Kang Jian Shouchang Fang nursing home in Shanghai has gone to considerable lengths to placate neighbours who wish it had never been built in the first place – laying on baking lessons, lectures on staying healthy and monthly meetings with neighbourhood representatives. Other such homes offer yoga and play areas for children.

Shanghai, like many Chinese cities, is facing a rapidly ageing population and few facilities to care for elderly people. But in recent years, it has also become the scene of a wave of “nimby” (not-in-my-backyard) protests pushing back against a government initiative to build 200 new community nursing homes by 2020.

Local residents’ objections to nursing homes include concerns about cleanliness, declining house prices and their impact on a neighbourhood’s feng shui – the Chinese theory of spatial arrangement and energy flow.

Zhu Yuancong, the president of Kang Jian Shouchang Fang community nursing home, said: “The residents have a stereotype that nursing homes are not clean because sick elderly people live there. Another concern is that death and illness in nursing homes may cause bad luck from the feng shui perspective.”

According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the population of over-60s in the country will number 290 million by 2025. However, in a country where the elderly are traditionally cared for by their children, opposition from neighbouring residents not accustomed to the idea of nursing homes underlines the difficulty authorities face in tackling the issue.

Yang Fan, an assistant professor of social policy at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who evaluated nursing home construction between 2017 and 2018, found residents opposed 37 of the 49 projects he visited.

In rare public demonstrations of opposition, Shanghai residents have bussed in protesters to stage sit-ins against the construction of nursing homes, smashed the windows of finished nursing homes and sometimes physically blocked construction from proceeding. In some cases, the police had to be called in to calm crowds.

Residents in the Xinyi Yayuan community accepted a negotiated end to their nursing home protests in 2015 but sued the company involved after the project went ahead.

Wang Kuiming, a researcher at the China Institute for Urban Governance at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said the aversion was so strong their presence is believed to affect house prices, with buyers looking elsewhere after learning a nursing home was under construction.

That in turn causes other residents, worried about the values of their homes, to oppose construction.

But in a response almost as uncommon in China as the protests from residents, companies have opened their doors and held community dialogues, targeting key opinion leaders in the various communities to give residents a platform to share their concerns.

Zhu said: “It’s like a UN summit. We organised monthly meetings with representatives from different sides including the residents, the construction company, the community committee.”

Kang Jian Shouchang Fang nursing home has expanded its services to include lectures on preventing Alzheimer’s disease and workshops for neighbouring residents. Its model of responding to their concerns has been copied by others. A nursing home in Putuo, another neighbourhood in Shanghai, advertises a large yoga centre. Others have set up cafes and spaces for children.

As of September, 130 community nursing homes have been built and public opinion towards the homes appears to have shifted. Yang Hong, a 70-year-old woman living in Shanghai, said: “I wish our community had a community nursing home.”