Housing commodification has led to the development of gated neighbourhoods in China. However, the types of gated neighbourhoods are very different from each other, and include ‘commodity housing’, affordable housing and resettlement housing. They might not be the same as the commonly known ‘gated communities’, which are characterised by both gating and private governance. Using three cases in the city of Wenzhou, we analyse the motivations for development, service provision and property management, and neighbourhood control. In commodity housing, the state is still visible and self-governance is limited, while the real estate developer leads land development and property management. In affordable housing, the state regulates the standards and the prices of services, while the developer is the provider of these services. In resettlement housing, the state uses a state-owned enterprise to relocate households, while the homeowners’ association and the service charges are ineffective. All these cases demonstrate the important and variegated role of the state and provide a more nuanced understanding of these gated neighbourhoods.

Set against the wider background of global suburbanization, this paper contributes to the emerging literature on the formation of technoburbia in China, and more importantly, the potential “urban contradictions” accompanying this process. Through a bottom-up empirical exploration of the Future Sci-tech City Corridor in Hangzhou and its embedded Featured Town initiative in particular, we observe how the future of technoburbia in China is by no means free from similar challenges in housing affordability and labor stratification. However, these contradictions are managed entirely differently in China. Nevertheless, the highly planned nature of China’s technoburbia also rubs up against political decentralization, demographic change and economic upgrading, implying significant trials and tribulations along the way.

The existing literature suggests that gated communities and master-planned estates represent a form of private governance. They are a response to the state’s retreat from providing public goods. In post-reform China, newer residential development projects also take the form of gated neighbourhoods. To what extent do these neighbourhoods represent a new form of “private governance”? Results from the perspective of residents reveal that the meaning of “private governance” refers to services delivered by private organisations rather than self-governance. Gated neighbourhoods in urban China are a response to the state’s intention to retreat from serviced land provision while retaining neighbourhood control.