Urban densification and social capital: neighbourhood restructuring in Jinan, China

Urban densification and massive restructuring projects in China have dictated socioeconomic changes. This paper explores changes in social capital and residents' daily practices (cooking, eating, cleaning, shopping and socialising) in Jinan, Shandong province, after their low-rise courtyard dwellings were demolished and replaced high-rise apartments. At the neighbourhood scale, privatised practices have reduced use of urban streets and communal facilities. At the building scale, a transition term residents from a courtyard housing typology to high-rise has led to a radical in their daily practices that has moved from outdoors to indoors. Such changes increased privacy and reduced social relations and social capital in the neighbourhood. These residents continue to maintain very close relationships with each other, but exclude 'newcomers' who have moved to the neighbourhood after the restructuring-an outcome regarded as the 'dark side' of social capital. Residents in high-rise flats developed a preference for privacy and increased use of indoor spaces for activities as sleeping, cooking, eating and socialising. By showing how urban densification material arrangements and residents' practices and social interactions, the study the unintended consequences of policy -driven densification in China.