Communicative dynamics in high-density gated communities: A case study of the bourgeois public sphere in a socialist state

Private ownership of residential property in vertically urban China raises many fundamental questions of social organisation. Contrary to the monolithic image of Chinese social relations, there actually exist many different models of local communities. This paper begins with a case study of a high-density gated community situated in Suzhou Industrial Park in Jiangsu province. In older models, the neighbourhood resident committee is expected to serve administrative and political functions at the grassroots level. In Suzhou Industrial Park, on the other hand, community service stations perform these functions instead, thus freeing up space for neighbourhood resident committees to develop civic life locally. Entered into the mix are entities such as the property owners’ association, property management office and dispute resolution committee. The case study focuses on an attempt between April and September 2013 at participatory planning in relation to the use of a two-storey common area within this community. Residents reported satisfaction with the methods used in the planning process, and in particular with the speed at which alternative proposals were identified and at which consensus was reached. Although the process was seen to be participatory to a degree previously unknown in this community, the implementation of the agreed proposal was considerably less speedy.
The second part of the paper offers an account of the participants, processes and outcomes of the local planning effort with reference to the oeuvre of Jürgen Habermas. Specifically, the interplay between changes to the social space of community decision-making and to uses of physical space is discussed. In picturing the dynamics between the actors of a local community in China, the paper contributes to the wider discussion in the literature concerning the nature, operation and future of the public sphere in the age of vertical urbanism.