IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijurrs/v31y2007i1p21-40.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Trickle‐down Effect: Ideology and the Development of Premium Water Networks in China’s Cities

Author

Listed:
  • ALANA BOLAND

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between networked infrastructure and uneven development in transitional cities through a study of premium water networks in China. Beginning in the mid‐1990s, select buildings and housing enclaves began to bypass municipal tap water supply systems through the construction of small‐scale secondary pipe networks for purified drinking water. I focus on the early development of these premium water networks to highlight the ideological interplay between a new more market‐based approach to networked supply and the existing model characterized by relatively universal and uniform access within cities. I illustrate how this dual water supply model was well suited to the ideological conditions and contradictions associated with China’s economic liberalization in the 1990s. While the emergence of premium water networks can be linked to ascendant forms of market reasoning in the environmental and social spheres, I also argue that they were enabled by unresolved ideological tensions associated with China’s transitional program. Rather than providing a basis for resistance in the early development of premium water supply, the socialist legacy in urban water supply left its mark more in the noticeable absence of debate regarding the distributional outcomes. By examining premium water networks in relation to the politics of ideology in China’s transitional period, my analysis highlights the complex and sometimes unexpected ways that ideologies can influence the development of new infrastructural spaces and processes of splintering urbanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Alana Boland, 2007. "The Trickle‐down Effect: Ideology and the Development of Premium Water Networks in China’s Cities," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 21-40, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:31:y:2007:i:1:p:21-40
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2007.00702.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2007.00702.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2007.00702.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fred E. Foldvary, 1994. "Public Goods And Private Communities," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 167.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Federico Caprotti & Cecilia Springer & Nichola Harmer, 2015. "‘Eco’ For Whom? Envisioning Eco-urbanism in the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city, China," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(3), pages 495-517, May.
    2. Gao, Chen & Bracken, Gregory & Herdt, Tanja, 2023. "Balancing water rights in metropolitan water conservation areas: the case of Chengdu, China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Latest Ar, pages 1-20.
    3. Alex Loftus & Hug March, 2016. "Financializing Desalination: Rethinking the Returns of Big Infrastructure," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 46-61, January.
    4. Qidong Huang & Jiajun Xu, 2019. "Rethinking Environmental Bureaucracies in River Chiefs System (RCS) in China: A Critical Literature Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-13, March.
    5. Julie Gamble, 2017. "Experimental Infrastructure: Experiences in Bicycling in Quito, Ecuador," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 162-180, January.
    6. COLIN McFARLANE & JONATHAN RUTHERFORD, 2008. "Political Infrastructures: Governing and Experiencing the Fabric of the City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 363-374, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moroni, Stefano & Antoniucci, Valentina & Bisello, Adriano, 2016. "Energy sprawl, land taking and distributed generation: towards a multi-layered density," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 266-273.
    2. Sara Santos Cruz & Paulo Pinho, 2009. "Closed Condominiums as Urban Fragments of the Contemporary City," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(11), pages 1685-1710, November.
    3. Fred E. Foldvary, 2011. "Contract, Voice and Rent: Voluntary Urban Planning," Chapters, in: David Emanuel Andersson & Åke E. Andersson & Charlotta Mellander (ed.), Handbook of Creative Cities, chapter 25, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Francesco Minora, 2013. "Collective institutions towards habitability: roles, strategies and forms of governance," Euricse Working Papers 1352, Euricse (European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises).
    5. Ben O’Neill, 2011. "The Threat of Virtue: Why Independence and Integrity Threaten the State," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 27(Fall 2011), pages 75-98.
    6. Peter Boettke & Christopher Coyne & Peter Leeson, 2011. "Quasimarket failure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 209-224, October.
    7. Peter Gordon & Wendell Cox, 2014. "Modern cities: their role and their private planning roots," Chapters, in: David Emanuel Andersson & Stefano Moroni (ed.), Cities and Private Planning, chapter 8, pages 155-173, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Levent Taş & Esra Burcu Sağlam, 2020. "New Trends and Socio-Spatial Relations in Gated Communities," Journal of Economy Culture and Society, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 62(0), pages 1-21, December.
    9. Yoonseuk Woo & Chris Webster, 2014. "Co-evolution of gated communities and local public goods," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(12), pages 2539-2554, September.
    10. Aron Gooblar, 2002. "Outside the Walls: Urban Gated Communities and their Regulation within the British Planning System," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 321-334, April.
    11. Alessi Louis De, 1998. "Reflections on Coase, Cost, and Efficiency," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 5-26, March.
    12. F. Frederic Deng, 2002. "Ground Lease-Based Land Use System versus Common Interest Development," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 78(2), pages 190-206.
    13. Stefano Moroni, 2014. "Towards a general theory of contractual communities: neither necessarily gated, nor a form of privatization," Chapters, in: David Emanuel Andersson & Stefano Moroni (ed.), Cities and Private Planning, chapter 3, pages 38-65, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Klein, Daniel, 2004. "The People’s Romance: Why People Love Government (as much as they do)," Ratio Working Papers 31, The Ratio Institute, revised 11 May 2005.
    15. Stefano Moroni, 2011. "Land-use Regulation for the Creative City," Chapters, in: David Emanuel Andersson & Åke E. Andersson & Charlotta Mellander (ed.), Handbook of Creative Cities, chapter 17, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Yang, Hee Jin & Kim, Yoon-jung, 2022. "The role of territorial collective goods in Korea’s residential development," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    17. Foldvary, Fred E. & Hammer, Eric J., 2016. "How advances in technology keep reducing interventionist policy rationales," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 16-24.
    18. Fred E. Foldvary, 2014. "Governance by voluntary association," Chapters, in: David Emanuel Andersson & Stefano Moroni (ed.), Cities and Private Planning, chapter 4, pages 66-92, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Tracy M. Gordon, 2004. "Moving Up by Moving Out? Planned Developments and Residential Segregation in California," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(2), pages 441-461, February.
    20. Holcombe, Randall G., 1998. "Tax Policy From a Public Choice Perspective," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 51(2), pages 359-371, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:31:y:2007:i:1:p:21-40. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0309-1317 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.