Virginia Commonwealth University The proposed research planning grant will examine intraurban settlement patterns and adaptation of temporary rural migrants in China. Two tasks will be accomplished. The PI will assess the applicability of prevailing theories of intraurban migrant settlement and adaptation in the Chinese context and identify the structural factors that may or may not cause Chinese patterns to differ from other developing countries. These theoretical insights will then be used to empirically test several hypotheses in Shanghai using existing official migrant surveys and the researcher's own fieldwork. City-wide surveys will be conducted to assess housing choice. Focused observation and in-depth interviews will be carried out with migrants, urban residents and community organizers to investigate issues of adaptation and the formation of urban migrant sub-communities.
