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trends in Chinese urbanism, this book puts forward important new conceptual resources to fill the gap between the outdated model of the ‘Third World’ city and the globalizing cities of the West.