In the past decade, Public Rental Housing (PRH) has become the program of providing affordable rental housing to low- and middle-income households in China. Even though descriptions of the governance results are numerous, the previous studies are not underpinned by a theoretical foundation from a governance perspective, nor have they empirically examined whether PRH governance works on the ground. This explorative and empirical paper aims to fill this gap of an outcome-oriented evaluation of the impacts of governance as perceived by the final user. Central government formulated the objective for PRH governance as maintaining stability in the society. Whether the tenants perceive the goal of social stability as achieved was measured along three governance outcome dimensions: satisfaction with housing quality, satisfaction with housing quantity, and willingness to communicate with the government about PRH governance. Data were collected from questionnaires to PRH-tenants in Chongqing, the most important pilot city of PRH provision in China. The findings show that the perceived governance outcomes were quite mixed as tenants were moderately satisfied with PRH housing quantity, but less satisfied with housing quality, and thought they could relatively easily communicate with local government. In view of these mixed outcomes, to strengthen the effectiveness of PRH governance in the eyes of the tenants, this study suggests local governments: (1) to rethink and redevelop the performance evaluation; (2) to rethink the relations with non-governmental actors and organise a monitoring system that will assist in optimizing housing quality; and (3) to facilitate tenants’ communication with local government.

The discrepancy between authenticity regarding heritage conservation and perceived authenticity in heritage tourism has been extensively discussed and seen as an obstacle for sustainable heritage tourism and management. In this article, we reviewed the notion of authenticity respectively in heritage conservation and in heritage tourism, interviewed 5 experts and 363 tourists regarding three cultural heritages in Nanjing, China. Findings indicate that once visitors are fully aware of the essential nature, the cultural significance of the cultural heritage, and the connotation of authenticity in heritage conservation, they can assess the cultural values and the authenticity of a given heritage property intellectually from the perspective of conservation. Tourists’ assessment also significantly affects their perceived authenticity and satisfaction. We argue that, heritage conservation can be compatible with heritage consumption, by publicizing sufficient heritage information and encouraging the exchange of heritage knowledge between conservation practitioners and the public.

In recent decades, government intervention in welfare states has witnessed a shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’: policy making shifted from hierarchical government steering to mixed forms involving government, market and civic actors. Such terminology has also entered Chinese policy language on public rental housing (PRH) provision. To unravel the perceived power distribution in the relationships between the involved actors, this article draws from in-depth interviews in two Chinese cities: Chongqing and Fuzhou. The article thereby contributes new insights to the perceived power relations in Chinese PRH provision on the ground. It also develops an analytical framework based on Billis by complementing it with Social Network Analysis to measure the power relations. Such a framework will allow the comparison of different governance systems across time and different jurisdictions within and beyond China. This study shows the structures and mechanisms for non-governmental actors to play a role, which they do not have in the ‘government’ period, in the governance of PRH.

The cultural attributes of architecture in touristic cities are vital to city image building, city branding, and rebranding, as well as generating more economic profits for sustainable urban development, and protecting cultural sustainability. However, many studies on this theme focus on the singularity of architecture referring to its stylistic or morphological definitions, lacking attention to visitors' cultural experiences in the architectures. Considering the importance of personal experience involved in cultural activities as a process of spatial narration through which architecture makes sense to visitors and generates cultural values, the aim of this paper is to reveal the respective correlations between different types of architecture regarding the cultural experience it imparts and the non-positive dimensions of the city image. This research builds a categorization system of three cultural types of architecture, and designs a questionnaire to collect tourists' personal opinions concerning architectures and the city image of Amsterdam's waterfront in order to calculate such correlations statistically. The results associate architectures with 'tourism-oriented', 'present/process-based', and 'mass' cultural types with non-positive dimensions of city image, which leads to further discussions of 'authenticity', 'identity', and 'mass culture', suggesting the significance of urban cultural policies and local communities in terms of city rebranding.