ABSTRACT
This book sets out to examine the emerging politics of middle-class place-making and how privileged social groups residing in Shanghai’s gated communities use housing consumption as a form of social distinction by attempting to carve out and defend what are deemed to be their ‘rightful’ private spaces. Moving beyond standard commentaries on gated communities, this book explores the complex social/cultural meanings embedded in Shanghai’s changing residential landscape. Primarily, the book is concerned not only with the symbolism of gated communities but also with the micro-level symbols and meanings associated with walls within the city, guarded entrances and the negotiation of middle-class identities and experiences related to housing choices. The book further challenges the commonly held assumption that gated communities are simply the ‘containers’ of social class and argues that Shanghai’s gated enclaves may be more fruitfully viewed as critical sites of production and consumption where nascent middleclass interests, aesthetic sensibilities and identities are being territorially defined, (re)presented and contested.
