Sense of Community in Mixed-income Housing Project in China--Learning from a Case Study in Beijing

This thesis is about sense of community in mixed-income housing project in China and uses a case study in Beijing for analysis. Sense of community in this thesis is defined as a feeling of people who feel they belong to their community, a feeling that they are attached with each other physiologically and would like to contribute to the community with their joint effort. The purpose of this research is to investigate how the sense of community is formed in mixed-income communities in China, to find a better way to strengthen the social cohesion in these types of communities, and to provide policy recommendations for the future mixed-income housing development. This research uses the Yupu community in Beijing as a case study. The research is designed in two parts, one is quantitative research using a survey conducted in the Yupu community, and the other is qualitative research by interviewing the local residents. The survey questionnaire is designed with the Sense of Community Index to measure the sense of community in the case study area. This research finds that affordable housing residents in the case study value their sense of community at a high level. However, in practice, they experience a relatively low sense of community because of the physical barriers and economic segregation in their neighborhood. The sense of community is formed and continues to grow through community participation during the process of residents' right protection movement. The developer and the government should take the responsibility and better plan for the mixed-income communities in the future.