ISBN:
9780231194518
,
9780231194501
Language:
English
Pages:
xiii, 328 Seiten
,
Illustrationen, Diagramme, Karte
DDC:
305.5/50951
Keywords:
Middle class
;
Neighborhoods
;
Housing
;
Beijing (China) Economic conditions
;
Peking
;
Mittelstand
;
Umweltverschmutzung
;
Aktivismus
;
Geschichte 2006 - 2011
Abstract:
"The stench was from the landfill less than two miles away and it was surprising that anyone would have bought a home without knowing the landfill was there. Aside from confirming that the school district was good, and that the area had "good winds, good water," the residents seemed to know very little about their new neighborhoods at the time of purchase. When Jean Yen-chun Lin first started studying the communities she calls Meadow, Ocean, Star, Rose, Marigold, and Sky, she took the concept of "neighborhood" for granted, but as she quickly learned, this notion and its accompanying sense of shared civic responsibility was new to the emergent Chinese middle class. Newly built gated communities in Beijing demonstrated for the first time for many Chinese that housing was a choice rather than arrangement. A Spark in the Smokestacks is a mixed method study that asks how housing and home ownership builds civil society through a case of how a group of communities in China dealt with the results of living in the penumbra of a garbage dump. In sum, Lin shows, through a group of newly formed homeowners' associations, how Middle-class community spaces foster social-interaction, a sense of community responsibility, and in turn, shape the emergence of community leaders and community-based organizations. The book is an excellent example of the value of studying urban communities throughout the world in order to understand how they function"--
Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index
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