Consuming ‘authenticity’? Reinterpreting the ‘new middle class’ in China through the lens of retailing changes

Introduction

Nanjing, a historic Chinese city, has recently experienced large-scale urban redevelopment, with its historical courtyards being cleared to create spaces for commercial development since the early 2010s (see Zhang and Moore-Cherry, 2022). Against this background, criticisms are emerging from society because these urban redevelopment projects demolished real heritage by redeveloping and reconstructing these places into a simulacrum, embellishing it with cultural references inconsistent with the place’s past histories and stories. In response to these criticisms, recent urban regeneration projects in Nanjing have started using ‘authenticity’ as the place-making strategy, insisting that a place’s original history or memories should be preserved, prolonged and enhanced. Under this call, its newly built historic commercial districts have been imbued with an aura of authenticity based on the history of an ordinary historic neighbourhood. However, this way of re-making a historic neighbourhood’s ‘authenticity’ instead promoted new consumption styles (Hubbard, 2018; Ji, 2021), with coffee shops and Western dining becoming the consumption focus in the retail spaces of these redeveloped/rehabilitated historic commercial districts.

This phenomenon not only exists in Nanjing, but also circulates in other Chinese cities, as Loretta Lees has noted:

the gentrification of hutongs, of lilongs in inner-city Beijing and Shanghai … in the first wave of gentrification many hutongs were knocked down to make way for new, dense, western-style housing developments; now they are more likely to be gentrified by rehabilitation rather than demolition and reused as new trendy cafés and shops, their market well-off young Chinese who want to feel cool. (Lees, 2014: 510)

This quote reveals an interesting phenomenon in China: Western-style housing, lifestyles, and goods are becoming the focus of consumption in gentrified places. Lees and her colleagues further describe these well-off young consumers as ‘new middle classes’ that go back to these traditional historic neighbourhoods to express their ‘cultural tastes’ (Lees et al., 2016). The ‘new middle class’ is a concept that is important in Anglo-American gentrification studies, contrasting with the traditional middle classes in terms of lifestyles and consumption habits (Ley, 1994, 1996). However, whether we can describe these Chinese gentrifiers as the ‘new middle classes’ is moot given China’s history of planned economy and its prominent socialist features? Though the consumption practices of the Chinese new middle classes and Western gentrifiers are becoming increasingly alike, we must ask what Chinese gentrifiers’ global consumption represents.

It is thus important to understand the uneven impacts of globalisation that are intervening in local urban processes, to highlight the planetary importance of gentrification studies by solving these questions in the Global South (Bridge, 2007; Lees et al., 2016). Although gentrification studies in the Global North have addressed numerous concerns about the nature of new middle-class consumers’ lifestyles and consumption, such as the emergence of yuppies, large-scale suburbanisation, changes in occupational structures and the embracement of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism (e.g. Bondi, 1999; Hamnett, 2003; Hubbard, 2017; Ley, 1996; Smith, 1987), these counter-cultural ideas and consumption practices make little sense in the Global South (Lees, 2014). Following Bridge and Dowling (2001), this study focuses on retailing changes to understand Chinese gentrifiers’ identities and consumption preferences, to understand how consumption spaces in China are implicated in urban changes in the globalisation age (Hubbard, 2017).

In this regard, this study analyses the micro-geographies of retailing changes in China, aiming to provide a nuanced understanding of the tastes, identities, and preferences of the Chinese new middle class to further destabilise the dominant role of Western consumption models and theories in gentrification studies. This is important because of China’s political system – regardless of whether one calls it ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’, ‘socialism under marketisation’ or ‘post-socialist’– is embracing neoliberal modernity (He and Wu, 2009; Wu, 2010), and remains significantly different from other capitalist countries in social, cultural and political perspectives. Especially regarding ‘gentrification’, a concept developed in the West that has strong relations to social class (Smith, 2002), it requires us to have more nuanced understanding of gentrification in relation to China’s own sociocultural and political background.

In this respect, this paper takes a comparative perspective by engaging with current authenticity-driven place-making strategies in Chinese cities to provide a more nuanced understanding of these Chinese gentrifiers’ consumption preferences and lifestyles. By delivering an empirical case study in Nanjing, China, this paper argues that the uneven intervention of globalisation has profoundly affected the lifestyles and consumption of the Chinese new middle class, which further shows that the Western concept of ‘consuming authenticity’ makes little sense in China’s urban context (e.g. Guimarães, 2022; Hubbard, 2018; Sakızlıoğlu and Lees, 2020). This study highlights that the aura of ‘authenticity’ is a strategy to attract gentrifiers, as they are a group of people who have preferences for enjoying conspicuous lifestyles in elegant and wealthy enclaves (Wang and Lau, 2009). Owing to the influence of globalisation, I argue that Xiaozi consumption – a specific term that emerged in China’s political, social, and cultural background – is more accurate in describing Chinese gentrifiers’ lifestyles and consumption as a way of displaying their status, wealth and prestige in aesthetic environments (Ning and Chang, 2022; Zhang et al., 2009).

The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. First, I revisit consumption-side focused gentrification studies, analysing the impacts of authenticity-driven consumption. Second, a comparative perspective is applied to analyse the bourgeoning gentrification studies in China, debating whether the application of gentrification in China has been ‘lost in translation’, meanwhile overlooking Chinese contextual particularities. Thereafter, the empirical case study of Nanjing helps us more fully understand the retailing changes caused by the preferences of gentrifiers’ tastes in this specific context. Finally, I conclude with new insights into the literature on lifestyles and consumption in the globalisation age of the new middle classes in the Global South.

Gentrification, retailing changes and consumption of authenticity under globalisation

Gentrification has been theorised via processes of consumption and demand as well as those of production and supply (Ley, 1994; Smith, 1979). From the consumption side, existing studies reveal that the gentrification landscape comprises a combination of shops, restaurants and services illustrating the lifestyles of gentrifiers (Bridge and Dowling, 2001; Zukin et al., 2017). One of the most comprehensive studies on gentrification and retailing was conducted by Ley (1996), who demonstrates that the coincident retail change relates to gentrification, where retail streets became an important place sought by gentrifiers for cultural identity. Simultaneously, the micro-geographies of retailing changes reflect the growing tastes of these gentrifiers in pursuing new lifestyles, which in return (re)structures and shapes the identities and character of the city (see Bridge and Dowling, 2001).

Undeniably, the force of globalisation is altering social, cultural, economic and political structures on various scales, with uneven intervention across the globe (Bridge, 2007; Rofe, 2003). Recent gentrification studies have highlighted the influential role of globalisation in affecting and changing gentrifiers’ consumption practices, with global cities such as London and New York becoming places to pursue global consumption practices. Thus, current research highlights the importance of researching retail spaces as they are becoming ‘frontiers’ of gentrification and urban transformations (González, 2020), with gentrification studies examining bottom-up retailing changes in local streets or immigrant neighbourhoods to understand new consumption practices that are shaped by globalisation. As such, retail gentrification studies illustrate how gentrifiers’ changing consumption practices cause retailing changes and initiate a wider transformation of the social and cultural character of a given locality, setting in motion processes of exclusionary displacement (Hubbard, 2017, 2018; Kern, 2016).

With a broad scan of contemporary studies, authenticity has recently become a focus of consumption. Zukin (2008) discussed how economic and cultural entrepreneurs established their businesses in previously deprived areas to fabricate an ‘aura of authenticity’ based on the history of working-class areas, indicating the new middle classes’ different values of consumption and lifestyles, causing gentrification in working-class neighbourhoods (Zukin et al., 2009). Examples of ‘ethnic neighbourhoods’ in London, Amsterdam and New York show many localities have experienced changes in retail composition and social polarisation because of the increasing centrality of the consumption practices of white gentrifiers who seeking authentic exotic food, lifestyles and places (Hubbard, 2016; Rucks-Ahidiana, 2021; Sakızlıoğlu and Lees, 2020).

‘Hipsters’, a type of consumer mentioned frequently in recent consumption-focused gentrification studies in the US, UK and Europe, appears especially enthusiastic about consuming authenticity in immigrant neighbourhoods to display their distinctive tastes, which have further caused gentrification (Hubbard, 2016; le Grand, 2020). This kind of consumption practice in the Global North reflects the impact of globalisation in shaping local gentrifiers’ consumption preferences. By consuming authentic exotic food and lifestyles in ethnic neighbourhoods, local gentrifiers displayed their ‘non-local’ global consumption to manifest their distinctive tastes and status (Davidson, 2007), blending themselves into narratives of urban cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism (Hubbard, 2018; Hübscher et al., 2021; Sakızlıoğlu and Lees, 2020).

While fully acknowledging these recent studies in the West about consuming authenticity, the extent to which these concepts can be applied in the Global South context is questionable. Western-developed consumption of authenticity highlights upper-middle-class white young adults seeking to consume counter-culture products, causing social polarisation and racial changes by initiating gentrification in immigrant neighbourhoods (e.g. Hubbard, 2018; Rucks-Ahidiana, 2021). But while ethnicised neighbourhoods and immigrant enclaves are prominent features in the Global North, in Global South countries, such as China, ethnic neighbourhoods and immigrant geographies are very different than in Western gentrification studies (e.g. Hubbard, 2018). Therefore, these Western-developed ‘authentic consumption practices’ make little sense in relation to China’s urban context to represent Chinese gentrifiers’ identities and preferences (Lees, 2014). Notably, while Zukin et al. (2015) consider Shanghai as China’s global city, they argue that its local streets run by internal migrants might be vulnerable to gentrification because of the desire to consume authenticity. However, this claim lacks an understanding of new Chinese middle classes in terms of their preferences, identities and tastes, neglecting the uneven impacts of globalisation on various scales (Bridge, 2007; Rofe, 2003).

Implications of gentrification research from China

In China, it is not difficult to find that contemporary studies generally apply gentrification to housing markets, particularly noting the developing role of the state, with an evident connection to China’s urban transformations/redevelopments. This emphasis on state-led gentrification adds significant Chinese narratives into international debates on gentrification (e.g. He, 2007, 2010; Kan, 2020; Wang, 2011; Wu, 2016). Against this background, gentrification is thus decorated with ‘Chinese characteristics’, and the role of the state is heavily emphasised. However, it is questionable whether these studies treated gentrification as a ‘taken-for-granted’ word in China, because the structural displacement process is not equivalent to the Western concept of new-build gentrification (Shin, 2016), albeit the use of this term reinforces the Western scholarly hegemony.

In recent decades, as the importance of the variegated geographies of gentrification has been emphasised in relation to the popular circulation of ideas of comparative urbanism (Lees, 2012; Robinson, 2016), emerging studies have evolved from non-Western countries by questioning the uncritical application of gentrification within their own contexts (e.g. Hanoi in Potter and Labbé, 2021). For example, Ley and Teo (2014, 2020) indicate a different angle by questioning the translation of gentrification concepts in Hong Kong. As they stress, the absence of gentrification in Hong Kong, either epistemologically or ontologically, could reinforce the hegemony of Western concepts when analysing gentrification in its context. However, one key pitfall in their research is that they failed to use local Chinese words to describe gentrification (Cartier, 2017), and continued using the Chinese translation, that is, Shenshihua (绅士化), which no doubt limited the theoretical extension. Moreover, other social and cultural processes, as a distinctive form of gentrification, are yet to be fully understood and researched. If gentrification actually exists in China, these nuanced changes and transformations are ‘inadvertently’ ignored and neglected (Ley and Teo, 2020; Tomba, 2017).

Case study area, methods and data collection

The case study area, Nanbuting, is situated in central Nanjing, an important and developed historic Chinese city at a close distance from Shanghai. According to the most recent census data, Nanjing has an 86.8% urbanisation rate, with over nine million people, it is ranked as the second most educated Chinese city (first being Beijing) (Nanjing Provincial People’s Government, 2021). It is the capital of Jiangsu province (the second most developed Chinese province); it also served as the national capital for six dynasties during the Imperial Chinese era, which makes it abundant in historic resources and economic development.

My interest in Nanbuting arose from the fact that it is a prominent example not only in Nanjing but also across China in that it was redeveloped in the name of ‘preserving authenticity’, as a response to the entire society’s criticism of urban redevelopment that demolished real heritage while building ‘fake antiques’. However, since its redevelopment, traditional Chinese cultural retailers have received poor response from the public. With time, it became evident that these ‘authentic measures’ failed, albeit they changed dominant retailing types, reflecting the consumers’ ongoing preferences and tastes. To understand these subtle retailing changes and their reflection of gentrifiers’ consumption and lifestyles, fieldwork was conducted from 2017 onwards, deploying mixed qualitative research methods including in-depth semi-structured interviews, textual analysis and participant observation.

This research conducted a total of 39 interviews including retailers in the case study area, displaced local residents, developers and visitors. Based on the principle of acknowledging major consumer types of different stores, including their motivations and experiences in running these stores, I approached all the retailers in Xinanli, and finally 9 traditional Chinese stores and 16 non-Chinese stores accepted the interview. From the state-owned enterprise Nanjing tourism group (NJTG) – the only enterprise in Nanjing which is in charge of Xinanli’s retailing promotion – one key manager was interviewed to acknowledge the place-making and retailing strategy, alongside questions about preserving and branding urban authenticity, and its feedback from the public. To acknowledge the previous circumstances and changes in Nanbuting, 2 displaced residents were interviewed and 11 visitors were selected randomly by asking about their motivations, experiences, preferences and impressions when visiting Xinanli.

Textual analysis not only included local urban planning policies and governmental documents to acknowledge redevelopment strategies and trajectories, but also social media were extensively browsed with keyword searches for Xinanli/Nanbuting to observe the public’s motivation and intention to visit this neighbourhood. For example, popular Chinese social media platform such as Dazhong Dianping, similar to TripAdvisor/Yelp, was browsed and searched to consider consumers’ intentions to explore this historic commercial district. This method is important as it helps to include a wider range of consumers/visitors, acknowledging their comments/impressions in different retailing stores that this research failed to approach during fieldwork. While Dazhong Dianping plays an important role in this research as it allows me to refer back to comments made years ago, checking the retailing changes in recent years, including different stores’ prices.

Participant observation was used to complement interviews and textual analysis to feel, understand and experience local changes, exploring the consumers’ opinions of Xinanli (involving at least c.200 hours in around 30 stores in Xinanli, including most retail categories such as traditional Chinese culture stores, coffee shops, pubs, restaurants, jade and antique stores, constituting nearly 80% of the total retailers; wandering around Xinanli with consumers to understand their feelings). As someone who grew up after the 1990s, this positionality gave me the advantage of engaging with these consumers. Joining organised events in Xinanli enabled me to approach a few consumers; after disclosing my role as a researcher and my research interests, I engaged them to shop/spend in different stores, while also enquiring about their opinions or experiences during consumption. Moreover, this observation was used to record retailing types and changes. All the interviews, field notes and diaries were collected in both Mandarin and Nanjing local dialects (in Chinese). Thereafter, they were translated into English by the researcher and the interviewees were anonymised to ensure research ethics and privacy.

Evoking authenticity: Boutiquing and upscaling Nanbuting

Nanbuting, a populated historic residential neighbourhood situated in central Nanjing, experienced similar state-led urban redevelopment as many other Chinese gentrification studies have demonstrated (see He, 2019; Wu, 2016). Starting in 2009, state-led urban redevelopment relocated all the local residents to urban outskirts to create space for commercial development, and demolition was the major redevelopment measure under the first wave of gentrification (Wu and He, 2005). However, this initiative caused intense opposition from the public, such as criticising the Nanjing government for ‘demolishing real heritage to build fake antiques’, and blaiming it had no respect for Nanjing’s local culture and heritage (Zhang and Moore-Cherry, 2022).

In view of these criticisms, ‘preserving authenticity’ became a priority when implementing place-making strategies in Nanbuting. According to the government’s urban planning policy, the key task of preserving a historic cultural district is to:

[C]onform to its historical authenticity, prolonging its [original neighbourhood’s lifestyles] continuity, maintain the completeness of its landscape … the original function of a historic residential neighbourhood should not be changed. (Nanjing Urban Planning Bureau, 2012)

To fulfil the decision of the government to preserve the ‘authenticity’ of a historic cultural district, the local government and developers transformed Nanbuting into a commercial neighbourhood with evident historic Chinese characteristics and a new given name, ‘Xinanli’. ¹ The first step to brand Nanbuting as an ‘authentic’ historic neighbourhood was beautifying its landscapes. For example, traditional Chinese elements – such as red lanterns, stone pavements and wooden windowsills – were used to illustrate its authenticity as a historic Chinese neighbourhood. Furthermore, to highlight its traditional cultural authenticity, white walls and black tiles were used as the base colours, with the purpose of differentiating it from other Chinese historic commercial districts to manifest distinctive Nanjing features.

To highlight, these place-making measures of ‘authenticity’ were fabricated upon the history of a previous ordinary and somewhat deprived historic residential neighbourhood. To make it more authentic, the second step was upscaling Xinanli’s retailing types. According to a government document (Nanjing Urban Planning Bureau, 2016), to manifest its ‘traditional Chinese cultural authenticity’, the original purpose was to allocate one-third of the retailing types in Xinanli as traditional Chinese brands, one-third for catering, and the remaining one-third for culture and retail spaces. ² To differentiate it from other similar historic commercial districts in Nanjing, Xinanli was decorated with middle-class consumption, as follows:

We aim to differentiate it from other similar historic commercial districts in Nanjing such as Fuzimiao and Laomengdong (another two historic commercial districts in Nanjing), by equipping it with higher consumption levels. The original purpose of managing Xinanli is to first supply aestheticised environment and culture to stimulate commercial development, then the commerce revenue will in [re]turn [be] used to protect Nanbuting’s traditional Chinese culture environment. (Interviews with the staff from NJTG, responsible for Xinanli management, July 2018)

Thus, retailers with evident ‘Chinese’ elements, such as traditional Chinese brands, antiques and jade stores, became important counterparts in structuring Nanbuting’s traditional and authentic Chinese ambience.

A key finding drawn from the interviews is that the local government allocated spaces for these traditional Chinese stores in Xinanli in order to structure the ‘authentic historic ambience’. For example, the manager of a traditional Chinese bespoke tailor’s store revealed the following:

We used to work around the Fuzimiao area (Confucius Temple, a historic commercial district concentrated with low-end and ordinary consumption types), the government asked us to settle here because they think our store’s business type matches Xinanli’s retailing requirements. (Manager of the Lishunchang bespoke tailoring, a traditional Chinese brand, originated from Nanjing in the late Qing dynasty, July 2018)

This boutique tailor’s store was one of many in Xinanli. Other retailers such as boutique teahouses, jade and antique stores, that normally represent high consumption levels with expensive prices in China, were also the first to be allocated in this area. It reveals a ‘special’ boutiquing process initiated by the government to relocate these retailers to Xinanli in order to structure Xinanli as a higher- or middle-class historic commercial district.

Therefore, these boutiquing measures made Nanbuting a so-called middle-class consumption ‘elite enclave’, supplying an aestheticised environment and the aura of authenticity with middle-class consumption to attract consumers. As the Chinese new middle classes are interested in pursuing urban lifestyles in such ‘elite enclaves’ (Pow, 2009; Wang and Lau, 2009), Xinanli’s elegant and aesthetic environment attracted this group of people for posh living consumption, such as youngsters or couples who came here to take photographs or shoot wedding portraits. However, despite the beautified landscapes attracting young people here to consume the elegant atmosphere, these middle-class consumption stores, such as the jade and antique stores, did not receive a favourable response from the public (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

Old retailing types (from top to bottom, left to right): aestheticised environment decorated with traditional Nanjing elements, local culture research centres, closed jade and antique shops, traditional Chinese brands and rehabilitation in progress.

As it was frequently recorded in my fieldnotes:

It is a summer sunny day. Lunchtime. I walk around this historic commercial neighbourhood and found it was such a lonely place! Nearly all the stores are closed, only restaurants are open for businesses. Those stores such as jade stores, antique stores are all closed. Except these, it is interesting to find that some stores with plaques hanging outside highlight them as ‘research centres’ are indeed doing catering services. (Fieldnote, 14 July 2018)

Similarly, the interview with the staff from the developer agency revealed that those retailers with a focus on traditional culture retailing were in a deficit situation (Interviews with the staff from the Xinanli management company, August 2018), indicating that these retailing measures highlighting ‘authentic Chinese ambience’ and ‘middle class consumption’ failed to appeal to these gentrifiers’ tastes.

Though studies in the Global North share certain similarities with this Chinese case regarding the fabrication of authenticity upon the history of a working-class neighbourhood (Hubbard, 2016; Zukin, 2008), the poor popularity of traditional Chinese culture retailers requires us to critically analyse the Chinese new middle classes’ consumption disposition. What we know from this case is that the ‘traditional culture authenticity’ place-making strategy transformed Nanbuting into an elite enclave that catered to the tastes of the new Chinese middle classes (Wang and Lau, 2009). Therefore, rather than consuming ‘authentic Chinese culture’, the aestheticised environment and associated exquisite aura were inducements to attract gentrifiers.

Retailing replacement: Lifestyles and consumption

While these measures of branding the area as an authentic neighbourhood attracted gentrifiers with a taste for living in aestheticised elite enclaves, these gentrifiers’ tastes and preferences gradually transformed the retail space of this historic commercial neighbourhood. According to the interview data, the previous designation of middle-class consumption did not achieve satisfying economic growth and good response from the public because:

In fact, those traditional Chinese culture shops that we wanted to settle down here to promote Xinanli’s reputation as an ‘authentic’ historic cultural district are currently in the deficit situation. Maybe because the designated ‘middle-class consumption’ is not jiediqi接地气 (a Chinese slang term for something that appeals to the requirements, tastes, consumption and preferences of most of the public). (Interview with the staff of the Xinanli management company, August 2018)

Those retailers such as antique and jade stores which constructed the ‘authentic ambience’ of Nanbuting were not the consumption targets of these gentrifiers, because they considered it not ‘cool’, ‘too expensive’ and had little interest in consuming in these antique, jade or traditional Chinese medicine stores (Interview summaries with visitors).

After it was observed that the middle-class consumption embedded in Xinanli received little popularity, and that restaurants were the only retailing type that received favourable responses, the retailing landscapes of Xinanli were gradually transformed by replacing unpopular antique and jade stores to appeal to these consumers’ tastes. Simultaneously, restaurant types became diversified and not limited to Chinese cuisine (Hotpots, Szechuan/Nanjing style restaurants). There was a sharp growth of restaurants, with a high percentage in Western/Japanese cuisine such as hand brewed coffee, steakhouses, Japanese restaurants/desserts, taverns selling foreign drinks such as whisky and sake (see Figure 2).

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Figure 2.

Retailing changes from 2018 to 2021in Xinanli.

Other critical evidence can not only be found from the recent leasing advertisements on the NJTG’s website, such as the retailing types they wanted to accommodate in this historic commercial neighbourhood, which were mostly catering stores, ³ but Dazhong Dianping ratings also proved that many retailers had changed their retailing types. For example, comments on Dazhong Dianping revealed that Yulouchun, which was a boutique teahouse before 2018, is now a boutique restaurant with an aestheticised environment. Moreover, other similar stores that used to be teahouses changed their retailing types, and an important interview indicated the reason for changing their retailing formats was because:

We used to be a teahouse in Xinanli. At that time we literally work for no benefits; however, considering the revenue, last year we changed into a gallery-ish café bar, which means here you can drink coffee and enjoy these oil paintings at the same time. (Interview with the manager of Café and Gallery, October 2021)

From the researcher’s personal consumption experience and price check on Dazhong Dianping, although the average consumption price in a coffee shop in Xinanli is around ¥55 (£6), and the average consumption price in these exquisite restaurants is at least ¥200 (£22) per person, which is considerably expensive in China (prices collected from Dazhong Dianping by July 2021), it still received more favourable responses from consumers as they can enjoy instant consumption in an elegant and elitist enclave with different lifestyles.

Simultaneously, urban redevelopment continued, rehabilitation replaced demolition in Nanbuting by manifesting the government’s enhanced measures in preserving its ‘authenticity’. However, although the urban planning policy stipulated that the original residential function of a historic neighbourhood should not be changed (Nanjing Urban Planning Bureau, 2012), state-led redevelopment still continued to create space for commercial development; the historic residential houses are still being gentrified and have been reused as trendy coffee shops (Lees, 2014). Moreover, the non-historic buildings in Nanbuting were gentrified, such as a previous dormitory for factory workers, which has now been rehabilitated into a themed hotel, charging at least ¥900 (£100) per night, while those factory workers were relocated to the Nanjing outskirts (interviews with previous local residents, August 2018). While the growing number of coffee shops, patisseries, and public houses in Xinanli reveals that the major consumption types in Xinanli have significantly changed, because consumers dominated the retail landscape in this gentrified place (Bridge and Dowling, 2001). As Figure 3 illustrates, a high percentage of consumption types in the ‘authentic Nanjing historic neighbourhood’ are now mostly Western consumption types. A barber’s shop is decorated in vintage American style with portraits demonstrating famous landscapes from the West, such as Tower Bridge and Big Ben in London and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York (see Figure 3).

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Figure 3.

New retailing types (from top to bottom, left to right): proliferation of coffee shops and pubs, expensive restaurant changed from a local culture research centre, coffee shops in rehabilitated historic buildings, and barber shops decorated with Western elements.

These growing Western consumption types have been detected by consumers, and a recent comment published on Dazhong Dianping highlighted Xinanli’s similarity to Xintiandi:

Haven’t been here for a very long time but Xinanli is getting similar with Xintiandi in Shanghai … This restaurant has very delicate decorations, fancy environment, it is very enjoyable to have food here. (Reviewer on Dazhong Dianping, 16 March 2021)

In the comparison of Xinanli with Xintiandi (a historic Shanghai commercial district occupied by Western brands and restaurants), the growing and dominating retailing types in Xinanli shed light on the identities, preferences and consumption types of Chinese gentrifiers.

Summarising the fieldwork, most of these consumers were well-educated, and some of them were educated in America or Europe. Their professions included artists, individual musicians, independent designers and makeup artists. One of the most typical consumers was Nicole, a Chinese girl who preferred people calling her by her English name. She was educated at New York University, majored in Psychology, was fluent in English, and enthusiastic about Western consumption and lifestyles, as described by Ren (2013). She said she liked consuming in these historic commercial centres because she could get spiritual relaxation by immersing herself in these aesthetic environments while drinking coffee outside the café, as she used to do in New York (summarised from participant observation). As Bridge and Dowling (2001: 93) claim, ‘the retail spaces of gentrified neighbourhoods reflect the consumption practices and identities of gentrifiers’: this case has revealed Chinese new middle classes’ consumption preferences. Different from the Western white gentrifiers’ desire for authenticity in the globalisation age that made them seek authentic consumption in immigrant neighbourhoods (Hubbard, 2018), this Chinese case demonstrates ‘Xiaozi’ (小资), class and consumption, associated with the petite bourgeoisie. This specific term emerged against China’s socialist background and describes young middle-class people’s desire for Western capitalist countries’ consumption and lifestyles. which is what these young ‘middle classes’ are seeking.

The word Xiaozi has been frequently mentioned in the comments about Xinanli on Dazhong Dianping; it has also been revealed via the interviews and participant observation that Xinanli has an evident Xiaozi ambience and contains many Xiaozi stores such as coffee shops, exquisite restaurants, themed hotels and public houses. Although consuming in these restaurants is expensive, it is still a nice place to take photographs and meet friends (as summaries of comments on Dazhong Dianping and interviews with visitors revealed). As a socialist country, Xiaozi emerged after the 1990s, when the country experienced economic reform, transforming from an egalitarian planned economy to diversified consumerism. It has strong relations with capitalism in that it originally refers to people chasing for developed capitalist countries’ living and consumption styles (mostly Western countries and Japan), considering them more ‘advanced’ and modern. Now it also broadly refers to a way of lifestyle chasing modern and quality living standards. Xiaozi classes are away from being the real ‘middle classes’, as they do not have the equitable economic ability as real middle classes do; however, they have higher cultural capital that is inclined towards capitalist countries’ consumption and lifestyles. In this regard, I propose a critical analysis of the relationship between gentrification and the ‘new middle classes’ in China, highlighting the role of Xiaozi consumption of Chinese gentrifiers to manifest their ‘non-local’ global consumption (Davidson, 2007).

Conclusion

Undeniably, the lifestyles and consumption of the new middle classes in the Global North have over-dominated gentrification studies (Hubbard, 2018). My analysis in this paper reveals the uneven intervention of globalisation in affecting the Chinese new middle classes’ consumption practices, suggesting that the critical analysis of retailing changes reflects Global South gentrifiers’ identities and preferences in the globalisation age, further contributing to the knowledge of planetary gentrification (Bridge and Dowling, 2001; Lees et al., 2016). Global North studies have revealed that gentrifiers’ new consumption practices are in seeking places to represent their tastes for ‘authenticity’ in local streets and immigrant neighbourhoods to highlight their non-local global consumption (Davidson, 2007; Hubbard, 2018). This kind of ‘consuming authenticity’ revealed the sociocultural and political influences shaping Western gentrifiers’ consumption disposition.

However, as China opens up to more global influence, this study’s empirical findings reveal that these Western-developed consumption practices make little sense in China (Lees, 2014), because China is a Global South country that contains few immigrant neighbourhoods. While acknowledging the similarities, in that Nanbuting’s place-making strategy of ‘traditional culture authenticity’ fabricated an aura of authenticity on a previously deprived historic neighbourhood, the empirical evidence revealed that Chinese gentrifiers show little interest in consuming traditional Chinese culture, because Chinese gentrifiers prefer to enjoy posh lifestyles in elegant enclaves (Wang and Lau, 2009). More accurately, the aestheticised and upscaled environment brought about by the fabrication of authenticity is the inducement to attract Chinese gentrifiers by offering them a way of displaying their conspicuous consumption (Lees et al., 2016; Ren, 2013).

The majority of retailing types in gentrified places, such as trendy coffee shops and Western dining (Lees, 2014), accommodate these growing preferences of the Chinese middle classes. This study engages with the socio-economic Jieceng variation (Zhang, 2008) and China’s own urbanisation background, arguing that rather than simply labelling them as new middle-class people, this paper’s research findings reveal a Xiaozi class, a group of people that differentiate themselves from the working-class people by displaying their distinctive tastes and lifestyles; however, they lack the considerable economic ability needed to be real middle class. They grew up under China’s rapid economic growth and urbanisation, impacted by globalisation; they have tastes in modern and quality living styles, and are enthusiastic about the consumption of an aesthetic aura for spiritual relaxation (Ning and Chang, 2022). They have new spending power and interests in consumerism, and their consumption practices dominate the retail spaces of gentrified places (Bridge and Dowling, 2001; Lees et al., 2016).

This empirical evidence further proves the uneven intervention of globalisation in the Global South that shaped gentrifiers’ tastes and preferences. This paper challenged the Western-dominated concept of ‘consuming authenticity’ by arguing Xiaozi consumption is a more accurate term to describe Chinese new middle classes’ lifestyles and consumption under globalisation. While consuming authenticity in immigrant and ethnic neighbourhoods represents the new consumption practices of gentrifiers in the Global North (Hubbard, 2018; Rucks-Ahidiana, 2021; Sakızlıoğlu and Lees, 2020), Xiaozi consumption demonstrates Chinese gentrifiers’ tastes and preferences for capitalist countries’ consumption and lifestyles to display their distinctive tastes and social status, and ‘non-local’ global consumption in pursuing quality, modern and urban lifestyles (Davidson, 2007; Pow, 2009; Zhang et al., 2009), seeking places with the aura of aesthetics and arts to represent their identities (Ning and Chang, 2022). Xiaozi consumption in this case further contributed to the knowledge of planetary gentrification by highlighting the uneven intervention of globalisation in affecting Chinese gentrifiers’ consumption and lifestyles, representing a planetary indigeneity to claim that Chinese gentrifiers’ consumption are not simply copies of those in the Global North (Lees et al., 2016).

To that end, I agree with Lees et al. (2016) that we need to problematise the translation of gentrification and acknowledge planetary indigeneity in the Global South, as this paper reveals that the Chinese translation of gentrification fails to acknowledge its sociocultural and political background. Further, in response to Bridge’s (2007) claim that there is no such thing as a ‘global gentrifier’, this study’s research findings reveal that we may be at the age where a truly global gentrifier emerges, that Xiaozi consumption is a ‘non-local’ global lifestyle in China (Davidson, 2007: 493); however, it is not simply a copy of Western gentrifiers’ consumption practices, more because of the uneven intervention of globalisation.