Counterurbanization, gentrification and the potential for rural revitalisation in China

Stimulating counterurbanization has long been understood as a potential approach to revitalising rural areas. While well-established in many countries, in China, it is taking a particular time-limited form and characteristic dominated by issues of domicile and property rights. Rather than being characterised by long-term life choices, counterurbanization in China is predominantly a shorter-term leisure and tourism activity in which urbanites 'curate', for a limited period, a gentrified country lifestyle in accessible near-urban villages. These lifestyles are in some ways akin to second-home tourism. However, rather than purchase property as an investment, this new movement rents and renovates property as a consumption good with which to welcome other urbanites to visit, to consume and affirm these newly gentrified spaces and leisure opportunities. Based on a case study of Cenbu Village near Shanghai, this paper argues that current approaches to counterurbanization in China have limited impact on the revitalisation of local communities. Rather, newcomers from the cities largely superimpose their needs on the village in a way both ephemeral and removed from local people and village life. This comes about less as a mark of distain on the part of the incomers, and more as a result of their exclusion from key village institutions such as collective ownership, rights of domicile and ability to contribute to local governance. The paper concludes by arguing that mechanisms should be developed to enhance the long-term confidence of newcomers, to encourage them to engage with community governance as a means of shaping the community and contributing more effectively to endogenous village revitalisation.