Lateral Networks of Homeowners Associations and the Making of Citizenship in Urban China

Homeowners’ activism has been on the increase in the last few years in urban China and there were occasions that such action attempted to advocate their right as citizen. Whilst the current semi-authoritative regime in China still embraces heavy-handed action to high profile civic right movement, small scale citizen right actions are, however, being tolerated. Homeowners’ associations, as autonomous economic organisations of homeowners, serve as a convenient camouflage for such actions. Lateral networks of homeowners’ associations are thus being brought into existence to support homeowners’ action in their neighbourhoods as well as city-wide citizen right actions and other high profile activities. Such networks have been set up in Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai in which the housing markets are the most developed in China. This paper will trace the development of the lateral networks of homeowners’ association in these three cities in the past few years and attempt to offer a thick account of the development trajectories and hurdles the networks encountered on the way. It will help to shed light on the citizen movements within a broad context of changing state-society interaction against the backcloth of escalated urban conflicts in urban China.