Gentrification in Chinese cities? Speaking to the context-versus-concept debate in regional terms

Taking as its starting point a recent call for greater attention to context in urban research, this article is pitched within the dichotomous dialogue between concept and context. It uses this dialogue as a springboard to the generation of ideas around potential gains from a regional comparative urbanism. The article reviews how gentrification has been applied in China and considers alternatives, highlighting difficulties inherent in attempts to articulate conceptualizations that are not North-centric. It identifies various contextual settings for urban China research, and examines in particular the widespread commercialized restructuring of city-center leisure districts, referring as an illustration to one such network of streets in a provincial Chinese city. Drawing on parallels with cases elsewhere in East Asia, the article argues that many of the constitutive elements of gentrification are present and that the universalizing nature of the concept lends itself to “accessible” engagement. It suggests, however, that observations stemming from grounded work can help create a regional vocabulary that adds contextual depth to higher-order concepts like gentrification, potentially providing a more contextually rich interpretive handle for comparative research. The article concludes by suggesting that the promise for theory-making lies in the debate itself, between contextual embeddedness and conceptual engagement.