Original Article Design history of China’s gated cities ...

Original Article

Design history of China’s gated cities andneighbourhoods: Prototype and evolution

Miao Xu* and Zhen Yang

School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King EdwardVII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WA, UK.E-mail: [email protected]

*Corresponding author.

Abstract As a global phenomenon, the gating form of gated community is often understood within a generalcontext which by and large ignores the significance of the unique historical, political and socio-culturalmomentums in a specific urban context. Through a historical review of the vicissitudes of gated cities,neighbourhoods and residential compounds in China and their physical evolution as well as the social changebehind them, this paper endeavours to reveal that the enclosed physical forms and organizational patternsof gated community are deeply ingrained in the Chinese history of city design. Moreover, it shows that ratherthan exhibiting a localized version of a global process, gated community in contemporary China has its ownsocio-political rationale in the making. In consequence, the ingrained tradition and unique developingtrajectory have a profound impact on both the visible and the invisible characteristics of gated communityin China today, while the latter has eventually distinguished itself from all its predecessors in history. Basedon this review, this paper concludes by arguing that any comprehensive understanding of gated communityin contemporary China can only be achieved if the significance of the historical and local socio-politicalcontext is fully appreciated.URBAN DESIGN International (2009) 14, 99–117. doi:10.1057/udi.2009.12

Keywords: gated community; Chinese planning history; ingrained prototypes; spatial-political economiccontext

Introduction

Gated community is now recognized as a globalphenomenon. Although much research on it hasfocused on general features and socio-spatialconsequences (Blakely and Snyder, 1997; Webster,2001, 2002; Low, 2003, 2006; Atkinson and Blandy,2005; Glasze, 2005; and so on), more and moreresearchers have been aware of and paid attentionto the local forces involved, which are regardedas substantially mediating the final outcomesof adapted gated communities in specific loci(Frantz, 2001; Sabatini et al, 2001; Wu, 2005;Huang and Low, 2007). As a result, a historicalreview, which is indispensable for understandingthe local context, becomes one of the keyapproaches. However, the local forces addressedby previous historical reviews in terms of gated

communities are mainly to do with housingtraditions, their socio-cultural trends and theinstitutional-economic background. The role ofcity design has by and large been overlooked,though it is always a pivotal issue in the shapingof urban space in history. Therefore, this paperintends to examine the design history of China’sgated cities, dissecting the ingrained prototypes ofenclosed physical forms and organizational pat-terns in the Chinese history of city planning,especially for residential compounds. Arguingthat environmental disciplines are epi-phenom-ena of deeper and more enduring social forcesthat emanate from the overall production of thematerial basis of life, that is, from the economy asa whole, Alexander Cuthbert develops Castells’definition of urban design1 and points out that thematerialization of space as urban form is not

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arbitrary, and that the whole discourse of urbandesign should be built on spatial political econ-omy (Cuthbert, 2005). This retrospective examina-tion of the design history is therefore not onlyabout spatial forms, but also about the political-economic background of the time.

For clarity, this historical review will basicallyfollow chronological order and be classified intothree categories: the lengthy pre-1949 feudalmonarchy, when walled residential quarters andintrospective courtyard archetypes were sus-tained; the socialist period from 1949 to 1978when gated work-compounds (danwai) came todominate the urban landscape; and the post-socialist era after 1978 when the contemporarygated community has gradually come into beingin China and gained overwhelming prevalence inthe commodity housing market.

The Enclosed Urban Form in ChineseCentralized Feudal Monarchy, Pre-1949

The traditional Chinese city generally exhibitedfive major morphological characteristics, namelywalled enclosure, axiality, north-south orientation,symmetrical layout and closed courtyard (Wu,1993; Gu, 2001; Dong, 2004). Hereinto, both‘walled enclosure’ and ‘closed courtyard’ indicatethe long-existing tradition of walled urban mor-phology and introverted living patterns duringover two thousand years of highly centralizedfeudal monarchy. While the former describes thewhole urban form at the macro-level, the lattercan be regarded as the elementary dwellingtypology in micro-level urban areas.

Strictly controlled city and walled residentialwards

Manipulated by mighty aristocratic power(Heng, 1999), Chinese cities before the SongDynasty (960–1279 AD) had a highly hierarchicalsocial structure, and were strictly controlled.Commercial activities were also rigidly sup-pressed. Tang Chang’an (618–906 AD), housingover a million people with a well-developedurban form, is the most typical and influentialmodel2 of this kind (Figure 1).

The strictly controlled residential pattern inTang Chang’an, originally called lu li,3 wasinitially shaped in the ancient slave society ofthe Shang Dynasty, was renamed li fang in the Sui

Dynasty, and was at its height in Tang Chang’an(Dong, 2004). It also reflected and reinforcedstringent social hierarchy by confining popula-tions rigidly in their respective wards. Residentialand commercial functional areas were dividedinto separate zones. This segregation went againstnot only residents’ convenience in everydaylife, but more fundamentally, commercial pros-perity. So, when the regime went into decline inthe second half of the Tang Dynasty, the govern-ment’s stringent supervision over both walledresidential wards and the trading system began tobreak down.

Prosperous mercantile society and fallof ward walls

The economic growth facilitated by long-termsocial stability and the revolutionary improve-ment in agricultural technologies in the SongDynasty (960–1279 AD) was the decisive drivingforce to overthrow the previous highly demar-cated and controlled urban form. On the onehand, an unprecedented growth in urban popula-tion and the specialization of urban productionactivities like handicrafts substantially promotedthe prosperity of commercial activities, whichrequired demolishing the physical and institu-tional barriers to trade. On the other hand, andmore fundamentally, due to increasingly flourish-ing commercial activities, a progressively secularand mercantile society came into being. As aresult, the ruling system dominated by aristo-cratic power gradually gave way to a governmentmanaged by pragmatic professional bureaucrats,who turned wall demolition into a money-makingopportunity by charging for offending behavioursuch as demolishing ward walls or streetencroachment (Heng, 1999).

Eventually, the physical and institutional con-straints on the city were officially abandoned foran open urban structure. The residential patternof li fang was replaced by fang xiang with freemovement and mixed land-use, and this patternran through the following thousand years untiltoday. Fang was commonly a long rectangularresidential site naturally divided by a main roadand branching streets. Xiang (also called hutong innorthern China) is the street connecting thedwelling units (Figure 2) in fang. It became inpractice a communal linear public space with astrong sense of community for local inhabitants(Figure 3). The sense of belonging and territorial

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control became even stronger when there was adoor with a nameplate at the gateway of xiang(Figure 4). Shops gathered around the gateway,serving the daily needs of local residents within ahandy distance (Dong, 2004). Basically, all thestreets (xiang/hutong), whether wide or narrow,were entirely accessible to the passer-by. But moststreets were still continuously confronted by highblank walls of housing units, even in some bustling

commercial areas (Figure 5). Hence, although theward walls were dismantled, the wall was still anelementary component in the renewed order of theurban form, separating the private and quietfamily space from the public and chaotic urbanenvironment. It is still the wall rather than thehome building itself that faces directly onto thestreet. Some drawings of the time show the mosttelling evidence of such conditions (Figure 6).

Figure 1: City map of Tang Chang’an.Source: Based on various cartographic sources. The city as a whole was walled with 16 city gates. Within this fortified perimeter, the walledpalace was located to the north. Eleven north-south and 14 east-west major streets divided the walled city into 108 fang, or wards (residentialquarters), and two designated markets. These residential wards, fang, ranging from 30 to 80 hectare, were enclosed by earthen walls on the sides ofrectangular precinct and connected with the outside through one or two major gates guarded by warders (Dong, 2004). Apart from the aristocratsand government dignitaries, the commoners were forbidden to pierce private gates in the ward walls to have direct access to the external streets.The residents were not allowed to leave the wards after the gates were closed from the second night watch (9–11 p.m.), unless a special permit wasissued in case of an emergency, such as illness or marriage (Heng, 1999).

Design history of China’s gated cities and neighbourhoods

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Westernized urban settlements and retainedintroverted pattern

The urban transformation described above was byand large a self-evolving process based mainly on atraditional agricultural economy. It progressed veryslowly in both size and form. Until 1840 whenwestern capitalistic forces began to encroach uponChinese territory, there were actually no modernindustries and cities in China. But very soon, over30 treaty ports were set up in the major cities alongthe coastline and the Yangtze River, where foreign-ers were not only permitted to carry out businessbut also allowed to build up their settlements in theleased territories (27 in all). With western urbanstructures and lifestyles grafted onto the indigen-ous residential patterns, these colonial citiesexperienced a drastic transformation. The patternof li long appeared in this west–east and modern–traditional confrontation, and gradually becamethe dominant residential form for the mass ofbourgeois citizens in the treaty port cities (Figure 7).Basically, li long was little different from the pattern

of fang xiang in terms of spatial form and settlementorganization, except that:

K the low-rise courtyard houses were transformedinto higher density of 3- to 4-storey terracedhouses with smaller courtyards at the back;

K most of the units facing the outer streets,especially the ground floor, were more openin form and often transformed into commercialor other uses;

K on each residential site, there were severalclusters which were organized by a main alleyand a series of branching ones in cul-de-sac style.The hierarchically arranged alleys were actuallysemi-private/public spaces, discouraging pas-sing-by behaviour. This facilitated territoriallybased control by the local community.

This transformation shows that when tradi-tional residential patterns were modified to havemore relationship with their surroundings,like streets in modern society, the introvertedhousing tradition and territorial control were

Figure 2: Typical street pattern of fang xiang.Source: Adapted from Liu (1984).

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insistently retained and achieved by an intention-ally organized residential form. Although thetreaty port cities underwent rapid physicalchanges, the major inland and interior cities outof the reach of the colonial impact saw littlechange in urban form and life styles. The housingpatterns in these cities continued to followtraditional lines until 1949, when the People’sRepublic of China (PRC) was founded, andimmediately launched large-scale nationwideurban development.

Introverted courtyard prototype and walledcollective living tradition

One morphological character is too evident to beignored in the previous review of the traditionalurban form and residential pattern. That isenclosed open space. This existed ubiquitously in

traditional Chinese cities and especially housingcompounds, although it varied endlessly innumber and size with respect to the vast territory,tremendously diverse climatic conditions, and 55disparate nationalities in China separate from theethnic majority of Han (Wu, 1963; Knapp, 2005).The enclosed open space embodies a distinctdifference in the building–space relationship ofhousing layout between western and Chinesetraditions. Compared to the openness and acces-sibility of a typical western house standingin a yard or garden, the Chinese tradition inclinesto internalize the open space with walls andbuildings around it (Figure 8). This inwardlooking open space in a housing compound isnamed courtyard or quadrangular-yard (si heyuan)in northern China, and sky well (tian jing) in thesouth.

The prototype of introverted spatial organiza-tion by means of the courtyard was found atthe very beginning of Chinese written history

Figure 3: Diverse activities in the public linear streets (hutong) between walls of courtyard-houses, Beijing.



(Figure 9), and has changed little if comparedwith the courtyard houses built within the lasthundred years. In addition, more than an essen-tial element of the housing compound, thiscourtyard prototype was so ingrained in tradi-tional Chinese architecture that can be discoveredubiquitously in palaces, temples, gardens andother types of built environment in ancient China(Figure 10). As a basic unit of ancient urban form,it conforms to and reflects Daoist geomanticprinciples and Confucian ritual rules, which arerecognized as the two main sets of tenets shapingtraditional Chinese cities (Gu, 2001; Dong, 2004).

The courtyard embodies the Daoist views of thevoid–entity relationship4 and geomantic princi-ples for living. In the philosophy of Daoism,everything should be regarded as and resemblethe integrated world composed by the positive(yang) and negative (yin) substances. Whilebuildings, the entities, form the positive struc-tures, it is the enclosed open space, the void,which complements the negative part in compos-ing an integrated house. The courtyard, the openspace enclosed by buildings and walls, stands forthe void, and is therefore the indispensable

component of the house. It was regarded as themeans to realize a harmonious relationshipbetween the human and nature in the housingcompound (Figure 11). In practice, the courtyardhelps to provide a good microclimate by applyingthe different proportions of enclosed spaces indifferent regions with different climates.5

The proverb ‘four generations under one roof’describes precisely the collective living traditionof the big Chinese family (Huang, 2006) which isdescended from the same ancestor through thepatrilineal line. The ingrained Confucian ritualbelieves that the best spatial organization of ahouse should felicitously respect or exhibit notonly the kinship relationships between householdmembers, but also the spatial transition betweenprivate individual spaces, the communal spacesshared by the whole family, reception spaces forguests and the outer public world. In this regard,the housing layout with a sequential series ofcourtyards fits in perfectly with the desiredspatial hierarchies (Figure 12). Moreover, thecourtyard prototype is very adaptable by endlessreplication to the irregular requirements of anextended family. With three or more generationsliving together in multiple courtyards, thehousing compound for one family is actuallylike a small walled city (Figure 13). ‘Walls withwalls and, behind those walls, more walls’(Dutton, 1998).

Renewed Walled City of Work Units in theSocialist Era, 1949–1978

Spatial and social outcomes of work-unit(danwei) compounds

After the PRC was founded in 1949, the urbaniza-tion process was dominated by a socialist politicalframework until 1978, when the new agenda ofreform towards a market-oriented economy wasset up. In the initial stages, the Soviet model ofurban planning was quickly taken up in China(Dong, 2004). Based on socialist ideology, therationale of Soviet urban planning presumed thatindustrial production was the major function ofcities. Consumption was disdained as associatedwith waste and the bourgeois lifestyle, so citiesshould be transformed into engines of produc-tion, rather than remaining sites of decadentconsumption. The slogan of the time, ‘Productionfirst, livelihood second’, accurately conveyed thismainstay ideology. The essentials for living would

Figure 4: A door with nameplate at the gateway, a historicalblock in Zhenjiang.

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be guaranteed by the urban welfare system.Therefore, to convert ‘cities of consumption’ into‘cities of production’, a series of policies aiming athigh industrial accumulation and low consump-tion were put into effect with low cash wages and

in-kind welfare supplements like housing. In thisprocess, the work unit (danwei), including state-owned enterprises or other service institutions(health care, education, research or administra-tion), appeared to be the principal entity for both

Figure 5: Streets confronted by the continuous blank walls of housing units.

Figure 6: Walled courtyard houses in the bustling urban area with diverse commercial activities, depicted by Zhang Zeduan, thepainter of Song Dynasty (960–1279 ad), in his famous drawing ‘Qing Ming Shang He Tu’.



production and distribution in the resourceallocation system of a highly centralized plannedeconomy.

However, although Chinese institutional econ-omy and urban planning in the socialist era wereheavily influenced by the former Soviet Union,the cities went far beyond Soviet models bymeans of the work-unit compound, which wasactually a distinctive Chinese invention. Ratherthan adopting the Soviet model in which residen-tial districts were spatially separate from theworkplace allowing for up to a 40-min commute

on public transportation (Bater, 1980), the workunit in China attempted to integrate working andliving space in close territorial proximity, combin-ing housing, workplace and the provision ofsocial services. This work-unit-based spatialmodel soon dominated mass urban developmentbecause of the power and privilege of work unitsin the socialist economic structure. The ‘city underMao was a relatively weak entity characterised bythe dominance of the work-unit’ (Cartier, 2005).Basically, work-unit compounds shared threecommon features in social and spatial outcomes(Figure 14):

1. A self-contained and high level of social facilities:small work units generally had canteens,social halls, clinics and public bathhouses;medium-sized units may have added nur-series, kindergartens, parks, libraries, sportsfields, guesthouses and shops; large work

Figure 7: Vista from alleys of li long, a historical residentialblock in Wuhan.

Western tradition: Buildingoutstanding in the space

Chinese tradition: buildingsurrounding the space

Figure 8: Comparison of building–space relationship inhousing layout between western and Chinese traditions.

Figure 9: The earliest archaeological evidence of courtyardfound in the historic site of Western Zhou (1025 BC–256 bc),Qishan, Shanxi province.Source: Based on various cartographic sources.

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units, especially those in remote suburban orrural areas, were often so self-contained as toresemble a miniature city (Lu, 2006).

2. A high level of social mix and close affiliation:working and living closely in a work-unitcompound, the diversity of workers and theirfamily members in terms of age and sex fos-tered a high level of social mix. Furthermore,the dense network of human relationships

between members cultivated by joint livingand the patriarchal authority exerted by thework unit over its members are reminiscent ofthe living conditions of a big kinship family inancient times. In this regard, the work unit canbe argued to be ‘feudalism in a period ofindustrialisation’ (Dutton, 1998, p. 42).

3. Walled enclosure : although there was widevariation among work-unit compounds in

Figure 10: Enclosed courtyard as the basic element of ancient urban form.Source: Adapted from Liu (1984).



terms of scale, layout, supplied facilities andsocial services, and so on, the overwhelminglyubiquitous presence of walls and guardedgates built along the boundaries of most, ifnot all, work-unit compounds was the mostvisible common feature.

Thus, the multifunctional compound built bywork units in socialist China became a miniature

city within its own walls, ‘somewhat reminiscentof the walled wards of the early traditionalChinese cities’ (Gaubatz, 1995).

Re-erected walls of work units and demarcatedurban landscape

Work-unit walls seem inexplicable, especially insuch an egalitarian socialist society. But from theanalysis above, it is arguably clear that the workunit is actually a kind of ‘club’, an economic entityfor collective production and consumption.Hence, it is inherently exclusive.6 In fact, althoughmost work units constructed in the 1950s wereoriginally without walls, many work units startedto build permanent walls in the 1960s to protecttheir land and other resources from encroachmentdue to uneven development (Lu, 2006) betweennot only work units and external urban areas, butalso between different work units (Gong andChen, 1994). Unit walls gradually became thenorm and were often the first structure to be builtwhen establishing a new work unit. Eventually,Figure 11: Daoist view of courtyard.

Figure 12: Perspective of a typical complete courtyard house.Source: Reproduced from Knapp (2005), with the permission of Tuttle Publishing Press. The kinship status of the family members wasdefined by the location in terms of inner/outer, front/back, upper/lower, left/right and the distance from the central/innermost courtyard. And thetransition from the public to the private spaces is skilfully achieved by means of the entrance spatial sequence: the main entry, small receptioncourtyard, forecourt, outer courtyard, and finally the inner courtyard, the heart of the family compound.

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Figure 13: Perspective (left) and ground floor plan (right) of Wang Family, Shang Xi Province. This gated residential compound of4.5 ha site area consists of 123 courtyards and 1118 rooms.Source: Reproduced from Knapp (2005), with the permission of Tuttle Publishing Press.

Figure 14: A small-scale walled compound (danwei) with one entrance, Beijing.



almost every work unit was a walled enclosure ora cluster of several walled enclosures (Lu, 2006).The walls, in most cases made of brick, set thework unit physically apart from its surroundings.There were usually several entrances with a smalljanitor’s room at each one. Generally, pedestrianand vehicle access were treated differently.

As for pedestrians, the regulation of accessi-bility varied from unit to unit and often changedaccording to the social conditions of the time. Butbasically, the work unit had the right to enquireabout or exclude anyone who was not a regularresident in it. The facilities in each unit, bath-houses for example, were generally for theexclusive use of unit members. The extent of therigid control also varied from unit to unit andfrom time to time. In some cases, small units withlimited resources cooperated to support the jointuse of some facilities such as schools andhospitals. The gate was often closed at midnightand opened in the early morning, because thecapitalist night lifestyle was discredited in socia-list ideology and fully suppressed at that time.Despite the comparatively loose control of pedes-trian access in general, through traffic was notallowed at any time.

The site planning of a work unit was initiallycarried out by the local Urban Planning Bureau. Itmostly focused on location and scale, leaving thedetailed layout to the work unit’s own Infra-structure Engineering Department. Because of thewall, there was no need for the spatial structure ofthe work unit to respect the surrounding context.So, rather than integrating with the outer urbanstructure, the walled compounds generallyformed a system of their own with a flexiblepattern to fit geographical and functional needs.As a result, China’s socialist cities becamedominated and demarcated by walled work units,and this urban structure had a fundamental andirreversible impact on the contemporary Chineseurban landscape.

Hybrid Gated Settlements in TransitionalUrban China, 1978–Present

Commodification of urban housingmanagement and the emergence of gatedcommunity

Owing to the minimum investment strategy in thenon-productive sector of housing after the found-ing of PRC, and almost 10 years of stagnation in

housing construction during the Cultural Revolu-tion, there was an overwhelming housing short-age and poor living conditions in China at the endof the 1970s.7 The rigid housing welfare system, inwhich urban housing was offered at nominal rentby work units and municipal housing bureaus,became a heavy fiscal burden and an institutionalconstraint on governmental capacity to improvehousing conditions. Therefore, since 1980 whenthe economic reforms toward a socialist marketeconomy were officially announced, the Chinesegovernment has launched a series of housingreform programmes to tackle this pressing hous-ing deficiency (Fong, 1989; The World Bank, 1992;Wang and Murie, 1996; Yeh and Wu, 1999). Amajor change in housing reform was that housingbenefits would be provided in cash wages ratherthan in kind. This led to a full-scale national boomin commodity housing markets in the followingdecades (Chen, 1993; Wu, 1996).

Before reform, a large proportion of the servicesand maintenance of urban housing was takenover by work units. As for other urban livingquarters beyond the work units, the local Depart-ment of Housing Bureau would take charge of themaintenance services. This management systemimposed huge pressure on local governmentduring the process of market-oriented housingreforms. On the one hand, demand for housingmanagement services soared when the estatemanagement of some of the state-owned workunits was transferred to local government duringenterprise reform (Wu, 2002), and when numer-ous commodity housing projects were completed;on the other hand, local government could hardlysatisfy this huge demand, especially when man-agement taxation was still not applicable withinthe socialist institutional framework, whichhad not changed simultaneously with economicreform. Therefore, an urgent challenge for hous-ing reform was to find a new pattern of urbanhousing management within the existing econom-ic and institutional structure.

In the mid-1980s, the first array of propertymanagement companies following the model inHong Kong was established in Shenzhen (Xie,2006). They collected service fees directly fromresidents and provided estate management inreturn. This service was well accepted by urbanresidents and was gradually introduced to citiesthroughout the country. It developed rapidly inthe fast growing commodity housing market,especially after the central government legiti-mated property management services in the

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‘Measure for the Management of Newly Con-structed Residential Areas in Cities’ issued in1994. From the residents’ perspective, it is naturalfor those who pay the maintenance fees to regardthe whole area as their private property. Thus, it isrational for the residents of gated communities tobe aware of the free-rider problem, and of thepotential harm to their property rights and valuesdue to unpredictable environmental deteriorationin an era of fast urban development, and to takemeasures to prevent it. From the perspective ofproperty management companies, it is muchmore convenient for them to demarcate the areato make clear the responsibilities of management.So, enclosed residential developments were soonseen in China after specialized estate manage-ment companies took over the maintenance ofcommodity housing. As a result, these gatedresidential developments managed by specializedagencies reproduced the exclusive feature of theChinese work units, and presented arguablythe strongest echo of the global phenomenon ofthe ‘gated community ’.

Diversified gated communities in contemporaryChina and concerns on both sides of boundaries

Gated community has gained such unprece-dented popularity that it has become the domi-nant development pattern in the commodityhousing market, as it has been widely adaptedto upper-, middle- and lower-market productionby means of the variation of service fees. Moreand more urban residents of very different back-grounds have moved from types of pre-1949traditional urban block and work-unit settlementsto gated community-type settlements. Most gatedcommunities are initially located in newly devel-oping suburban areas, but many have beenrapidly integrated into a local centre due to thefast expansion of urbanization. Meanwhile, thereare still a few gated communities being built ininner urban areas as brown-field redevelopments.When widely adapted within the complicatedsocial, economic and environmental urban con-texts throughout the country, gated communitiesin China present highly diversified social, orga-nizational and spatial characteristics. First of all,the territorial and social scales of developmentshave varied project by project, from just a groupof two or three apartment buildings in a smallplot aiming at specialized end-users, to a largeresidential district of over 100 ha (Figure 15),

comprising high-, mid- and low-rise building typesand targeting clients with very different incomelevels. The enclosed communal amenities, facilitiesand services provided therefore vary correspond-ingly. Secondly, the boundaries of gated commu-nities are not confined to walls or to natural andman-made fences. In many cases, especially indense urban areas with flourishing urban life,mixed-use buildings facing streets are built up asboundaries. Unlike walls and fences, they supportdiverse uses and activities along streets besidesfunctioning as a means of separation. Finally, theextent of control and exclusion also varies greatlyacross different gated communities and is evenchanging over time with respect to the surroundingenvironmental conditions (Figure 16).

There is a common interest for nearly all gatedcommunities, that is, the quality of the collectiveshared internal open space. As medium- or high-rise apartments are the major building type ofgated communities in China, there are 120–180households per hectare in general (Miao, 2003).Except for a few luxury gated communities ofvillas, a private garden is generally not availablein such a high density form (Figure 17). Theshared open spaces in gated communities,the landscape and the facilities, are de factovaluable green spaces for the small niche of thehousing development, and the foci of the resi-dents’ daily outdoor activities. Thus, shared openspace is viewed as an indispensable part ofhousing quality and property value, demandingelaborate design, construction and management.

However, this intensive interest in the internalenvironment does not, like gated communities inAmerican cities, displace the concerns that residentsof gated communities have for the external publicenvironment. High density as the common featureof Chinese cities causes gated communities to existnearby or even be interwoven with their surround-ings. Moreover, despite soaring private car owner-ship in China, a majority of residents in gatedcommunities still rely heavily on public transport(Miao, 2003) in the spaces outside their enclosures.As a result, the quality of the environment outsidegated communities is still a major concern of theresidents in gated communities.

Persistent work-unit walls and spatial entities inthe post-socialist era

After 20 years of reform, China currently has adual system of housing sectors: privatized public



Figure 16: Varied conditions in terms of accessibility. The two gated communities shown in the left and right photos respectively aresitting opposite along a local public street in Chongqing. Although developed with similar density, building type and facilities, theyapply different regulations on accessibility.

Figure 15: Site plan of a large-scale gated community in Guangzhou. It has 433.55 ha enclosed area and 70 000 permanent residents.

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housing8 and commodity housing with differentprices, rents and delivery patterns (Chiu, 2001;Zhang, 2001). Rosen and Ross (2000) argue thatthe resale of privatized public housing is notfeasible because the owners of such housing stillrely on their work units for maintenance andimprovements. Meanwhile, work units are reno-

vating old houses and constructing new ones, soas to provide their employees with up-to-date andimproved housing conditions. As a result, owning

Figure 17: Shared open spaces in dense urban form.

Figure 18: Juxtaposition of gated commodity housing development (left) and walled work-unit residence (right) along a local road ofChongqing. While the boundary for the gated development is developed into two-storey buildings for commercial uses, a small partof the work unit wall is also replaced with rentable buildings facing outside.

Figure 19: Notification board at gateway. It states the openingtimes of this gate: ‘the gate for vehicles is only opened duringweekdays, from 07:00 to 08:30 in the morning and from 16:30 to18:00 in the afternoon; the gate for pedestrian is opened everyday but closed at midnight’.



Figure 20: Five gates along a shortcut between spot A and sport B in an urban area of Beijing, which is dominated by walled work-units. Only the local residents know this route and the opening times of these gates well. For a stranger, the only way from A to B isto follow the arterial road.

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a large stock of land and housing resources,work units are still regarded as playing a key rolein the urban housing sector (Fu et al, 2000; Li,2000; Zhu, 2000; Li and Siu, 2001; Zhao andBourassa, 2003; Zhang, 2006). Along with soaringland prices in the market-oriented economy,occupied lands were viewed as importantassets of the work unit. In this case, the walls ofthe work unit have been well preserved ratherthan demolished, although today work units’control of their employees’ everyday lives hasbeen greatly weakened. In urban areas withprosperous businesses, some walls have beenreplaced by outward-facing buildings, whichcontinue to separate the outside from the inside(Figure 18).

Although the boundary remains, managementhas become much flexible in response to theincreasingly rich and colourful urban life of thepost-socialist era. More gates have been set up inthe walls around work units to improve access tothe outer world for the sake of residents’convenience. Generally, all the gates are open inthe daytime and provide free access for outsidersby foot or bicycle, while some are required to beclosed at night by the residents in the work unitfor security reasons (Figure 19). These walls andgates by and large do not bother local people, whoare familiar with all these gates and their openinghours. Nevertheless, they still function as barriersfor strangers, preventing them from gettingthrough walled areas, and therefore greatlydecrease the accessibility of the area. For vehiclesthat do not belong to the work unit or employeesand their family members, a through traffic feewould normally be charged. Obviously, the roadsystem of the work unit is still not integrated intothe whole road network of the city (Figure 20).

Conclusion

Gated residential development has a long historyin China. It can be dated back to the walled citiesincluding fortress-like palaces for the gentry andenclosed courtyard housing for ordinary peoplein ancient times, through to the enclosed work-unit compounds of the socialist era. Two featuresare remarkable for this morphological continuityin the analysis. One is the culture of collectiveliving with a territorial control. It proves persis-tent by the courtyard-style family housing com-plex, its adaptation in colonist time, the work-unitcompound and gated community, though the

bonding relationships are based on family/kin-ship, territory-based community, fellowship andthe business contract respectively. The other is theintroverted housing compound with buildingsand walls deployed around the communal out-door spaces. This kind of spatial arrangement canbe ubiquitously found in Chinese urban settle-ments of all ages. Apart from persistence, thesetwo features also demonstrate their great adapt-ability, as they were widely adopted in ancienturban fabrics, westernized cities at treaty ports incolonial times, socialist work-unit compoundsand diverse gated communities today, on greatlyvaried scales. With a capacity to renew itself, theingrained tradition of gated residence is malleableenough to enable old ways of living to operate innew contexts in a new era. This, on the one hand,provides a contextual interpretation for theunexpected popularity of gated community inChina; on the other hand, it elucidates thathistorical and cultural legacies have a deepimpact on the features of gated communities inChina today.

Notwithstanding the obvious continuity of theintroverted spatial form, the current gated com-munity in China is quite different from all itspredecessors with respect to design strategies,development processes and/or physical out-comes. First, by and large, the enclosure sizevaries greatly in all enclosed residential settle-ments in history, but with differentiated determi-nants behind in design practices. The enclosuresize of traditional courtyard housing, includingthe colonist adaptation (hereafter), and work-unitcompounds was up to their own decisions inconsideration of the included members andorganizational scale. In contrast, gated commu-nities in China today are generally stipulated by alocal land subdivision plan but often negotiable inthe development process with respect to thedevelopment and marketing strategies. Second,it can be observed from the functionally variousboundaries that the boundaries of gated commu-nities in China today have been consciouslydesigned and developed according to the marketneeds by means of a package-development. Incontrast, those of work-unit compounds andtraditional courtyard houses were mostly devel-oped as walls or fences with the single function ofspatial demarcation, while some frontages oftraditional houses along commercially prosperousstreets were often transferred into shops over timein a bottom-up and piecemeal development style.Last but not least, while courtyard housing



completely depended on daily supply from out-side the enclosure, the work unit tended todevelop into a self-sufficient settlement. Asregards gated community of today, the internalfacilities and the provision strategies vary greatlyamong different developments targeting at differ-ent client groups.

It can be argued that smaller enclosure sizemeans more accessibility for local streets; themore diverse uses the boundaries can support,the more activities on the immediately surround-ing streets; and the fewer the internal facilities, thegreater the reliance on supply from the neigh-bouring streets. These three aspects actuallydetermine the relationships between enclavesand their neighbouring public spaces. The aboveanalysis shows that compared to courtyard hous-ing and work units, gated communities in Chinatoday oriented by market economy show aware-ness and a conscious manipulation of thisrelationship, no matter whether positively ornegatively, by means of design.

Therefore, there are arguably two implicationsfrom the analysis of the design history of China’sgated cities and neighbourhoods. One is thatbased on China’s experience, although the spatialforms of all gated communities present anuniversal similarity in terms of the general‘fortress’ like image, detailed physical features ofgated communities, which are possibly of greatersignificance in people’s everyday life, may vary alot across nations to fit the very specific urbancontext. These physical features include morpho-logical elements, transit stops, community andcommercial facilities and amenities. The other isthat though deeply ingrained in Chinese housingtradition and the history of urban design, gatedcommunity in China today is economic-sensitiveand by no means a continuation of its historypredecessors such as walled low-rise courtyardhouses or enclosed work-unit compounds. Theevolving trajectory of gated community since themarket-oriented housing reform was kicked off in1980s shows that rather than any historical orcultural factor, the public/governmental retreat-ment in housing provision and management isde facto the foremost driving force bolsteringthe contemporary revival of gated residentialquarters in post-reform China. In sum, gatedcommunity in contemporary China has engagedvarious socio-cultural, economic, institutional andenvironmental factors, presenting a tangled pic-ture in terms of development process and finalphysical outcome.

Acknowledgement

Many thanks to Professor John Punter for hisencouragement and valuable advice.

Notes

1 ‘We call urban design the symbolic attempt to express anaccepted urban meaning in certain urban forms’ (Castells,1983, p. 304).

2 Tang Chang’an had a profound impact not only on Chineseancient cities but also on those in North Asian countries suchas Korea and Japan.

3 In ancient Chinese, li referred to an enclosed area for acertain community commonly consisting of about 25–100dwelling units, while lu meant the gate of this compound.

4 ‘We put 30 spokes together and call it a wheel; but it is on thespace where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheeldepends. We turn clay to make a vessel; but it is on the spacewhere there is nothing that the usefulness of the vesseldepends. We pierce doors and widows to make a house; andit is on these spaces where there is nothing that theusefulness of the house depends’ (The Dao De Jing, asixth-century bc work attributed to Laozi).

5 In the drier and colder areas of north and north-easternChina, courtyards are broader and occupy more generousproportions, increasing the receipt of sunshine and blockingthe cold winter winds by virtue of the surroundingbuildings and walls. In the south, where winters are mildand summers hot, courtyards shrink greatly in size andgenerally decrease in proportion, functioning as ventilationof interior spaces while blocking sunlight from penetratingthe buildings.

6 Club goods (also known as collective goods) are a typeof good in economics, sometimes classified as a subtype ofpublic goods that are excludable but non-rivalrous, atleast until reaching a point where congestion occurs(Buchanan, 1965).

7 According to 1978 statistics released by the Ministry ofConstruction, in 182 cities throughout the country, per capitafloor space had declined from 4.5 square metres in 1952 to3.6 square metres.

8 The privatized public housing system is the system that hasbeen in operation in various work units including officialdepartments, universities, institutions, and so on. Residentsbuy or rent their property at a preferential price, but they donot have full property rights, as the work unit owns the land.

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