Extension of State-Led Growth Coalition and Grassroots Management

Abstract

This study intends to enrich the literature of comparative studies on growth machine and urban regime through contextualized analyses of growth politics in Shanghai, China. An analytical framework is developed to advance our understanding of the variation of growth politics in a different urban setting. In particular, this study contends that local government’s dual goals of promoting economic growth and managing development-related conflicts are the key to making sense of growth politics in Shanghai. This specific configuration of institutions suggests that growth coalition has to extend itself spatially into neighborhood level and temporally into postdevelopment phase to sustain urban growth. This extension requires pro-growth players to exploit infrastructural power to contain homeowners’ activism. This research calls for attention to the nexus between economic and political dimensions of urban growth, a refined conceptualization of local states, and the interaction between pro-growth and antigrowth forces which shapes the forms and dynamics of urban regime.

Keywords

growth machine state-led growth urban development neighborhood coalition China

Introduction

Urban growth has been a central topic in urban politics over the past 30 years. The theory of growth machine contends that cities are ruled by a coalition of local government and business elites in pursuit of urban growth and land-based interests (Logan and Molotch 1987; Logan, Whaley, and Crowder 1999; Molotch 1976). Urban regime theory further argues that pro-growth coalition is sustained by complementary resources in the possession of actors (Elkin 1987; Stone 1993). Both theories are developed in the United States and have constrained explanatory power in other social contexts such as the United Kingdom (Davies 2003; Harding 1994; Kantor and Savitch 2005; Stoker and Mossberger 1994; Wood 2004). The lack of applicability of these theories lies in the fact that they presume a specific set of sociopolitical conditions in which urban growth coalitions are embedded and have paid insufficient attention to the relations between macroconditions and growth coalitions (Davies 2003; Lake 1990). This is particularly manifest in the context of transitional societies, such as Korea (Bae and Sellers 2007) and China (He 2007; Shin 2009; T. Zhang 2002), which pursue urbanization and economic growth under different political and economic conditions such as democratization, liberation, globalization, and economic transition.

This study intends to enhance our understanding of the variation of growth coalitions in urban settings of transitional societies by paying critical attention to the sociopolitical contexts of growth politics. It takes Shanghai as a case to explore the forms and dynamics of state-led growth coalition in transitional societies. An analytical framework is developed to examine the extended state-led growth coalition in transitional China. It contends that growth politics is shaped by immature market conditions, state controlled resources, dual source of political legitimacy, and infrastructural power at the base level. The blurred boundary of the political and economic dimensions of urban growth which is enabled by immature market conditions and state controlled resources, together with the dual source of political legitimacy, requires that the state-led growth coalition promotes urban growth on one hand and manages growth-related conflicts on the other hand. Although existing studies agree that the distinctive forms and dynamics of growth in Shanghai are closely associated with Chinese political and economic contexts, they mainly concentrate on the planning and decision making of urban development at municipal or district levels, and have paid limited attention to the management of growth-related conflicts. Thus, they have not offered a satisfactory explanation regarding the continuity of urban growth, at least in the residential sector. This aspect of growth politics is of immense significance because Chinese local governments are instigators, regulators, and participants (profit makers) of urban growth, and this state-led growth is accompanied by the violation of property rights and related conflicts instead of being neutral and harmless. In fact, the past decade has witnessed the rise of homeowners’ activism or homeowners’ contentious collective actions in defending their housing-related rights (Shi and Cai 2006; Tomba 2005; F. Wang 2014; Yip and Jiang 2011). Unlike the antigrowth movement in the United States which concerns future development plan and policy, homeowners’ activism in China is a particular type of antigrowth force which does not protest against urban growth per se but endeavors to protect their property-based rights. It is strongly shaped by the intertwined relations between urban development and the ensuing disputes which occurred in the postdevelopment when developments have been completed and house units have been sold. This means that local government and business elites have to work together to contain neighborhood activism, through infrastructural power (Lee and Zhang 2013; Mann 1984), so as to maintain their incumbent development-related interests. In this sense, the functioning of growth coalition in Shanghai is equally important, if not more significant, in the postdevelopment period and at the neighborhood level. The working of this extended growth coalition is in need of empirical scrutiny because it involves more actors and distinctive power dynamics. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines in detail the growth politics at postdevelopment period and at neighborhood level. Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that this study scrutinizes a particular aspect of the working of growth coalition in the residential sector instead of urban growth per se.

Shanghai is chosen as a case study to explore the distinctive growth politics in transitional societies. It is one of the most economically developed coastal cities in China, with the per capita gross domestic product (GDP) being 14,547 U.S. dollars in 2013. Shanghai is also a leading city in terms of real estate development boasting top-level housing prices and high level of homeownership rate. The average housing price in 2014 was 30,176 RMB/m² (4,900 USD/m²), the second highest among all Chinese cities.¹ The homeownership rate in Shanghai has reached 67.9%, close to that in the United States.² In addition, Shanghai government has a strong capacity of urban governance. Since the 1990s, the community building campaigns have reinvigorated the base-level governance institutions which help the local state successfully penetrate into the grassroots society (Bray 2006; Derleth and Koldyk 2004; Read 2000). This study used in-depth interviews to collect data. Interviews were conducted with managers of real estate developers, managers of property management companies, officials of district governments, street offices, and resident committees. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim, and then analyzed with the aid of qualitative data analysis software RQDA.³ Policy documents, news reports, and official statistics were also systematically analyzed to complement the interview data.

The structure of this article is as follows: The following section will review the theories of urban growth in a comparative perspective. It proceeds to present a framework to guide our analysis of the growth politics in transitional China. In the case study section, we present the extended growth coalition in Shanghai. Finally, the theoretical and empirical implications of this study are discussed.

Politics of Urban Growth in Comparative Perspective

The theory of growth machine conceives the city as the product of the pursuit of growth by political and economic alliances. Land and real estate development is the core of local economic growth, and common interests in land mobilize a wide range of local elites into a governing coalition (Logan and Molotch 1987; Molotch 1976). Among the crucial actors identified by the growth machine theory, business community, especially the rentier class, is the primary force behind the pro-growth initiatives, and local government plays an important but secondary role in support of the interests of the business community (Harding 1995). However, the theory of growth machine fails to explain why some city leaders are pro-growth (Parker 2004). In contrast, urban regime theory pays more attention to the formation of informal pro-growth networks and contends that the interdependence between local government and businesses leads to the formation of informal networking as a complement to formal governmental authority to mobilize resources (Stone 1993). In particular, local government in the United States heavily depends on property taxes to increase local revenue and on business sponsorship for election campaigns (Elkin 1987). Consequently, urban decision making is not confined to local government; rather, it is dominated by political business coalition which is centered on urban growth (Logan and Molotch 1987; Stone 1993).

However, recent studies in the United States have, at least partially, challenged the thesis of urban growth coalition. They suggest a decline in political consensus for urban growth because of the impacts of globalization and the development of slow growth resistance (Logan and Zhou 1989; Purcell 2000). Comparative studies of growth politics in various sociopolitical contexts have also pointed out the limitations of this thesis. For instance, researchers find that urban regimes have not developed in the United Kingdom because the central government exerts strong control over local government and resources in local economic development, which leads to weak interdependence between local government and businesses (Davies 2003; Holman 2007; Stoker and Mossberger 1994; Wood 2004).

Although the urban regime theory has been used to explain urban growth in transitional societies, such as Korea (Bae and Sellers 2007) and China (He 2007; He and Wu 2005; Yang and Chang 2007; Zhu 1999), pro-growth coalitions in China have distinctive features which are different from that in the U.S. cities. For instance, T. Zhang’s (2002) study of Shanghai identifies economic and political dimensions in the pro-growth coalition and finds that the political dimension differs from urban regime theory. While the market transition forces local government to collaborate with nonpublic sectors, local government still plays a dominant role and its pro-growth policies are driven by both showing economic performance to the central government and serving the local interest groups. In addition, in an authoritarian state, such as China, community organizations are underdeveloped and are excluded from the growth coalition. The dominant role of the local state is concurred by other studies. He’s (2007) study of gentrification in Shanghai shows that the local state facilitates the gentrification process by stimulating the demands, creating the conditions for capital circulation, and tackling the fragmented property rights. Similarly, a study of urban redevelopment in Beijing contends that, despite the change of residential redevelopment policies, the entrepreneurial nature of the local state persists in the sense that the seemingly inclusive redevelopment policies facilitate the local state’s grab of land-use rights and accelerate the redevelopment process (Shin 2009).

The constrained explanatory power of these two theories lies in the fact that they presume a specific set of sociopolitical conditions which are not necessarily available in other nations. Derived from urban politics in the United States, urban regime theory presupposes the sociopolitical conditions of political decentralization and local autonomy, private ownership of resources, a mature marketplace, democratic political regime, and so on. In this way, it prevents us from understanding the relationship between growth politics and wider sociopolitical contexts. As a result, we are not able to answer the question of “why society gives rise to these particular kinds of actors” (Lake 1990). It has been argued that comparative studies need to put regimes into contexts (Stoker 1995).

Efforts have been made to develop comparative frameworks to apply growth politics thesis in various urban settings (Davies 2003; Stoker and Mossberger 1994; Wood 2004). Davies (2003) identified a set of regime characteristics in the United States and proposed an analytical framework for comparative studies which consists of interdependence between local government and business, local government’s dependence on mobile capital, the role of federal government, and local autonomy of city leaders in determining urban governing agenda. Kantor and Savitch (2005) recast the question and argued that although cities in liberal Western democracies have to compete for capital and public support, they respond differently because of their bargaining advantages and disadvantages. Such bargaining advantages depend on both steering variables, such as popular participation and local culture, which direct the options and preferences, and driving variables, such as market conditions and intergovernmental support, which provide essential infrastructure for development.

Growth Politics in Transitional China: An Analytical Framework

As the previous section has shown, existing literature of urban growth, and growth politics in China in particular (He 2007; Shin 2009; T. Zhang 2002), concentrates on growth policies, (re)development, and the roles of relevant actors. This article argues that extant studies only present a partial theory of growth coalition, and a more nuanced analysis of how the sociopolitical contexts shape the growth-related processes is needed to better understand growth politics in transitional China. It has been suggested that the structural and institutional contexts can exert strong influence on the distinctive patterns of urban political economy (Bae and Sellers 2007; Harding 1994), and “it is important that comparative studies focus on the processes shaping and sustaining coalitions in the system of governing as well as the detailed processes of coalition construction” (Davies 2003, p. 256).

While the goals of catching up with developed countries and competing for capital and investment in a global economy accelerate urban growth, cities in transitional societies still face legacies such as statism, central planning, and public ownership of land and capital. These particular conditions give rise to distinctive characteristics of urban growth coalitions in a transitional society such as China. To begin with, market mechanism is a crucial but largely neglected contextual variable. Research in advanced economies usually takes well-functioning market systems for granted. However, immature market systems are common in transitional societies which have enormous impacts on urban growth politics. The dual evolvement of central planning legacy and an emerging market economy leads to substantial intervention from local government in economic development (Oi 1995), and extensive personal relations and even clientelism between businesses and local state (Wank 2002). The fact that a growth coalition operates in an imperfect market entails profound impacts on urban societies and intensifies its conflicts with rights defending homeowners in particular.

Government business interdependence determines the role of local government in urban growth coalitions. While private ownership of land and financial capital leads to business-dominated urban regime in the United States, patterns of government business interdependence are diverse in other urban settings. In the United Kingdom, centralization of power and resources gives rise to merely symbolic partnership between local government and businesses (Davies 2003). Studies in transitional societies indicate that local government that controls key resources such as land and extensive administrative power plays a dominant role in urban development (Bae and Sellers 2007; He 2007; T. Zhang 2002). Power distribution among partners strongly affects the way in which growth coalitions operate. In particular, the advantaged position of the Chinese local government makes itself an instigator, regulator, and participant of urban growth.

Source of political legitimacy implies that political considerations should be taken into account to understand the multiplicity of local government’s motivations and roles in growth politics. In recent years, Chinese authorities have made numerous efforts to reclaim political legitimacy beyond economic performance (Holbig and Gilley 2010). On one hand, new ideology, such as “Harmonious Socialist Society,” has been propagated which requires local governments take heed of citizens’ voices. On the other hand, the central local relation has been used to maintain political legitimacy, which implies that local officials show achievement to higher-level government through both economic growth (T. Zhang 2002) and social stability maintenance (Cai 2008). It is the latter aspect that has been neglected in existing literature of urban growth in China. In face of rising homeowners’ activism (Shi and Cai 2006; Tomba 2005; F. Wang 2014; Yip and Jiang 2011), urban growth in general, and residential development in particular, is not simply an economic issue and cannot be reduced to planning and policies of urban (re)development. Instead, promotion of urban growth and management of growth-related conflicts are two important drivers that guide local government’s actions.

While the above contextual and institutional factors intertwine and lead to the distinctive forms of growth coalitions in urban China, the power dynamics which are shaped by these factors are the crucial key to fully understanding the operation and dynamics of growth coalitions. An immature housing market which is ill-regulated and susceptible to local state’s intervention, poorly institutionalized judicial system, and weak civil society in China implies that the interests of middle-class homebuyers who are involved in development-related conflicts cannot be effectively articulated through political representation and policy readjustment as in the United States (Logan and Zhou 1989; Warner and Molotch 1995). Without well-institutionalized participation channels at the city level, power struggles between pro-growth and antigrowth forces tend to occur at the neighborhood level where particular goals are contested and achieved through either strategic negotiations or contentious collective actions on a case-by-case basis. Situated in this social fabric, neighborhood governance cannot be simply conceived as regaining social control in relation to the waning of the danwei (work unit) system or as the development of civil societies from within neighborhoods (Gui 2007; Li 2007). Nuanced conception of power dynamics needs to take into account of the ways in which growth coalitions actually work in realizing development interests at the neighborhood level.

Specifically, homeowners whose property-based interests are infringed upon by the pro-growth coalition have utilized a wide range of tactics—collective petition, banner hanging, collective litigation, exploiting social connections with higher-level government officials, and exposing the grievances on the media and the Internet (Cai and Sheng 2013; Huang and Sun 2014; Read 2003; Shi 2008; Shi and Cai 2006; Tomba 2005)—to make their voices heard and to pressure the local government to facilitate the settlement of housing disputes. However, homeowner rights defending activities are likely to be interpreted by local government not only as an impediment to growth coalition interests but also as a threat to grassroots social stability. In this context, infrastructural power, in Mann’s (1984) conception, is used by local government and its coalition partners to contain homeowners’ actions. In his theory of state power, Mann distinguishes despotic power from infrastructural power. Despotic power refers to “the range of actions which the elite is empowered to undertake without routine, institutionalized negotiation with civil society groups” (Mann 1984, p. 113), whereas infrastructural power is “the capacity of the state actually to penetrate civil society and to implement logistically political decisions throughout the realm” (Mann 1984, p. 113). Infrastructural power’s spatial reach depends on the radiating institutions of control which link the state with local communities, and the weight of these institutions is then revealed by the production of the intended effects (Soifer 2008). In the studies of governmental response to popular protests, the concept of infrastructural power has been used to illustrate how local officials manage to contain these contentious actions, and it is argued that local officials achieve the goals mainly through everyday power practices (Lee and Zhang 2013). In the context of urban neighborhoods, the base-level governing institutions, the system of street offices and resident committees (jie ju zhi), have been reinvented to restore a governable urban society as a response to the rising civil society forces operating outside the established regime since the economic reform (Wu 2002). These base-level institutions function as the radiating institutions of control (Soifer 2008) or logistical infrastructure for penetrating civil society (Mann 1984), and thus enable government’s infrastructural power. In face of homeowners’ contentious action, local officials make use of the base-level governing institutions to develop various initiatives, such as forming governance partners with developers and property management companies, to tighten control over the establishment and the operation of homeowner associations (Bray 2006; Read 2012; Sun and Yip 2014; Zhou 2014).

While previous studies have correctly pointed out the dominant role of local government in urban growth, they have by and large neglected the intricacy between growth and development-related conflicts, and its implications for the forms and dynamics of growth coalitions. This is of great significance because urban growth is no longer confined to infrastructure projects and commercial developments; rather, it increasingly extends to residential developments. This article suggests that state-led urban growth, together with an immature market and weak civil society, has given rise to development-related conflicts. These conflicts cannot be effectively solved through legal system or policy-oriented negotiation, and local states have to cope through infrastructural power. Under these circumstances, growth coalitions have to extend themselves to postdevelopment period at the neighborhood level to achieve the dual goals of promoting growth and managing development-related conflicts.

Extended Growth Coalition in Shanghai: A Case Study

Administrative decentralization, tax sharing, and intercity competition have significantly enhanced local state’s incentives and capabilities to promote urban development (He 2007; He and Wu 2005; Lin 2009; Oi 1995; Zhu 1999). As de facto landowners, municipal and district governments benefit from the large amount of land leasing fees, which has become a main source of local revenue, and are strongly motivated to promote urban development. While the municipal government mainly plays a regulatory role, the district government has become a key player in urban growth coalition in facilitating house demolition, approving development plans, negotiating with developers over land transfer prices, and establishing subsidiary companies to participate in the development process (Yang and Chang 2007). Government business coalition in Shanghai, however, does not merely occur at the city level where decisions regarding urban planning and development projects are made; rather, the coalition has experienced a temporal and spatial extension. In an immature housing market, development processes and postdevelopment disputes are intrinsically intertwined. Failing to properly handle housing disputes would jeopardize the legitimacy of the local government and obstruct the operation of the growth coalition. The realization of land-based interests does not just hinge on land acquisition and estate development per se but also on preventing those interests from being challenged by homeowners’ activism.

In the light of this, base-level governing entities, such as street offices and resident committees, are involved in the process. Street offices take on major responsibilities of social stability maintenance in grassroots society, and containing homeowners’ activism has become one of the most important tasks. This task is usually further delegated to resident committees which are the de facto subordinate administrative arms of street offices in neighborhoods. In addition, property management companies, many of which are subsidiaries and thus heavily dependent on developers, have also been recruited into the growth coalition to prevent or contain homeowners’ activism through their daily management of the neighborhood. Within this context, the extension of growth coalitions into the neighborhood levels and into the postdevelopment phase is a key to the understanding of growth politics, at least in Shanghai, but this aspect has been by and large neglected by the extant scholarship. The following subsections will present the institutional context to contextualize the discussion, which is followed by the description of the typical dynamics of the extended growth coalition.

Institutional Arrangement and the Extended Growth Coalition

Urban development processes in Shanghai have unique characteristics which make the extension of growth coalition particularly salient. An immature housing market makes homebuyers vulnerable to property rights infringement. Substandard housing, late delivery, and misleading advertisements about green space or upscale public facilities are common complaints from homebuyers. Perhaps, the most prominent problem is the change of planning. The multistaged development mode⁴ entails substantial changes in neighborhood planning which infringes the rights of homeowners who have moved into earlier phases of the development. It is estimated that 80% developers in Beijing have changed neighborhood plans (Niu 2007). Developers change the neighborhood planning to maximize their profits, including but not limited to increasing plot ratios, decreasing green spaces, delaying the construction of common facilities, or changing areas from residential to commercial uses (Interview, February 19, 2008; Interview, July 18, 2009). At first glance, contract liability and the right of refund seem to be a promising way of conflict resolution. Yet, the continuously rising housing prices in Shanghai have put developers in an advantageous position because it is easy for them to take an apartment back and resell to another homebuyer at an even higher price (Interview, June 3, 2008). In addition, the poorly institutionalized judicial system together with uneven levels of resources at the disposal of developers and homeowners worsens the situation. It has been pointed out that the legal standing of homeowner associations, the burden of proof, and the financial cost of litigation are major impediments to homeowners’ legal mobilization (Yip, Huang, and Sun 2014).

Development-related problems are further trickled down to the property management system due to the housing reform legacy of “those who develop are responsible for management” (which is called the initial stage property management system). According to the Regulations on Urban Residential Developments issued by the Ministry of Construction in 1994, developers are required to hire a property management company (which is called preproperty management company) to assume responsibility for neighborhood management before house units are open for sale. Due to the underdeveloped property management market and the unwillingness to give their own businesses to others, most developers establish subsidiary property management companies and entrust property management services to their subsidiaries. This institutional arrangement is considered to be the legacy of the transition of housing and property management services from being provided by the state as welfare to being allocated through the market as commodities (Y. Wang and Murie 1999). For one thing, local government was desperate to unload the heavy burden of the provision of property management services. For another, homeowners were so used to welfare-based management services that they were reluctant to accept marketized management services. It is under these conditions that developers who gain profit in China’s booming housing market have to take over the responsibility for property management. It is estimated that about 70% residential developments in China are managed by property management companies that are subsidiaries of the developers (X. Wang 2007). The subsidiary management company signs a contract with the developer and is thus accountable to the developer to a greater degree than to the homeowners.

The overregulated pricing system of property management services further pushes the property management companies toward heavy dependence on developers for their survival and profitability. In an emerging property management market, the prices of property management services are strictly regulated by the Measures on Classified Charges of Property Management Service in Residential Neighborhoods issued by the Shanghai municipal government in 2005. The pricing standard has remained the same since then,⁵ and the ever-rising labor costs in Shanghai in the past 10 years have made it difficult for property management companies to make ends meet (Interview, June 28, 2012).⁶ Raising management fees has been a difficult task considering the predicament of getting the consent of a majority of homeowners and the hostile relationship between homeowners and property management companies in many neighborhoods in which property management companies’ affiliation with developers may be perceived by homeowners as interest collusion (Interview, December 26, 2011; Interview, August 27, 2012). As a result, the profits of developer-affiliated property management companies mainly come from developers’ subsidies (Interview, August 31, 2006; Interview, July 7, 2009; Interview, June 28, 2012),⁷ and this financial relationship prompts property management companies to become a relevant player in the extended growth coalition.

Direct or indirect intervention from the local government further complicates the situation. The dominant role of local government in city-level growth coalition extends into the neighborhood level not only because the developers tend to maintain a cooperative relationship with local government in seeking long-term development interests but also because local government has discretionary power over crucial steps of residential development such as quality inspection and presale permit. Sometimes such intervention is results from the regulatory role of the local government. Change of planning seems to be a commercial decision made by the developers, but in reality it may also come from district government’s order as a way to reconcile the discrepancy between district-level planning decisions and higher-level policies. For instance, the central government issued an ensemble of policies in 2006 to cool down the overheated housing market, which stipulated that the aggregate area of small apartments (apartments of less than 90 square meters) should account for no less than 70% development area within a commodity housing complex. Accordingly, the Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau readjusted the planning of real estate developments citywide, which influenced many developments under construction. To facilitate policy implementation, district government required cooperation from developers and, in exchange, offered them preferential treatments such as reducing land leasing fees or increasing plot ratios. As a result, developments had to obey the requests of district government through substantially shrinking the neighborhood park size,⁸ or adding extra floors to the buildings (Shanghai Morning Post, May 8, 2008).

Local governments also actively intervene in postdevelopment affairs in neighborhoods as participants to seek interests. For instance, in the name of regulating security services, the Shanghai Public Security Bureau initiated the in-service training of residential security guards and at the same time urged prospective security guards to obtain a Security Guard Certificate before they can be employed.⁹ The training of security guards has become a profitable business, and many training agencies are subsidiary to Public Security Bureaus. In addition, the property management companies provide financial and manpower support to resident committees for their daily operation, neighborhood activities, and administrative tasks such as census, grassroots election, and neighborhood appraisal (Interview, February 19, 2008; Interview, December 23, 2011). Resident committee officials also recommend unemployed residents to work as security guards and cleaners in property management companies to promote local reemployment performances (Interview, June 19, 2012).

While most housing- and property-management-related disputes are economic in nature, they tend to be interpreted by local governments as a threat to social stability because of their potential escalation into contentious collective actions. In this way, development-related disputes are intertwined with social stability maintenance at the grassroots level. With the rapid increase of social inequality and social unrest, social stability maintenance has become an indicator as crucial as GDP growth in assessing local government’s performance. As mentioned previously, in the post-danwei era, territorially based governing entities, such as street offices and resident committees, have been reinvigorated to take over many social tasks unloaded from danwei (Wu 2002). Resources and administrative tasks have been delegated to these base-level governance institutions. Consequently, these reinvigorated base-level institutions can be deployed as the backbone of infrastructural power in social stability maintenance. The Provisions on the Property Management of Residential Buildings issued by the Shanghai municipal government in 2011 has transferred the responsibility of administering homeowner associations from the housing bureau to the street office, which implies a transformation from the management of “property” to “people.”¹⁰ As a street office official commented, “The operation of the homeowner associations seems to have nothing to do with the street office. But if you look at it from another perspective, you will understand that anything that may lead to social instability is our business” (Interview, December 26, 2011).

However, base-level governing entities are also eager to seek new partners in advancing neighborhood governance because their governing capacities have been challenged by the emergence of autonomous homeowner associations and the rise of homeowners’ activism. Resident committees are the “nerve tips” of the state (Read 2000) that helps fully implement state policies (e.g. household registration, birth control) at the base level.¹¹ Facing the dilemma of limited financial resources and heavy administrative tasks, resident committees mainly rely on familiarity and personal relations with local residents to accomplish these tasks (Read 2012). In commodity housing neighborhoods, however, frequent contacts with residents have become more and more difficult (Sun and Yip 2014). It is within this context that property management companies emerge as a partner which offers access to residents and their information (Interview, December 29, 2011). Thus, allying with market forces at neighborhood level is also a response to the new challenges of grassroots governance in transitional urban China.

In sum, the staged development mode and immature housing market imply that the realization of land-based interests to a great degree depends on the management of development-related conflicts in the postdevelopment period and at the neighborhood level. To do so, local governments and their allies tend to resort to infrastructural power to contain homeowners’ activism and to prevent the incumbent interests of urban development from being challenged. Base-level governing entities, such as street offices and resident committees, and property management companies serve as the backbone of infrastructural power through their daily management of neighborhoods. When deemed necessary, street offices, resident committees, and property management companies can be readily incorporated into the extended growth coalition, the former two through administrative affiliation to the district government, and the latter through the initial stage property management system.

Extended Growth Coalition at Work

Homeowners’ activism poses serious challenges to the operation of growth coalition in Shanghai. As the deputy secretary general of the China Consumers Association revealed, consumers’ complaints about real estate controversies have increased rapidly but the rate of resolution of such complaints was very low¹². While homeowners target the local government to facilitate the settlement of housing disputes, the local government prefers to avoid direct confrontation with homeowners, because such involvement would harm its image as a neutral third party that has the responsibility of upholding public interests. Under the pressure from homeowner activists, the local government would ask the developers to negotiate with homeowners for dispute resolution. Developers often take part in the negotiation and make compensation to homeowners as a gesture of giving face to the local government because they are fully aware of the political responsibility of the local government (Interview, December 27, 2011). In this way, developers maintain their long-term collaborative relations with key government officials, who not only help coordinate various government departments to facilitate approval processes in relation to development projects but also exploit the loopholes of existing regulations to maximize development profits (Shao 2013; Yang and Chang 2007).

Local governments seem to mediate the disputes objectively but in fact they are partial to developers because they are directly or indirectly involved in housing disputes and are to be blamed for many kinds of housing disputes, for instance, the administrative decision to change neighborhood planning or the lax approval processes leading to poor housing quality. More importantly, with imperfect market and legal systems, subsidiary companies of government are active in land acquisition, land clearance, and property development.¹³ These subordinate relations and corruption in urban development processes (Shao 2013) serve as a special bond between local government and developers. Such a bond inevitably extends to postdevelopment growth coalition and becomes an important motivation for local government to lean toward developers in dealing with housing disputes. The local government allies with developers in a subtle manner, usually through strategically interpreting laws and regulations in justifying developers’ practices. For instance, in dealing with a dispute between the homeowners and the developer over what kind of “public facility” could be built in a residential complex, the district planning bureau explained “public facility” in broad and narrow senses and concluded that this case belonged to the broad category which permitted the developer’s construction of a commercial office building.¹⁴

Planning and housing disputes tend to be reflected in and transferred to property management services. When the homeowners move into their apartments and find that neighborhood planning and public facilities fall short of their expectations, the developer has already made its profit and retreated from the neighborhood, and the only scapegoat the homeowners can find is the property management company, which is legitimate in the eyes of homeowners because many if not most property management companies are subsidiaries of developers. According to an informant, about 70% complaints against property management services are in fact related to unsolved development-related issues rather than management services (Interview, June 8, 2008).

One of the easiest ways to avoid potential conflicts with homeowners is to hide the problems in the first place. Because planning and housing defects are not visible, homeowners would hardly notice them if developers, together with their subsidiary property management companies, have made efforts to conceal the problems. For instance, in the Shimao Lakeside Garden neighborhood, the artificial lake, which was supposed to be the most attractive selling point, was found to have a serious water leakage problem. Conflicts were expected if the homeowners found out the leakage. The developer quickly reached an agreement with the property management company that it would pay 200,000 RMB per month to subsidize refilling the lake, and the water leakage issue would be kept as a secret between the developer and the property management company (Interview, August 23, 2012).

To keep an upper hand in housing-related conflicts, it is important for developers and property management companies to prevent homeowner associations, which are prospective organizers of contentious collective action, from being established because homeowner associations will take over management responsibilities and “secret” financial and technical documents, which will expose deficiencies in neighborhood planning and common facilities.¹⁵ Without homeowner associations, homeowners do not have access to such information. As a homeowner activist of a high-profile dispute between homeowners and the management company revealed, district housing bureau intervened in the reelection of the homeowner association because the district authority had interest collusion with the affiliated developer (Interview, August 6, 2009). Yet, obstructing the establishment of homeowner associations usually requires the help of base-level governing entities such as street offices and resident committees. The Provisions on the Property Management of Residential Building, which was issued by Shanghai municipal government in 2011, has strengthened the role of street offices and resident committees in the establishment of homeowner associations. It stipulates that an election preparatory group should be initiated by the street office upon the request of the homeowners, and officials of the street office and the resident committee are compulsory members of the preparatory group,¹⁶ which is in charge of electing the homeowner association and formulating the management covenant. Therefore, the Provisions provide street offices and resident committees ample room to influence the election process, especially to choose the “right” person to be in charge of the association (Interview, July 2, 2012). In addition, street offices make efforts to curtail “uncooperative” homeowner associations through the filing system by practically turning it into an administrative approval system.¹⁷ If the homeowner association cannot reach consensus with the street office and the resident committee on issues, such as association members and neighborhood management practices, it is difficult to pass the filing procedure and get started on daily operation (Interview, August 23, 2012). In sum, developers, property management companies, street offices, and resident committees work hand in hand to influence the establishment of homeowner associations in their favor. As remarked by a property service manager,

Some homeowners went to the street office and demanded the establishment of a homeowner association [as a strategic means to defend their rights]. The street office passed the matter to the resident committee. Resident committee officials comforted those homeowners first, and then told them that the neighborhood was not yet qualified for the establishment of a homeowner association. Then, the officials came to inform us (the property management company) of the complaint. We went to talk to the person, found out what he wanted, and satisfied his needs so as to appease the incident. (Interview, August 23, 2012)

However, the delicate relation between developers and developer-affiliated property management companies may be a source of conflict because homeowners tend to fire such a property management company when they are not satisfied with legacy housing problems.¹⁸ Firing the property management company, however, is not what the street office and the resident committee would like to see. This is partly because changing a management company involves a relatively long transitional period in which potential problems in relation to security and stability may incur. More importantly, local officials prefer to keep the developer-affiliated management companies to maintain connections with the developers (Interview, December 30, 2011). Usually, the developers have built a cooperative relationship with the local government in the process of real estate development, and thus are more likely to give face to street officials in dealing with housing disputes when deemed necessary (for instance, wrongdoing is evident and the amount of cash compensation is bearable). The fact that its subsidiary management companies run the neighborhood gives the developer further incentive to settle with disgruntled homeowners. Sometimes, even if the developer has stopped subsidizing the preproperty management company, the government continues to do so to keep the company in the neighborhood (Interview, June 28, 2012).

Yet, the preferable choice for street offices and resident committees is to prevent homeowners from firing the property management company through methods of persuasion, countermobilization, and outright administrative intervention. Street-level officials first employ “soft means” to mediate the disputes by arranging meetings to facilitate communication between the homeowner association and the property management company, and acting as a third party to suggest the management company improves its services on one hand, and to convince the homeowners to give up firing the management company on the other hand (Interview, July 3, 2012). It is quite common that the outgoing property management company refuses to leave even if a new management company has been hired (Interview, August 6, 2009). This predicament to a certain degree offers the street office leverage in the persuasion process because the resolution of such stalemate requires local government’s arbitration.¹⁹ If persuasion does not work, street-level officials may make further efforts to dismiss the sitting homeowner association so that homeowners do not have the legal standing to do so. This can be achieved by provoking internal conflicts among homeowners (Interview, July 5, 2012), or by taking advantage of administrative approval procedures to hinder the operation of the sitting homeowner association.²⁰ In extreme cases, street office officials have the capability to instruct the newly hired management company not to take over the management services because the former would blacklist an “uncooperative” management company (Interview, July 7, 2009). When these efforts fail, the developers which are affiliated with the property management companies may devote more resources to win support from higher-level governments. For instance, district planning and housing bureau may get involved in disputes and use their power to “force” other prospective property management companies to withdraw from contract bidding (L. Zhang and Liu 2005).

It is under these circumstances that the power of extended growth coalition becomes noticeable. The extended growth coalition at neighborhood level is closely connected with the growth coalition at city level, and more often than not partners in the extended growth coalition wield their power and resources to contain potential or actual housing-related conflicts and protect the incumbent land-based interests from being challenged.

Discussion and Conclusion

This study contributes to the literature of growth politics by adding nuanced analyses of the nexus between economic and political dimensions of urban growth. With rapid urbanization and marketization, growth politics has emerged as a central issue in the process of urban development in China and in Shanghai in particular. As shown in this study, growth coalitions in China have distinctive forms and dynamics which are different from that in the United States and are shaped by China’s political contexts. China’s transition to market economy means that the local government has to cooperate with private capital in promoting urban growth. As previous studies have shown (He 2007; Shin 2009; T. Zhang 2002), the local government plays a dominant role in China’s pro-growth politics because it controls key resources. Meanwhile, China’s multilayered hierarchical administrative system has brought about a distinctive political dimension into urban growth which makes local growth politics subject to the influence of central local relation (T. Zhang 2002). This study further shows that the political dimension of local growth politics is not confined to the influence of central policies and local officials’ intention to show economic achievement to higher-level government. Instead, the nexus of the political and economic aspects of urban growth in China is rooted in the unique institutional arrangements, including immature market system, business community’s dependence on local government, and the dual source of political legitimacy which requires local officials to show political achievement by both promoting economic growth and maintaining social stability.

On one hand, immature market, and housing market in particular, makes residential development processes closely intertwine with housing disputes occurring in postdevelopment phase. The initial stage property management system not only transmits development-related disputes into property management arena but also connects the interests of developers with that of property management companies. Under such circumstance, the realization of land-based interests requires the temporal extension into the postdevelopment phase. On the other hand, the lack or ineffectiveness of institutionalized redress channels, which is a manifestation of an immature housing market, has pushed homeowners who are involved in housing disputes to resort to contentious actions to defend their lawful rights and interests. Homeowners’ activism is in turn interpreted by local government as a threat to social stability. Failing to properly handle development-related conflicts not only jeopardizes the operation of pro-growth coalition at city level but also hampers the political achievement of local government officials for two reasons: For one thing, the dominant role of local government in urban development means that it is more often than not involved in legacy housing problems; for another, the central government gives high priority to maintaining social stability as a way to reclaim political legitimacy (Cai 2008). Therefore, grabbing land-based interests in China hinges not only on decision making at city hall but also on preventing incumbent interests from being challenged by neighborhood-level opposition during the postdevelopment period. Given that maintaining social stability heavily depends on infrastructural power at the base level (Lee and Zhang 2013), growth coalition has to extend itself into neighborhood level to achieve the dual goals of promoting urban growth and managing growth-related conflicts. This explains why base-level governing entities, such as street offices, resident committees, and property management companies, are important players in the extended pro-growth coalition. Furthermore, empirical scrutiny of the extended growth coalition also sheds light on the studies of community governance in China by embedding the academic discussion within the broader context of urban growth instead of simply in relation to the waning of the danwei system (Gui 2007; Li 2007).

Detailed analyses of the dynamics of the extended growth coalition also enhance our understanding of various actors’ motivations to become involved in growth politics. It has revealed that the motivations are diverse for different coalition players and are not necessarily the same as those that drive involvement in development projects. For instance, although developers, district governments, and street offices are well-recognized players in pro-growth coalition, their involvement in the extended growth coalition is driven by distinctive motivations. District government mainly attempts to reconcile policy discrepancy and to settle housing disputes which are rooted in urban planning. Developers have made great effort to prevent disputes from happening, to maintain good relations with local officials for long-term interests, and to make profits through the initial stage property management system. Street-level officials concentrate on coping with contentious disputes to maintain social order and stability instead of facilitating demolition and displacement. All in all, the temporal and spatial extension of pro-growth coalition suggests that the state-led growth has profound effects on social injustice, citizen rights, and local activism, which deserves further exploration.

This study also contributes to the literature of comparative studies of growth machine and urban regime. First and foremost, this study echoes the argument that making sense of growth politics requires detailed analysis of how national political institution shapes the configuration and operation of local pro-growth coalition (Bae and Sellers 2007; Davies 2003; Stoker 1995). Contingent on specific political institution, the pursuit of urban growth and land-based interests cannot be fully explained by complementary resources in the possession of local government and business community (Elkin 1987; Stone 1993). As demonstrated in this study, the assumptions of a well-functioning market and the (economic) driver of government behavior need to be critically analyzed within specific contexts. In China, the dual goals of promoting economic growth and maintaining political legitimacy, together with the multiple and contradictory roles of local government as well as the complex nexus between local government and market forces, are the key to understanding growth machine in transitional China. This study contributes to the literature of growth politics by demonstrating the significance of and calling for examining the multiplicity of local governments’ roles in growth politics, which is undertheorized in the original theory of growth machine (Harding 1995) and only partially elaborated in previous studies of China’s urban growth (T. Zhang 2002). As shown previously, Chinese local governments act as an instigator of growth projects, a regulator and a participant making profits and settling disputes through infrastructural power. This particular role of local governments implies that “growth” in China is not neutral and harmless; rather, it is often accompanied by rights infringement.

Second, this study also enriches our understanding of the power at work within an urban regime (Stoker 1995). In particular, infrastructural power as a new form of power different from that formulated in the urban regime theory is required to understand the working of the extended state-led growth coalition in China, which is less premised on the preemptive power to achieve a leadership to guide the growth policy and to “convince people it . . . is succeeding in obtaining an attractive goal” (Stoker 1995, p. 65). Instead, the social production of growth in China is premised on the successful management of postdevelopment problems, disputes, and activism by relying on the base-level institutions through which various modes of power (e.g., information collection, persuasion) beyond command can be exercised to penetrate the grassroots society and to protect the incumbent interests of city-level growth coalitions. Meanwhile, infrastructural power is “a two-way street” (Mann 2008, p. 356) and is also shaped by homeowners because local states will adjust their government practices and institutions in response to the challenges posed by homeowners’ activism (Sun and Huang 2014), and these institutions service both as a medium through which the state penetrates through the grassroots society and as a channel of homeowners’ interest articulation (Huang and Gui 2013).

Third, this study reveals similarity and difference regarding the relation between pro-growth forces and slow growth forces. It corroborates the argument that the growth machine is influenced by slow growth forces (Purcell 2000) or the opposition of middle-class residents (Bae and Sellers 2007). However, in the case of China, the “slow growth” forces do not oppose growth per se but the violation of their property rights the growth projects bring about. In addition, how middle-class residents influence growth politics in China is also different, which in turn shapes how local state responds to oppositional forces and keeps the growth machine running. Middle-class homeowners in China only voice their concerns regarding specific disputes and seldom oppose growth politics at policy level partly because of the lack of political opportunities and weak civil societies. This issue-specific relation mainly unfolds in the form of localized opposition at neighborhood level instead of policy competition at city level, which makes the extended coalition particularly relevant in China. The effective working of this extended pro-growth coalition is also a key to explaining the continuity and adaptation of growth regime (Stoker 1995) in spite of local opposition to growth politics.

Finally, a limitation warrants mentioning. Because Shanghai is an economically developed city with strong capacity of grassroots governance and infrastructural power, the findings of this study might only be applicable to cities with similar features. The extent to which these findings can be generalized to other cities in transitional societies needs further empirical examination.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Professor Yip Ngai-ming for his invaluable suggestions. We also would like to thank anonymous referees for their comments.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study is funded by the AXA Research Fund Postdoctorate Fellowship Programme (Project number 9220075).

Notes

Author Biographies

Xiaoyi Sun is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong. She is working on the project “Environmental Risks and Collection Action in Urban China,” which is sponsored by the AXA Research Fund. Her primary research interests are urban studies, environmental movement, and state–society relations in urban China. Her articles have appeared in Chinese Journal of Communication, Information, Communication & Society, among others.

Ronggui Huang is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology, Fudan University. He researches neighborhood governance, contentious politics, and Internet studies in China. He has published a monograph in Chinese, titled “From Participation to Rights Protection: The Changes and Strategies of Homeowner’s Actions in English.” He is now working on a project titled “Social Media and Collective Action,” which is sponsored by the Chinese National Social Science Foundation.

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