Now an established global force, China has experienced a sustained period of staggering economic growth since policy reform in the 1970s. Chinese urbanisation is the most significant example of economic, environmental and social change both within China and globally. In recent years, central government has made a concerted effort to encourage city governments to realign their priorities and achieve a balance between economic efficiency, social justice and environmental protection. Chinese Urban Transformation: A Tale of Six Cities is a fascinating exploration of the dramatic development Chinese cities have undergone. Tracing this transformation through a comprehensive analysis of social and economic change in six cities, it unravels the complex relationship between policy, outlook and role that urban development plays in China’s view of itself, including the tensions resulting from rapid social and economic change.

A timely and thorough analysis of the rapid urban growth in China.

As China is transformed, relations between society, the state, and the city have become central. The Great Urban Transformation investigates what is happening in cities, the urban edges, and the rural fringe in order to explain these relations. In the inner city of major metropolitan centers, municipal governments battle high-ranking state agencies to secure land rents from redevelopment projects, while residents mobilize to assert property and residential rights. At the urban edge, as metropolitan governments seek to extend control over their rural hinterland through massive-scale development projects, villagers strategize to profit from the encroaching property market. At the rural fringe, township leaders become brokers of power and property between the state bureaucracy and villages, while large numbers of peasants are dispossessed, dispersed, and deterritorialized, and their mobilizational capacity is consequently undermined. The Great Urban Transformation explores these issues, and provides an integrated analysis of the city and the countryside, elite politics and grassroots activism, legal-economic and socio-political issues of property rights, and the role of the state and the market in the property market.

The urbanisation of China over the last three decades has been a hugely significant development, both for China’s reform process and for the world more generally. This book presents recent research findings on China’s continuing urban transformation. Subjects covered include the decline of the rural-urban divide, the spatial restructuring of Chinese urban centres and urban infrastructure, migrant workers, new housing and new communities, and "green" responses to urban environmental problems. The book is particularly valuable in that it includes much new work by scholars based inside China.

The urbanisation of China over the last three decades has been a hugely significant development, both for China’s reform process and for the world more generally. This book presents recent research findings on China’s continuing urban transformation. Subjects covered include the decline of the rural-urban divide, the spatial restructuring of Chinese urban centres and urban infrastructure, migrant workers, new housing and new communities, and "green" responses to urban environmental problems. The book is particularly valuable in that it includes much new work by scholars based inside China.

An affecting collection of contemporary Chinese photography responding to the monumental encroachment of urban development across the country This timely book documents the phenomenon of rapid and transformative urbanization in China through the work of thirty-one of the country’s most talented art photographers. Capturing both the remnants of widespread demolition and constant, massive new development, these insiders have captured the new Chinese reality—an “era without memories”—brought on by the expansive urban transformation. In four thematic chapters, An Era Without Memories offers a varied and thought-provoking kaleidoscope of imagery depicting every aspect of urban living, from juxtapositions of old and new to still-life pockets of roadside greenery to digital renderings of closely packed high-rises. These include Miao Xiaochun’s photograph of a vast glass building rising ominously from behind a traditional neighborhood; Wang Jinsong’s collages of the Chinese character used to mark condemned buildings; Zhang Peili’s shots of pastiche Western architecture; Xu Zhengqin’s billboards showing dream residential and commercial developments; and Wang Chuan’s poetic images of abandoned, half-finished, modern buildings. Complete with an introduction by Stephan Feuchtwang, an expert on China and Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics, and a personal afterword by author Jiang Jiehong, this remarkable book offers a moving portrait of the dramatically changing Chinese landscape.

The trajectory and logic of urban development in post-Mao China have been shaped and defined by the contention between domestic and global capital, central and local state and social actors of different class status and endowment. This urban transformation process of historic proportion entails new rules for distribution and negotiation, novel perceptions of citizenship, as well as room for unprecedented spontaneity and creativity. Based on original research by leading experts, this book offers an updated and nuanced analysis of the new logic of urban governance and its implications.