Urban Marginalization and the Declining Capacity for Disaster Risks in Contemporary China

Jia Xu and Makoto Takahashi
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Jia Xu: Geography Unit, Department of Social and Human Environment, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
Makoto Takahashi: Geography Unit, Department of Social and Human Environment, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: Many disaster studies in the social sciences have so far pointed out that contemporary urbanization catalyzes the transformation of actual and potential risks into disasters. Compared with the greater attention paid to the losses of disasters, there is inadequate recognition of the roles of deep-seated social factors in addressing environmental changes and risks. In addition, very few discussions about social vulnerabilities have paid attention to China, even though they focus on developing countries. In the past four decades, China’s rapid urbanization, urban expansions, and large-scale rural-urban migration have led to increasing difficulties in urban management, generating a large number of marginalized populations and spaces that are often called urban villages. The current marginalization problems are connected with economic poverty, sustained exclusion, and social inequality under state-managed urbanization. This study aims to provide a valuable discussion on the relationship between rapid urbanization and urban marginalization to identify the underlying causes of social vulnerability from the perspectives of institution, space, and urban governance, reviewing the experiences of China’s urbanization. This study concludes that urbanization-induced marginalization has adverse impacts on structural resistance to external pressures such as natural disasters.

Keywords: urbanization; marginalization; urban village; social vulnerability; disaster risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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