Today's article in The Economist, "Counter-revolution in the Car Park," examined how the everyday disputes of middle-class Chinese are the growing pains of a larger shift to civil society in China. According to the article, the "sweeping privatization" of urban housing since the 1990s has spawned landlord committees – democratically elected and party-independent groups of homeowners associated for the protection of their property rights against state interference. The result has been what The Economist calls a new "urban mentality" among the middle-class –"beyond a consciousness of limited legal rights, to a growing awareness of the need for a more active "civil society" as a balance against arbitrary officialdom." And in light of the Chinese leadership's recent prioritization of a "harmonious society," this mentality is proving more powerful than car-park squabbles would suggest.
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