International Journal of Intercultural Relations 88 (2022) 106–118 Available online 26 April 2022 0147-1767/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Flowing sense of place: Perceptions of host city impacting on city attachment of rural-urban migrants in China Shenghua Xie a, 1 , Xu Huang b, *, 2 a School of Public Administration, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China b School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Sense of place Rural-urban migrants Belongingness City attachment Urban China ABSTRACT The increasing population mobility in the context of globalization has greatly reshaped people’s cognition and sentiment toward their places of residence. China has witnessed an unprecedented surge in internal migration from rural to urban areas since the mid-1980 s. However, limited by multiple barriers, rural-urban migrants in China face predicaments in establishing a psychological bond with their host cities. This study develops a conceptual framework that links rural-urban migrants’ urban experiences and attitudes toward both original and urban lifestyles to their city attachment. Using a nationwide survey and structural equation modeling, this study fnds that (1) while willingness of social interaction with urban locals has a positive effect on the urban attachment of rural-urban migrants, perceived social exclusion depresses the urban attachment of rural-urban migrants. (2) Loyalty to one’s original lifestyle is not signifcantly associated with the urban attachment of rural-urban migrants, whereas preference for the urban lifestyle is positively associated with the urban attachment of rural-urban migrants. (3) Willingness of social interac- tion with urban locals and perceived social exclusion can affect the urban attachment of rural- urban migrants by infuencing their attitudes toward the urban lifestyle. (4) perceived social exclusion is positively related to loyalty to the original lifestyle for rural-urban migrants from cities located in northern area of China, while it is negatively related to loyalty to the original lifestyle for rural-urban migrants from cities located in the central and southern areas. Our study broadens the research on the urban attachment of rural-urban migrants and suggests that mi- grants’ experiences in the host society and attitudes toward the lifestyle of the host society are signifcant in shaping their place attachment to the host society. Furthermore, the process by which rural-urban migrants form meaningful relations with the city can occur through the in- fuence of urban experiences on attitudes toward the urban lifestyle. Introduction Beginning in the 1970s, human geographers and environmental psychologists demonstrated a growing interest in people’s bonding to places (Relph, 1976; Tuan, 1977). Research on people-place relationships has gradually grown, especially with a sharp acceleration in the last decade (Lewicka, 2011). A large set of studies has provided empirical evidence for the persistence of attachment and identity * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: shenghua.xie@outlook.com (S. Xie), hxxxhh2002@163.com (X. Huang). 1 ORCID: 0000–0002-1222–8921. 2 ORCID: 0000–0002-2881–7288. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Intercultural Relations journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijintrel https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2022.04.003 Received 12 March 2021; Received in revised form 8 April 2022; Accepted 11 April 2022