Location Is Back: The Influence of COVID-19 on Chinese Cities and Urban Governance

Shengchen Du and Hongze Tan
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Shengchen Du: Department of Sociology, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China
Hongze Tan: Department of Sociology, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-13

Abstract: This article explores the short-term and (potential) long-term influences of COVID-19 on urban China and its governance, which was characterised by increasing mobilities and delocalised societies before the outbreak. Through the analysis of 18 observation reports in 16 cities, it is revealed that the outbreak enables the government to (re-)build a location-based urban management system with the participation of residents facing the pandemic as an external threat. A paradoxical combination of low physical mobility and high information mobility occurs. The location-based lifestyle and governance pattern has been “normalised” rather than just being a temporary response to the pandemic. The re-localisation in urban China differs from the localism in western societies as it results from the combination of the state-power-based governmental action and citizens’ participation aimed at regaining location-based ontological security. The normalisation of the re-localisation tendency may bring about fundamental changes to urban China, even “after” the pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; localisation; modernisation; urban governance; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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