Access of low-income residents to urban services for inclusive development: The case of Chengdu, China

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the access to public services for low-income residents in urban China, taking Chengdu as the study area. After providing a brief introduction to the overall urbanization process in China, we choose to focus on the low-income residents in Chengdu, a major city of western China, to understand the extent to which public services are accessible to the low-income residents, what are the barriers to political and social inclusion that the low-income residents experience, and what are the good practices and innovations that might be relevant to the cities in other developing countries. The study was conducted by both using first-hand data (e.g., interviews with residents, officials at different levels, and questionnaire surveys), and second-hand data (e.g., archival documents, government policy reports, statistical yearbooks, etc.). Two neighborhoods, located in the central and suburban areas of Chengdu city respectively, were selected for questionnaire survey. Follow-up in-depth interviews were conducted for understanding the institutional and structural barriers that may hinder access to equalized public services. It is found that the governments in Chengdu put much effort to improve the quality and access to the basic public services for the low-income residents. However institutional barriers such as hukou system are still there, which impede better public participation of the low-income residents and thus lead to unequal access to some public services such as education and healthcare. Good practices, innovations, and take-away messages are also discussed.