Population and Urban Studies
DING Liang, HUANG Ziqian, XIAO Chaowei, ZHANG Junshen, ZHAO Hua
Understanding the spatial segregation and social integration of immigrants and local residents is highly significant in summarizing the historical experience of Chinese modernization. Additionally, it serves as a crucial foundation for promoting a people-centered new urbanization, fostering spatial fairness and justice, and achieving common prosperity. However, current research on residential spatial differentiation primarily focuses on analyzing the spatial distribution characteristics, differentiation patterns, and indicator calculations of various groups, and has limited investigation into social integration issues. This paper explores this social and spatial differentiation phenomenon in Hangzhou, usingthe initial residence registration information and mobile phone signalling data to analyze the characteristics and mechanisms of living space differentiation. Additionally, this article combines a small sample of questionnaires with a bottom-up exploration of social integration under spatial differentiation. From the research, four key findings emerge: (1) The majority of residents in the city are migrants. There is a clear difference in the distribution of living spaces between immigrants and local residents, with local residents mainly concentrated in the old city area, while the distribution of immigrants is more scattered. Compared to the typical "immigrant city" in the United States, Hangzhou has less spatial differentiation between immigrants and local residents. (2) The residential space differentiation between immigrants and local residents in the city presents a combination pattern of " multi-nuclei, sectoral, concentric zone". However, unlike the centrifugal diffusion trend of the local people in the United States, the local residents in Hangzhou tends to gather towards the center, while immigrants choose centrifugal diffusion and peripheral aggregation. (3) The spatial differentiation of living spaces is mainly caused by the competition for spatial resources between immigrants and local residents under urban expansion. However, behind the phenomenon of "local residents live in the old city", immigrants are no longer a disadvantaged group. Some intelligent new immigrants actively choose to live in high-quality peripheral areas. (4) The integration between immigrants and local residents is satisfactory, but it is more cautious about the issue of intermarriage. Additionally, residential spatial segregation has not had a negative impact on social integration. There are four main reasons for this. To begin with, the majority of the population consists of immigrants, and urban residents no longer pay attention to identity labels in their daily interactions. Besides, there is relatively little cultural difference within ethnic groups, and the assimilation between immigrants and local residents is increasing. And then, interactions between individuals in workplace and third place can alleviate the negative impacts caused by residential spatial segregation. Finally, China's coordinated development and people-oriented social system can also create favorable conditions for social integration.