for some to move into commercial
housing (Wu, 2005, p. 248). And second, there also are commodity-housing estates in
which a work-unit has built or purchased one or several blocks as subsidized housing for
their employees, thereby again reducing privacy.
With weak neighborly interaction, one might also suppose that the senses of belonging
and responsibility for the estate are weak (Wu, 2005). However, more than 77% of the
respondents regarded gates and walls as reinforcing their sense of belonging to the estate,
second only to security, and more than 70% believed they would feel very much or fairly
attached to their estate if they had to move out. This attachment is also reflected in a sense
of responsibility that lets many respondents report damages they find in the public areas
of their estate.
The attachment to the physical environment seems to be greater than to the social community (Zhu et al., 2012), which results from ownership considerations. Individual ownership of space is still a relatively new concept in Chinese cities, and people have paid a
great deal of money for their properties. This creates an attachment. When talking about
their sense of belonging, people not only mean they belong to the place, but also that the
place belongs to them.
I have a sense of belonging when it is gated. If it were wide open, I would not feel it
is mine. It would just be a normal public place. (Xuri resident)
This is a private space, so I do not wish to see people disturb our life here. Besides,
these facilities should be collectively owned by us owners since we pay a management
fee every month. if they come in, it is likely that the streets soon get dirty, which
requires an additional workload for our workers. (SCG resident)
Representation: The Symbolic Dimension
The way in which home-ground is defined and demarcated has implications for residents sense of belonging. Legible borders define a territoriality they can relate to.
Every time when I come through the gate and cross the Lijiang Bridge, the world
quiets down at that moment, as if I were in Xanadu. (Lijiang resident)
Walls give me a sense of territory of Country Garden, a place I feel like belonging
to. Just like our garden, its doors may not have any practical use, but it makes me

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feel it is my place. Honestly, once I step into Shunde Country Garden through the
gate, any one of its gates, I immediately feel at home. Being outside is like being on
the way. (SCG resident)
More often than not, the estate entrances are marked by representative gates. They not
only foster a collective identity and demarcate territory, but also reassure the residents of
their status. The effect is different from estate to estate. From the three case studies here, it
seems that those with a high recognition of the symbolic function are also those evincing
a strong place attachment. These estates are the more exclusive ones, and they make that
statement via their representative gates.
Chinese real estate advertisements, more than anything else, seek to deliver promises
of status. For instance, an ad for Shunde Country Garden declares squarely that this estate
is designed specifically for successful people (Xu, 2008, p. 645). To underscore this
message, the ads are typically overloaded with symbolic images that allude to prestigious
education, golf courses, expensive cars, classical European architecture, successful families, and markers of aristocracy such as butlers. Representative gates play a role in this
imageryboth as grand landmarks like Arcs de Triomphe and as physical borders of the
imagined places associated with high status.
Place-Making: Private Provision of Good Life
The gates, of course, also play a role in raising the actual quality of life inside, because
they reduce traffic, improve privacy, and keep unwanted people out. Quality-of-life is
among the main reasons to select a privately managed estate:
I have lived here for around six years. This is because of the very good environment. There is no pressure living here at all. People we meet inside are nice
and friendly. (SCG resident)
The good life includes a nice dwelling, clean environment, good services, security, privacy, and adequate space. In China, this can only be realized through private services
and amenities. The Chinese term for it, fengbi guanli (enclosed management), includes
the reference to enclosure. It has become a major selling point of commodity estates. An
unsatisfactory range of services can prompt residents to move to other places that offer
better services.
The socialist work-unit compounds have provided comprehensive functions such as
public sanitation, security, hospitals, and schools. Yet, with the retreat of government from
the provision of public goods and the loss of community attendance, this can no longer be
expected. In the commodity estates, residents now pay for being taken care of.
Under the market-driven circumstances, I can enjoy high-level services with
better quality by paying more money. As an individual, of course, I would prefer
these services for free. But in the long run, it seems impossible and unfair. (Xuri
resident)
The government selectively relegates neighborhood governance to territorially based
private management (Wu, 2005), and the gates and walls define the boundaries of rights
and responsibilities between public and private. In an officially socialist country,

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p articularly, this differentiation of space into good privately governed space and bad
publicly governed space could be expected to be controversial, but such is not the case.
The general view is that the increasing social diversity requires differentiated solutions,
and it would be impossible for the government to provide the same kind of good life to
all of its citizens. The consequence of this differentiated governance is the differentiation
of urban space. Gated communities in China are part of a wholly new urban structure, and
as the following section shows, the general acceptance of this urban reality is not restricted
to residents living inside gated communities.

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THE OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVE

Studies on gated communities often lack accounts of the population living beyond the
walls, and those that do include them deliver inconsistent results. In Cape Town, South
Africa, a poorer village was found to feel rejected by the presence of walls and the spatial
design of a gated community, and neither side felt they were really neighbors (Lemanski,
2006). Roitman (2005) reported from Argentina that not only an outside community felt
segregated and discriminated against, but also the residents of the gated community. In
contrast, a study in Santiago de Chile showed that the walls did not preclude the creation
of social connections between residents living inside and outside of a gated community.
The attitudes and perceptions of both groups were positive toward each other, and a certain
degree of functional integration could be found (Salcedo and Torres, 2004).
The interviews conducted in areas adjacent to our case studies provided useful insights
into the changes experienced through the establishment of the estates; the intensity, location, and form of social contacts between residents inside and outside; and the attitudes of
the outsiders toward their new neighbors (Feng et al., 2011). For all these questions, there
was a marked difference between the suburban estates and the central-city one. The latter
was built on former industrial land, whereas the suburban estates were constructed on rural
land bought indirectly from local village collectives. Although rural land in China can only
be sold through the hand of the state, which in the process siphons off significant gains,
the villagers benefit greatly from these sales. This is one reason for their overall positive
attitude, even though this study found various conflicts regarding the exact position of the
walls and the right of way.
The changes in the suburban cases were fundamental and welcomed overall. They concerned the physical environment, infrastructure, accessibility, economic situation, and lifestyles. They also included the arrival of many migrants, who rented space in the village to
work in the construction or as service personnel of the estate. The market of one of the villages was relocated to better serve the estate residents, and villagers in turn can use some
of the estate facilities (shops, bank, parks) as well as public transport (but not normally the
estates shuttle buses).
These developments led to certain interactions between the residents inside and outside
the estate, but mostly only functional ones. Thus the village and the estate very much
remained two different worlds:
We dont know who they are. How can we talk? I never talk with them. (Villager
near Lijiang Garden)

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They shut their doors after they get into their communities. How can you know what
they are like? The villagers seldom buy flowers and plants except for Chinese New
Year, while the residents in the nearby estates have enough money. They grow
plants for entertainment to fill their boring lives. (Plant dealer in Jushu Village)
The estates are seen as a foreign fancy world that is partly admired and partly
ignored; but there are few signs of hostility. What was occasionally criticized is that the
walled estates complicatd access to the fields and orchards, but most interviewees not only
accepted the separation but even approved of it. They think the developers of the estates
have the right to build walls and fences and that the residents have to protect themselves
against strangersalthough they are sure that these strangers are actually not themselves, but others such as thieves or poor garbage collectors.
[The estates] have bought the land, so they have the right to do so. If I was the resident who spent a large amount of money on my apartment and paid management
fees every month, I would also wish there are safety facilities.
We even heard how villagers learned from the new estates to consider methods of gating
for themselves:
[In a neighboring village] there are four security booths at each of the four road
entrances. Visitors need to show their ID card to get in. The immigrants who rent
a place in the village can get this card from the local administrative department.
Our village wants to adopt this method all the time. Nowadays, there is a temporary
security booth at the entrance of our village but the incoming people need not show
any card. Even if you are a stranger and behave well, you can get into our village.
This statement expresses a sense of territoriality that is shared by the people inside and
outside. Despite an overall friendly attitude, there is a strong desire for boundaries and
separation, especially in the highly mixed suburban spaces. Gates around villages would
take enclave urbanism one step further. That this does not happen is apparently only due to
the limited political resources of the village compared to those of property developers.
The situation around the urban estate in this study was markedly different. The social
gap between the insiders and those living in urbanized villages and privatized work-unit
compounds outside was less significant. Many residents in Xuri Estate have in fact previously lived nearby. Therefore the contacts between insiders and outsiders are much closer.
However, since the estate does not offer better amenities than its surroundings, the desire
of outsiders to enter was not strong.
Throughout this study, the outsiders criticized the inconveniences resulting from the
walls and gates, but overall they accepted them.
The walls have the meaning to keep everything outside. It does not seem harmonious,
but disharmony exists in this society. It is common. (Resident near Xuri Estate)
CONCLUSION
We can conclude four things. First, gated communities are not the exception but rather
the rule in contemporary Guangzhou, and the critical view of most Western scholars is not
reflected in the local responsesneither from inside the walls nor outside them.

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Second, we were right to include a variety of gated commodity-housing estates because

there are vast differences regarding the functions of estate borders and the attitudes of
insiders and outsiders toward each other. Too often, the discussion about gated living in
China is confined to high-end suburban estates.
Third, the walls and gates of the Chinese commodity estates in this study had both
material and psychological functions. Materially, they ensure a better quality of life than
that in the surrounding areasfor those who can afford it. The market logic demands that
territories are clearly defined and that access is filtered. This may contradict the socialist ideals still officially adhered to, but it is widely accepted by the public, regardless of
whether they live inside or outside the estates. More interesting are the psychological
functions, and we have shown that not only the symbolic functions, but also the issues of
inclusion and exclusion are mainly psychological. So is the strong emphasis on security
not justified by a particularly high crime rate, as it may be in Brazil or South Africa, but
more by a deeply rooted feeling of insecurity, which is further discussed below.
Fourth, there is no straightforward answer to the question raised at the beginning of this
article: whether the functions and attitudes found in China should be explained by global
or home-grown factors. Our investigation has to some extent confirmed aspects of all the
three arguments mentioned at the beginning: (a) globalization vs. neoliberalism, (b) culture vs. path-dependency, and (c) domestic transition vs. development.
We can clearly see similarities between the Chinese gated communities and those
abroad. What is more, we found immediate external influences, including sources of capital, layout patterns, symbols of Western lifestyles, management companies, and residents
from Hong Kong and abroad. Even the analysis of the functions of gates and walls at first
sight resembled those found in other countries. Wehrhahn (2003), for example, identified
the desire for security and for distinction, as well as local cultural factors, as key reasons
for the growth of gated communities in Madrid. These could very well sum up our findings as well.
However, the interviews here gave us some understanding of a more complex background that is then very much China-specific. To start with the most obvious, there is an
unusual cultural affinity for gated living in China. Although based on different logics, both
the traditional and the socialist Chinese city were replete with walls and gates. This has
relevance for current attitudes, because walls and gates are seen as normal and not as problems. Other cultural dispositionssuch as a strong sense of territoriality, a traditionally
cellular society, and a feeling of insecurity in the absence of immediate social tieswere
also found to be relevant for understanding gated communities in China.
It would, however, be a gross oversimplification to reduce the term China-specific in
that way. The stage and path of development as well as the process of political change are
also China-specific, but they are not quite cultural factors. Both parts of this statement are
equally important. That these factors are China-specific is also often obscured when the
countrys economic reforms are addressed as neoliberalism, and the opening-up as globalization. The relative indifference toward social equality, for instance, cannot adequately
be understood as either neoliberalism or Chinese culturebut only in the context of the
specific development path and the experience of socialism. This is true for many of the
factors on the producer side (e.g., the states reliance on external funding and the role of
large development firms), but also for factors on the consumer side.

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The emerging demand for privacy, the meaning of individual ownership, the desire for
social distinction, and the particular concept of security are such factors. To start with the
desire for distinction, coming from a society of poverty and socialist egalitarism, the latest
generation of Chinese followed Deng Xiaopings principle of It is glorious to be rich.
Many of todays urbanites have accumulated considerable wealth and now want to enjoy a
more glorious life than others. Housing is a major arena for them to express that distinction
through consumption practices.
Also the intricate concept of security that emerged from our interviews can be better
understood in light of the Chinese transition process. Although this process has provided
great opportunities for many, it also came with a loss. What has been lost are clear structures, a government that took care of everything, and the security afforded by strong social
ties in a world of limited mobility in work-units where colleagues are also neighbors,
friends, and comrades. These losses are often not seen as such, but they need to be taken
into account when explaining strong feelings of insecurity. The people appreciate the anonymity and freedom from social obligations they have achieved, but at the same time they
feel deeply insecure when facing the other in the form of migrantsand, in fact, any
unknown people in an increasingly complex society. The gated communities in this context provide welcome structure and homogeneity, and they also provide comprehensive
service on a commercial basis without the social obligations of the old system.
The fact that the development and transition argument was the one most referred to
in this article raises the issue of whether the proliferation of gated communities in China
is a transitional phenomenon. There are indeed reasons to believe that the current model
of housing production may recede as urban growth slows down, the first generations of
migrants are integrated, the local state has gained planning capacity, and critical views on
segregation and social inequality have become more common. These changes are bound
to happen, although no one can predict when, and although the forces of globalization and
path-dependency, in different ways, are likely to ensure that walls and gates will not disappear from the Chinese city anytime soon.
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