Role of Creative Classes in Community Restructuring through Urban Agriculture:Case Study from Shanghai, China

Abstract

  In recent years, China’s rapid urbanization has had a major impact on traditional social and human relationships, and urban communities have weakened, making community restructuring an important issue.　In Shanghai, efforts to start urban agriculture such as community gardens and rooftop farms that emphasize social functions such as exchanges between urban residents are increasing.　For example, the spread of community gardens may create a virtuous cycle for building new communities as well as improving the satisfaction of residents’ community life （Ge et al. 2022）.　Also, these new types of urban agriculture are promoted by social entrepreneurs as a creative class and solve urban social problems through the creation of shared value （Kiminami et al., 2022b）.　However, few studies have focused on the relationships between the creative class and communities in urban agriculture （Exner and Schützenberger 2018）.

  Therefore, the purpose of this study was to clarify the mechanisms by which social entrepreneurs as a creative class solve social problems of community restructuring in huge cities through urban agriculture, targeting Shanghai, China.　To achieve the purpose of this study, we used mixed methods.　Specifically, we introduced three urban agriculture cases;community gardens, organic farms and rooftop gardens, and used a trajectory equifinality model （TEM） for the case studies.　The results indicated that the three social entrepreneurs have sensitive insight into social problems and are able to understand the needs of residents.　After starting their social businesses, they further increased their level of social entrepreneurship by constantly refreshing their awareness and actions through communication and interaction with residents.　In addition, we introduced latent class analysis （LCA） and cross-tabulation analysis into a questionnaire survey of local residents.　The results showed that the relationships between Shanghai residents and their community can be divided into four classes.　The class with the highest awareness of the community showed very high evaluations of involvement in urban agriculture and can be described as a creative class.　In conclusion, we contend that to achieve sustainable urban development city policy makers need to comprehend the true needs of urban residents, foster citizen engagement and prioritize creative classes and civic power in their approaches.

JEL Classifications:Q1