Seminar: "State-led Financialisation in China's Low-end Housing Provision: A Case Study of Nanjing." Dr Shenjing He, University of Hong Kong, 11 May 2017.
Published: 9 May 2017
11th May (Thursday), 4-5.30pm. Location: Room 139, 29 Bute Gardens, University of Glasgow.
11th May at 4pm.
Location: Room 139, 29 Bute Gardens, University of Glasgow.
Abstract: This paper examines the issue of incremental state-led financialization in the post-global financial crisis era as China attempts to restructure its approach to housing provision. Based on a case study of Nanjing's resettlement housing construction, this study provides a nuanced analysis of the state-led financialisation in low-end housing provision, by scrutinising the active role of the local state in orchestrating collaborations between the housing and financial sectors, turning low-end housing into a financial asset to achieve the politico-economic objectives of the local states in terms of maintaining investment-led growth through the urban built environment and overall appreciation of state-owned assets. This research have the following key findings: First, through strategic mergers and acquisitions of state-owned enterprises and injecting state-owned land, local financial platform has gained the capability to leverage low-cost borrowings from an array of financial channels. Second, affordable housing is securitised as standardised financial product to attract financial investors, while affordable housing are turned into financial asset. Third, affordable housing projects have helped to reactivate urban redevelopment opportunities and overall land value appreciation of the entire city, while resulting the enlarged spatial unevenness and deprivation. This study suggests that fewer technofiscal and entrepreneurial approaches should be taken in the provision of affordable housing so as to reduce socio-spatial inequalities and deprivations.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY
Shenjing He is Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Design at The University of Hong Kong. She is the Chinese editor of Urban Studies (SAGE), and a member of the international editorial advisory board of Journal of Urban Affairs (Wiley Blackwell), Geography Compass (Wiley Blackwell), International Planning Studies (Routledge), and Area Development and Policy (Taylor and Francis). Shenjing’s primary research interests focus on urban redevelopment/gentrification, housing differentiation and socio-spatial inequality, rural-urban migration and urban poverty. She has published more than seventy journal articles and book chapters in English and Chinese. She is the co-author of “Urban Poverty in China” (Edward Elgar, 2010), co-editor of “Locating Right to the City in the Global South” (Routledge, 2013), “Urban living: Mobility, Sociability, and Wellbeing” (Springer, 2016), and “Changing China: Migration, Communities and Governance in Cities” (Routledge, 2016). She is also the lead guest editor of several special issues for Environment and Planning A (2012), Urban Studies (2015), Eurasian Geography and Economics (2015), and Urban Geography (2016). Shenjing was listed by Elsevier as one of the most cited researchers in mainland China (No. 9 and No. 13 among social scientists in 2015 and 2016 respectively).
First published: 9 May 2017
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