Typology,features and mechanism of urban low-income neighborhoods under market transition:a case study of Nanjing
转型期城市低收入邻里的类型、特征和产生机制:以南京市为例

Although there is a dispute about whether the spatial concentration of poverty is a major cause of social problems,concentrated poverty' was a rapidly spreading phenomenon in many western cities has come to a broad consensus.Since the market transition of economic system in the early 1990s,urban poverty has become a prominent social problem and attracted some attention among Chinese officials and academics.However,there have been few studies on the spatial features of urban poverty.The purpose of this paper is to examine the spatial distribution of urban poverty in transitional China and in turn to explore the typology,features and creation mechanism of low-income neighborhoods.The research reveals that,the spatial distribution of urban poverty is dispersed at a city-wide level but concentrated in specific neighborhoods.Specifically,three types of low-income neighborhoods have emerged in urban China,which are the old-city dilapidated residence,the degraded worker's village and rural migrants' enclaves.The research further argues that the emergence of low-income neighborhood is rooted in the state-led urban development policy and the socialist housing provision system,and is intensified by the housing marketization and real estate-led urban development.Based on the analysis and field survey of typical low-income neighborhoods in Nanjing city,the spatial distribution of poverty and the features of low-income neighborhoods are examined,and the creation mechanism of low-income neighborhoods is validated.Further discussion indicates that low-income neighborhoods in urban China are different from the slum or ghetto in advanced Western cities.