The Shenzhen Phenomenon is a comprehensive and systematic study about how Shenzhen, the world’s fastest growing city, has developed into an international metropolis from scratch within 40 years. It unravels the decision and policy making, planning, design, and development processes that have enabled the city’s rapid growth, and associated problems and paradoxes. It also reveals the politics and power that have propelled this experimental city to spearhead Deng Xiaoping’s ‘reform and opening-up’ agenda, which has made the city and remade the nation. This book demystifies several long-held misperceptions through identifying Shenzhen’s rise as an opportunity deriving from a crisis, as a product of both grassroots ingenuity and top vision, and as both a planned city and an unplanned city. Produced on the 40th anniversary of Shenzhen, this timely volume not only offers a comprehensive and systematic chronicle of the city, but also opens a window to understand China’s new city making and urbanisation. It will be of interest to academics, students and practitioners in the field of urban and Chinese studies, as well as urban planning and design.

This seminal study explores the significant changes in the global IT industry as production has shifted from the developed world to massive sites in the developing world that house hundreds of thousands of workers in appalling low-wage conditions to minimize labor costs. The authors trace the development of the new networks of globalized mass production in the IT industry and the reorganization of work since the 1990s, capturing the systemic nature of an industry-wide restructuring of production and work in the global context. Their wide-ranging and detailed analysis takes the debates on the globalization of production beyond narrow perspectives of determining criteria of “success” for participation in global networks. Rather, they emphasize the changing nature of work, employment relations, and labor policies and their implications for the possibilities of sustainable economic and social development.

An award-winning Hong Kong–based architect with decades of experience designing buildings and planning cities in the People’s Republic of China takes us to the Pearl River delta and into the heart of China’s iconic Special Economic Zone, Shenzhen. Shenzhen is ground zero for the economic transformation China has seen in recent decades. In 1979, driven by China’s widespread poverty, Deng Xiaoping supported a bold proposal to experiment with economic policies in a rural borderland next to Hong Kong. The site was designated as the City of Shenzhen and soon after became China’s first Special Economic Zone (SEZ). Four decades later, Shenzhen is a megacity of twenty million, an internationally recognized digital technology hub, and the world’s most successful economic zone. Some see it as a modern miracle city that seemingly came from nowhere, attributing its success solely to centralized planning and Shenzhen’s proximity to Hong Kong. The Chinese government has built hundreds of new towns using the Shenzhen model, yet none has come close to replicating the city’s level of economic success. But is it true that Shenzhen has no meaningful history? That the city was planned on a tabula rasa? That the region’s rural past has had no significant impact on the urban present? Juan Du unravels the myth of Shenzhen and shows us how this world-famous “instant city” has a surprising history—filled with oyster fishermen, villages that remain encased within city blocks, a secret informal housing system—and how it has been catapulted to success as much by the ingenuity of its original farmers as by Beijing’s policy makers. The Shenzhen Experiment is an important story for all rapidly urbanizing and industrializing nations around the world seeking to replicate China’s economic success in the twenty-first century.

This book aims to provide a scholarly account of recent understandings and reflections on some of the prevalent and emerging issues in urban and regional China, such as urbanization, inequality, hukou (household registration) reforms, labor relations, not-in-my-backyard protests and environmental governance. Presenting rich data analysis and case studies, these book chapters together utilize multidisciplinary approaches and contribute to the empirical and theoretical literature in development studies.

This book explores the manifold ways that the current confrontations between China and the US, and political tensions within the Special Administrative Region (SAR) has brought Hong Kong to the forefront of emerging political frictions between Beijing and the territory and growing international rivalry between the two powerful nations of the world. Unlike the situation in the post-WWII decades, which witnessed the internationalisation of the Hong Kong economy, this “New Cold War” poses challenges to the SAR’s status as a global city and international financial and business centre. The enactment of the National Security Law and the growing presence of Beijing in regulating the SAR’s domestic affairs triggered strong reactions from many countries. Hong Kong has to bear some of the consequences of measures imposed onto China as a result of current controversies. The shadow of China also raises many eyebrows about the prospects of Hong Kong as a free and liberal city. And the outbreak of COVID-19 and the concomitant interruption to economic flows and the movement of people further complicate the situation. This book will be of great value to students and scholars in the fields such as Economics, Sociology and Asia Pacific studies. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Asia Pacific Business Review.

This handbook provides the most comprehensive examination of Asian cities—developed and developing, large and small—and their urban development. Investigating the urban challenges and opportunities of cities from every nation in Asia, the handbook engages not only the global cities like Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul, and Mumbai but also less studied cities like Dili, Malé, Bandar Seri Begawan, Kabul, and Pyongyang. The handbook discusses Asian cities in alignment to the United Nations’ New Urban Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals in order to contribute to global policy debates. In doing so, it critically reflects on the development trajectories of Asian cities and imagines an urban future, in Asia and the world, in the post-sustainable, post-global, and post-pandemic era. Presenting 43 chapters of original, insightful research, this book will be of interest to scholars, practitioners, students, and general readers in the fields of urban development, urban policy and planning, urban studies, and Asian studies.

This multidisciplinary volume, the first of its kind, presents an account of China’s contemporary transformation via one of its most important yet overlooked cities: Shenzhen, located just north of Hong Kong. In recent decades, Shenzhen has transformed from an experimental site for economic reform into a dominant city at the crossroads of the global economy. The first of China’s special economic zones, Shenzhen is today a UNESCO City of Design and the hub of China’s emerging technology industries. Bringing China studies into dialogue with urban studies, the contributors explore how the post-Mao Chinese appropriation of capitalist logic led to a dramatic remodeling of the Chinese city and collective life in China today. These essays show how urban villages and informal institutions enabled social transformation through cases of public health, labor, architecture, gender, politics, education, and more. Offering scholars and general readers alike an unprecedented look at one of the world’s most dynamic metropolises, this collective history uses the urban case study to explore critical problems and possibilities relevant for modern-day China and beyond.