Village CEOs as gentrification agents: Gentrification and spatial governance in China's emerging tourism villages

IF 7 1区经济学 Q1 DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Habitat International Pub Date : 2026-05-01 Epub Date: 2026-03-07 DOI:10.1016/j.habitatint.2026.103760

Ying Wang , Tin-yuet Ting , Eddie Chi Man Hui , Jeff Jianfu Shen

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The recent emergence of village CEOs as entrepreneurial cadres provides a valuablevantage point for examining how local innovations in spatial governance drive and condition rural gentrification in China. Using a case study to investigate the transformation of rural villages into tourism villages, in which exclusive spatial rights and protected insularity used to be rendered quid pro quo for villagers’ support and obedience, this article examines how quasi-state agents open access to rural land and property use, particularly through the implementation of new clientelist institutions that reconfigure spatial development rights. Beyond simplistic post-productivist frameworks,the analysis explains how village CEOs serve as pragmatic patronage brokers for the local state, reshaping spatial organisational, planning, and value systems to create favourable conditions for rural tourism and recreational development. Characterised by distinct dynamics of exclusion and marginalisation, an uneven geography of the tourist consumptionscape is orchestrated according to emerging broker–client relationships. Although rural gentrification is often examined as a spontaneous and amenity-driveprocess, this article sheds light on how the intricacies of entrenched institutional frameworks of spatial governance in a post-socialist context give rise to a stateembedded, coordinated form of gentrification with repercussions for local development.

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乡村ceo作为高档化的推动者：中国新兴旅游乡村的高档化与空间治理

近年来，作为创业干部的村级ceo的出现，为研究中国地方空间治理创新如何推动和条件农村士绅化提供了一个宝贵的有利点。本文通过一个案例研究来调查乡村向旅游村的转变，在这个过程中，排他的空间权利和受保护的孤岛曾经是村民支持和服从的交换条件，本文探讨了准国家代理人如何开放农村土地和财产的使用，特别是通过实施重新配置空间发展权的新客户主义制度。除了简单的后生产主义框架之外，该分析还解释了乡村首席执行官如何作为当地政府务实的赞助经纪人，重塑空间组织、规划和价值体系，为乡村旅游和娱乐发展创造有利条件。以排斥和边缘化的独特动态为特征，旅游消费景观的不平衡地理位置根据新兴的经纪人-客户关系进行编排。尽管农村中产阶级化通常被视为一个自发的、便利驱动的过程，但本文揭示了后社会主义背景下根深蒂固的空间治理制度框架的复杂性如何导致国家嵌入的、协调的中产阶级化形式，并对当地发展产生影响。

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

Habitat International Multiple-

CiteScore

10.50

自引率

10.30%

发文量

151

审稿时长

38 days

期刊介绍： Habitat International is dedicated to the study of urban and rural human settlements: their planning, design, production and management. Its main focus is on urbanisation in its broadest sense in the developing world. However, increasingly the interrelationships and linkages between cities and towns in the developing and developed worlds are becoming apparent and solutions to the problems that result are urgently required. The economic, social, technological and political systems of the world are intertwined and changes in one region almost always affect other regions.