Until the middle of the twentieth century, Chinese urban life revolved around courtyards. Whether for housing or retail, administration or religion, everyday activities took place in a field of pavilions and walls that shaped collective ways of living. Changing Chinese Cities explores the reciprocal relations between compounds and how they inform a distinct and legible urbanism. Following thirty years of economic and political containment, cities are now showcases whose every component street, park, or building is designed to express distinctiveness. This propensity for the singular is erasing the relational fields that once distinguished each city. In China's first tier cities, the result is a cacophony of events where the extraordinary is becoming a burden to the ordinary. Using a lens of urban fields, Renee Y. Chow describes life in neighborhoods of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and its canal environs. Detailed observations from courtyard to city are unlayered to reveal the relations that build extended environments. These attributes are then relayered to integrate the emergence of forms that are rooted to a place, providing a new paradigm for urban design and master planning. Essays, mappings and case studies demonstrate how the design of fields can be made as compelling as figures. Fully illustrated in colour with 82 maps and architectural drawings, and 33 photographs.

With urbanism becoming the key driver of socio-economic change in China, this book provides much needed up-to-date material on Chinese urban development. Demonstrating how it transcends the centrally-planned model of economic growth, and assessing the extent to which it has gone beyond the common wisdom of Chinese ‘gradualism’, the book covers a wide range of important topics, including: local land development the local state private-public partnership foreign investment urbanization ageing home ownership. Providing a clear appraisal of recent trends in Chinese urbanism, this book puts forward important new conceptual resources to fill the gap between the outdated model of the ‘Third World’ city and the globalizing cities of the West.

This text is anchored in the spatial sciences to offer a comprehensive survey of the evolving urban landscape in China. It is divided into four parts with 13 chapters that can be read together or as stand alone material.

This book considers urban development in China, highlighting links between China’s history and civilization and the rapid evolution of its urban forms. It explores the early days of urban dwelling in China, progressing to an analysis of residential environments in the industrial age. It also examines China’s modern and postmodern architecture, considered as derivative or lacking spiritual meaning or personality, and showcases how China's traditional culture underpins the emergence of China’s modern cities. Focusing on the notion of “courtyard spirit” in China, it offers a study of the urban public squares central to Chinese society, and examines the disruption of the traditional Square model and the rise and growth of new architectural models.

This book provides a definitive overview of contemporary developments in our understanding of urban life in China. Multi-disciplinary perspectives outline the most significant critical theoretical, methodological and empirical developments in our appreciation of Chinese cities in the context of an increasingly globalized world. Each chapter includes reviews and appraisals of past and current theoretical development and embarks on new innovative theoretical directions relating to Marxist, feminist, post-structural, post-colonial, and 'more-than-representational' thinking. The book provides an in-depth insight into urban change and considers in what ways theoretical engagement with Chinese cities contributes to our understanding of 'global urbanism'. Chapters explore how new critical perspectives on economic, political, social, spatial, emotional, embodied and affective practices adds value to our understanding of urban life in, and beyond, China. Chinese Urbanism offers valuable insights which will be of interest to students and scholars alike working in geography, urban studies, Asian studies, economics, political studies and beyond.

Radically reoriented under market reform, Chinese cities present both the landscapes of the First and Third World, and are increasingly playing a critical role in the country’s economic development. Yet, radical marketization co-exists with the ever-presence of state control. Exploring the interaction of China’s market development, state regulation and the resulting transformation and creation of new urban spaces, this innovative, key book provides the first integrated treatment of China’s urban development in the dynamic market transition. Focusing on land and housing development, the authors, all renowned authorities in this field, show how the market has been ‘created’ under post-reform urban conditions, and examine ‘the state in action’, highlighting how changing urban governance towards local entrepreneurial state facilitates market formation. A significant, original contribution, they highlight the key actors and their institutional contexts. China has been very successful in using urban land development as an economic growth engine, and here the authors investigate complex interactions between the market and state in creating this new urbanism. Taking a unique perspective, they marshal original ideas and empirical work based on field studies and collaborative work with colleagues in China.

In 1915 Robert Park penned his seminal paper “The City: Suggestions for the investigation of human behaviour in the city environment”. This essay provided an agenda for the Chicago School of Urban Sociology, which formed the basis of urban research for decades. Given that China’s urban centres now occupy the spotlight that once belonged to American cities, Park’s essay is a platform and point of departure for this volume, which gathers together reflections from a broad range of urban China specialists to consider Park’s (ir)relevance today – for cities in China, for questions about the social life of the city and for urban research more generally. Essential for a broad range of urban studies scholars, this book is an invaluable teaching resource and a useful tool for policy-makers and planners.