The working and living conditions of college-educated rural migrants in China

In the past one and a half decades, Chinese cities have witnessed an influx of college-educated rural migrants. Until now, there has been little systematic research on the working and living conditions of this growing population. The objective of this paper is to empirically examine similarities and differences in living conditions between college-educated rural migrants, non-college-educated rural migrants, and local urban workers. The data are from the 2010 National Health and Family Planning Commission Survey of China’s migrant population. Our study has produced several findings. First, the monthly income of college-educated rural migrants is significantly higher than that of non-college-educated rural migrants and is similar to that of college-educated local urban workers. However, less-educated rural migrants earn more than local urban workers with similar levels of education. Second, while college-educated rural migrants work fewer hours than non-college-educated rural migrants, they work longer hours than their local urban counterparts. Third, local urban workers receive greater social benefits than college-educated rural migrants, whose benefits are better than those of non-college-educated rural migrants. Overall, while college-educated rural migrants enjoy more favourable working and living conditions than non-college-educated rural migrants, they remain disadvantaged when compared to urban workers with a similar level of education. These findings highlight the insurmountable institutionalised exclusion and discrimination that imposes significant barriers on rural-origin people to reap the benefits of higher education.     

Urban Villages in China: A 2008 Survey of Migrant Settlements in Beijing

A team of Beijing-based urban planning specialists is joined by a noted American geographer to present the results and analyze their 2008 survey of migrant settlements in China's capital city. The paper examines the living and work conditions as well as housing consumption behavior of migrants in Chinese cities, focusing on chengzhongcun or urban villages—rural settlements that have been transformed into poor living spaces for migrant workers. It finds that although migrant workers are willing to pay the same or higher rent per unit of space, they consume much smaller dwelling spaces than local residents. Estimations of the Mincerian wage equation and of a housing demand equation show that migrants' small space consumption is a function not only of low income but also of a reluctance to spend their earnings in the city. The findings reinforce the notion that migrant workers consider the city as a place to work rather than a home in which to live. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: J610, O150, R210, R230. 14 figures, 5 tables, 34 references, 1 appendix.     

THE SOURCES OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT: WAGES,HOUSING, AND AMENITY GAPS ACROSS AMERICAN CITIES*

ABSTRACT This paper asks whether worker utility levels—composed of wages, rents, and amenities—are being equalized among American cities. Using microdata on U.S. urban workers in 1980 and 2000, little evidence of equalization is found. Comparable workers earn higher real wages in large cities, where amenities are also concentrated. Moreover, population growth between 1980 and 2000 has not been significantly different in low‐ and high‐utility cities, suggesting that other forces are at work shaping the sorting processes that match workers and firms. We outline an alternative view of the drivers of change in the American urban system, and urban development more generally, by applying theory from economic geography.     

Time,Waste, and the City: The Rise of the Environmental Industry

In many US cities, especially those in the Rust Belt, the environmental goods and services (EGS) industry has played a significant role in restructuring local economies to promote new, flexible, and “creative” forms of service‐based labour. And yet much of the environmental work conducted in these cities has been directed at an industrial past, cleaning up the waste left over from long‐departed manufacturing sectors. Returning to David Harvey's earlier work on the urban process, this paper develops a theory of waste switching that situates EGS within a larger renegotiation of space and time across city landscapes. This theory is fleshed out in case studies of the EGS industry in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Milwaukee, where new cycles of accumulation have been built on refuse, toxins, and dead labour. These “toxi‐cities” and their cleanup challenge traditional conceptions of urbanisation as spatially—but also temporally—bounded.     

LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICE PROVISION AND SPATIAL INEQUALITY IN CHINESE CITIES: THE ROLE OF RESIDENTIAL INCOME SORTING AND LAND‐USE CONDITIONS

Spatial inequality refers to unequal access to local public services between high‐ and low‐income households in relation to their residential locations. We examine two hypotheses regarding the role of income sorting and land‐use conditions in shaping spatial inequality in Chinese cities, where residents have little direct influence on local public service provision. First, in the presence of resource indivisibility, travel cost, and location‐based rationing, scarcity of public‐service resources in a city makes access to public services more uneven across neighborhoods, thus exacerbating income sorting and spatial inequality in the city. Second, the exacerbating effect of resource scarcity is mitigated by land‐use conditions that limit income sorting. Estimates of willingness to pay by households of different income levels for public‐service resources across cities corroborate both the exacerbating effect of resource scarcity and the mitigating effect of inclusive land‐use conditions.     

The Economic Performance of European Cities and City Regions: Myths and Realities

The ever-increasing concentration of people and economic growth in the largest cities relative to the rest of the country has slowed down or even reversed in many of the developed European countries over the last decade. This trend contradicts what the global cities, urban economics and new economic geography literature would predict. This trend can be interpreted from two points of view: (1) the trend is due to large obstacles to further large city urbanization and thus is inefficient or (2) this trend highlights alternative pathways to growth than the mega-city approach and may be as, if not more, efficient. This trend may be linked to Europe's uniquely polycentric urban structure with high number of small- and medium-sized cities. In addition, improvements in the access to services, including broadband, outside large cities may have facilitated the higher growth rates of smaller centres and rural regions and increased their appeal for residents and firms. Last but not least, negative externalities in the large cities, such as congestion costs, pollution, labour crowding and high cost of living, may increase the appeal of smaller centres and rural regions.     

NEW URBAN POVERTY AND THE CRISIS IN THE CITIZENSHIP/WELFARE SYSTEM: THE ITALIAN EXPERIENCE

The paper deals with the working hypothesis and preliminary empirical research on longitudinal analysis of the new urban poor in large Italian cities. It begins by considering existing welfare provisions in Italy and the reasons why they are inadequate to the needs of the new urban poor, who are segments of an increasingly heterogeneous population hit by an accumulation of specific disadvantages, such as the socially isolated elderly with serious health problems, poorly educated young people with a low income family background, long-term unemployed adults who become in some areas professionally unemployable, migrants isolated from both local and fellow-countrymen networks. The paper then presents a preliminary analysis of data indicating the different typologies of new poverty in northern and southern Italian cities and discusses the problems raised for the Italian welfare system by the extension of these phenomena.     

PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN THE OLD AND NEW EUROPE: THE ROLE OF AGGLOMERATION EXTERNALITIES

As Europe is currently characterized by huge disparities in the economic performance of “old” and “new” states, we investigate whether this is the result of local agglomeration—specialization and diversity—externalities. Our spatial econometric analysis focuses on total factor productivity dynamics over the period 1996–2007 for 13 industries located in 276 European regions. Consistently with the “nursery cities” theory, we find that diversity exerts a positive effect in the knowledge‐intensive services of the “old” Europe urban areas, while specialization is still effective in the “new” Europe low‐tech manufacturing. Human and technological capital has also a positive impact.     

“Urban Ecology Under Fire”: Water Supply in Madrid During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)

This paper investigates the critical role of workers to enhance the resilience of water supply services in cities at war through analyzing the case of Madrid and the Madrid water company Canales del Lozoya during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). We argue that securing the protection of vital urban flows mediated through infrastructures is a key objective of cities under attack. In doing so we contend that examining how those affected by the interruption of these flows cope with the situation represents a valuable but largely neglected form of water management. We illustrate how quotidian knowledge about the urban geography of water flows may have important repercussions for the war effort itself. In a nutshell, the case of Madrid offers an early account of the critical role of water workers in sustaining “urban ecologies under fire” securing the complex urban metabolism while also contributing to the struggle against invading forces.     

The Public Assistance Policies of Cities and the Justice Concerns of Elected Officials: The Centrality of the Floors Principle in Addressing Urban Poverty

City councils are significant, though seldom central, actors in local policy networks providing public assistance to disadvantaged residents. Mayors and council members in 12 American cities more often support than oppose public assistance initiatives. They claim that their own normative judgments are more important to their preferences and voting behavior on such matters than are public opinion, group demands, or economic considerations. While such elected officials hold a variety of justice principles, the most important of these affecting their positions on public assistance issues is the “floors” principle. A broad ethical commitment to providing social minimums enhances support for living‐wage ordinances, for linking subsidies for economic development to assistance to less advantaged citizens, and for exempting spending on social services from budget cuts. We discuss the implications of these findings for major theories of urban politics and policies—collective‐action theory, regime theory, and pluralism—and for advocates on behalf of the urban poor.     

LEGISLATION AND REALITY: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR SANITATION AND HOUSING QUALITY IN URBAN WORKERS’ HOUSING IN THE ANCOATS AREA OF MANCHESTER BETWEEN 1800 AND 1950

Abstract

This paper will look at some of the excavated material for British urban workers’ housing, built and occupied during the period 1800 to 1950 in the Ancoats area of Manchester: Ancoats was notorious amongst contemporary writers and campaigners for its poor quality and overcrowded housing. This archaeological evidence has emerged as a result of developer-funded excavations and represents part of a growing body of data collected since 1990 from within many of the great industrial cities of Britain (Glasgow, London and Manchester), as well as excavations in the numerous smaller industrial manufacturing towns of the UK. In this study particular attention is given to the impact of national legislation, private acts and local by-laws aimed at improving industrialised living conditions and the build quality of 19th-century workers’ housing occupied into the 20th century. Using excavated examples from more than 50 houses within Ancoats, it will be argued that archaeology can provide a distinctive and unique view of urban domestic life in the 19th and first half of the 20th century, whilst demonstrating continuity in occupation patterns during this period. The evidence for urbanised, industrial living also compliments the more extensive archaeological studies of manufacturing industry from the period.     

企业主义视角下大城市保障房建设的策略选择及其社会空间后果

城市企业主义是理解地方政府行为与城市空间变迁的重要政治经济视角,在中国推进经济全球化和住房市场化的背景下,企业化的地方政府,特别是大城市政府,在保障房的建设实践中往往采取偏向性的策略选择。本文着重讨论企业主义视角下大城市政府保障房建设的策略选择及其社会空间后果。研究发现,大城市政府主要通过实施保障房政策的异化和保障房住区的边远化策略,来履行其住房保障职责。然而,这种选择性策略带来的直接的社会空间后果是低收入群体的边缘化,具体表现为外来务工人员等在保障政策上的边缘化,以及保障房居民在社会空间上的边缘化。文章进一步指出,保障房应回归其保障本位,以满足低收入群体的真实需求。     

Elastic labor supply and agglomeration

This study analyzes the interplay between the agglomeration of economic activities and interregional differences in working hours, which are typically longer in large cities, as they are normally more developed than small cities. For this purpose, we develop a two‐region model with endogenous labor supply. Although we assume a symmetric distribution of immobile workers, the symmetric equilibrium breaks in the sense that firms may agglomerate when trade costs are intermediate and labor supply is elastic. We also show that the price index is always lower, while labor supply, per capita income, real wages, and welfare are always higher in the more agglomerated region.     

Information without frontiers: Financial services,EC regulation and European cities

Using Castells' notion of the informational mode of development, this briefing investigates the changing hierarchy and function of European cities in the light of EC policies. The EC regulatory regime is identified as an integral part of the informational mode of development, setting the parameters within which the corporate sector operates. It is argued that the purpose of information flows is mainly control. A new constellation of European cities is anticipated which depends to a large extent upon the degree to which cities, competing against one another, are able to establish central urban complexes. These are based on the agglomeration economies between corporate headquarters, financial institutions and producer services at the urban level, and information flows at a global level of communications. Among the vast array of EC policies the paper identifies those in support of innovation and telecommunications, the deregulation of financial services, and regional policy as crucial for urban development. Given the requirements of infrastructure, institutions, professional skills and regulatory competence, existing metropolitan centres will capitalize on their comparative advantage and attempt to build on these in the future. These developments are likely to foster further concentration of capital and investment in a few major centres, thus counteracting other EC policies of regional equalization and harmonization. It is argued that these and other contradictions are an amplification of those already afflicting the capitalist state at both national and local levels. The paper also offers an opportunity to reassess aspects of traditional location theory, in particular central place models, in the light of these developments and finds them wanting. The same conclusion is reached regarding the cost‐benefit calculus of the Cecchini Report.     

The Problems of Small Cities and the Policy of Stimulating Small-City Growth

The policy of activating small-city growth through industrialization has focused largely on further development of such cities since it was first formulated in the 1960s. The author suggests that not all small cities possess the requisites for further growth and that it is a mistake to view them entirely as a transitional form of settlement. According to this view, small cities have a role to play as rural service centers. The problem is viewed not so much the industrialization and further growth of small cities, but an improvement of living levels designed to reduce the present gap between the standards of living in large and small urban centers. Further research on small-city problems is urged, proceeding from past emphasis on industrialization prospects to broader analysis of socio-demographic needs and the steps required to preserve small cities as an integral element of unified systems of settlement.     

Differences in hi‐tech immigrant earnings and wages across Canadian cities

This paper examines the relative earnings and wages of immigrants working in the hi‐tech sector in Canada's cities. Between 1990 and 2000, a sizeable earnings advantage of immigrants over nonimmigrants employed in the hi‐tech sector evaporated, and this change was most noticeable in the largest cities. We use population census microdata to examine the geographical dimensions of this shift. After controlling for individual characteristics, we show that immigrants in the largest and tech‐intensive cities earn significantly less relative to nonimmigrants than those in midsized and smaller cities. We also present results comparing the hi‐tech immigrant wage and earnings gap for the five largest Canadian cities. The findings are consistent with the notion that geographic differences are an important component of the overall earnings gap between immigrants and nonimmigrants.     

流动人口居留稳定性的群体分异与空间格局

利用2015年全国1%人口抽样调查数据,本文分析了流动人口居留稳定性的总体特征、群体分异和空间差异性,并对流动人口居留稳定性的影响因素进行了探讨。结果表明：①我国跨市流动人口在当前城市的平均居住时间约为5年,新生代流动人口的居留稳定性与老一代并没有显著差异,从事工业行业的流动人口居留稳定性明显低于各类服务业从业者;②省内流动人口的居留稳定性低于省际流动人口,且有更大的可能离开当前城市,转向省际流动;③城市流动人口的规模和居留稳定性在空间格局和影响因素方面均存在明显差异,虽然收入水平和就业机会依然是吸引流动人口的主要因素,但公共服务、住房市场和环境等城市宜居性因素对提高流动人口的居留稳定性更为重要。     

广州旧城区传统绅士化现象及其机制研究——以荔湾区逢源街道耀华社区为例

本文在对国外传统绅士化概念的内涵与机制进行梳理的基础上,以广州荔湾区逢源街道耀华社区为例探讨了市场转型期中国大城市传统绅士化运动的特征与机制。通过对绅士化特征的分析,本文指出广州作为转型期的中国大城市存在着渐进的自下而上的传统绅士化过程,并具有以下特征:以外来工商人员为主流"绅士",社区人口置换过程缓慢,政府主导社区的景观环境改造。其中,广州市政府的"退二进三"政策及旧城区的商业发展而非文化因素成为传统绅士化的主要动力,破碎的产权结构则是绅士化进程的主要障碍。     

Regional urbanization and the selective growth of towns in North American regions

Despite the extensive discussion of urbanization in the North American past, the processes of selective growth among the various towns and cities, which comprise a regional urban system, remain obscured by the use of oversimplified explanations that neglect either functional and locational variations among the centres or the changing conditions of regional development. A generalized model of selective urban growth in newly settling regions is proposed which distinguishes three periods of development by characteristics of circulation and export activity. It emphasizes the changing implications of town locations (their nodality) as settlement expands and the bases of urban growth shift from commercial and local services to increasingly manufacturing. Discussion of the literature on regional urbanization, organized under five categories of traditional and more recent explanations of selective growth, not only points to the temporal and locational deficiencies which the model addresses, but also reveals the need for closer examination within a developmental framework of both the interdependencies of central place and mercantile bases of urban growth and the relationships between the emergence of manufacturing and city sizes.     

城市企业主义视角下的中国城市增长机制研究

我国城市发展自本世纪以来呈现出加快发展的趋势。然而,这一进程尚不均衡和协调。本文通过城市企业主义这一视角,分析中国城市实现空间与经济迅速增长的机制及其所面临的问题。文章首先考察了2001-2009年间的公共财政结构,揭示出中国地方政府治理模式,并对其背后的制度原因进行了分析,以体现出城市企业主义是如何受到高度集中的行政考评体系和分税制这一转型期财政体制的影响。文章接着对地方政府为实现其城市企业主义战略而采用的土地驱动型发展模式进行了研究,最后提出了中国城市发展亟待转型的呼吁。