“For the people” without “by the people”: Exclusive inclusion in Shanghai’s waterfront development

• In Event: 1451 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 7. Issues in China and Taiwan

Abstract

As the notion of inclusive urban development (IUD) grows in popularity among policy-makers, the pursuit of urban justice appears to grow out of its radical Marxian origin into the mainstream of urban policy-making. Yet there is no shortage of discontent with the IUD framework among critical scholars. Does IUD, in its state-centric and outcome-driven mode, safeguard or undermine the right to the city? This article takes the question to Shanghai, where the entire waterfront corridor along the Huangpu River was recently redeveloped. The Shanghai government replaced parts of residential properties, entertainment facilities, and military establishments along the river with a network of waterfront recreational parks, which are connected by a system of hiking trails, biking paths, and touring routes, thereby forming a continuous public-access waterfront corridor. City officials laud the new waterfront as a signature achievement in IUD. However, despite the “for the people” framing of the project, the people are conspicuously missing. Officials invoke a rhetoric of the “people’s needs” that is distinctively upper-middle class. The waterfront becomes a spatial statement of what makes a “desirable citizen” of Shanghai. We call this process “exclusive inclusion” – a nominally inclusive but socially and culturally exclusive path of urban development.

Author

• Yifei Li, New York University