Sustainability 2015, 7, 398-421; doi:10.3390/su7010398 OPEN ACCESS sustainability ISSN 2071-1050 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Article Place, Capital Flows and Property Regimes: The Elites’ Former Houses in Beijing’s South Luogu Lane Zhifen Cheng 1,2, Shangyi Zhou 1,* and Stephen Young 3 1 School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; E-Mail:
[email protected] 2 Institute of Beijing Studies, Beijing Union University, Beijing 100101, China 3 Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 550 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA; E-Mail:
[email protected] * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail:
[email protected]; Tel.: +86-10-6224-7385. Academic Editor: Marc A. Rosen Received: 21 August 2014 / Accepted: 22 December 2014 / Published: 31 December 2014 Abstract: Place is seen as a process whereby social and cultural forms are reproduced. This process is closely linked to capital flows, which are, in turn, shaped by changing property regimes. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the relationship between property regimes, capital flows and place-making. The goal of this paper is to highlight the role of changing property regimes in the production of place. Our research area is South Luogu Lane (SLL) in Central Beijing. We take elites’ former houses in SLL as the main unit of analysis in this study. From studying this changing landscape, we draw four main conclusions. First, the location of SSL was critical in enabling it to emerge as a high-status residential community near the imperial city. Second, historical patterns of capital accumulation influenced subsequent rounds of private investment into particular areas of SLL.