Chinese Green Gentrification: Gaze and Ethics in Local Discourses of Sustainable Development

IF 1.3 4区经济学 Q2 DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Developing Economies Pub Date : 2025-11-02 DOI:10.1111/deve.70002

Michela Bonato

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Abstract

This paper examines the overlooked micro-politics of housing in southwestern China's peripheries, focusing on Chongqing, to deconstruct dominant narratives of urban grandeur and explore alternative visions of sustainable development. It analyzes real estate strategies in Yubei District and the development of Liangjiang New Area over the past decade. The study situates green gentrification within Chinese landscape aesthetics and state-led ecological civilization discourse, revealing how these frameworks enable the spatial and temporal reorganization of global capital in the locale. Using multimodal discourse analysis, supplemented by ethnographic and secondary data, the paper highlights non-Western perspectives on gentrification and uneven urban development. By approaching the locale with care, the analysis emphasizes the epistemological embeddedness of local gentrification processes within broader power structures and calls for decolonial approaches to urban studies. The research contributes to understanding how rapid, top-down urbanization in autocratic governance regimes shapes material and discursive transformations in peripheral green areas.

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中国绿色中产阶级化：可持续发展话语中的凝视与伦理

本文考察了中国西南周边地区被忽视的住房微观政治，以重庆为重点，解构城市宏伟的主导叙事，探索可持续发展的替代愿景。分析了渝北区和两江新区近十年来的房地产发展战略。该研究将绿色高档化置于中国景观美学和国家主导的生态文明话语中，揭示了这些框架如何使全球资本在当地进行空间和时间重组。本文运用多模态话语分析，辅以人种学和二手数据，突出了非西方视角下士绅化和城市发展不平衡的问题。通过谨慎地接近现场，分析强调了在更广泛的权力结构中当地中产阶级化过程的认识论嵌入性，并呼吁采用非殖民化的方法进行城市研究。该研究有助于理解专制治理体制下快速、自上而下的城市化如何影响周边绿地的物质和话语转变。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Developing Economies Multiple-

CiteScore

3.60

自引率

9.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Developing Economies is the official journal of the Institute of Developing Economies, JETRO, and publishes original research articles dealing with empirical and comparative studies on social sciences relating to the developing countries.