ABSTRACT

This book provides a definitive overview of contemporary developments in our understanding of urban life in China. Multidisciplinary 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 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 add 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.

part I|47 pages

Space and place

chapter 2|13 pages

Towards critical urbanism

Urban public space in modern China

chapter 3|17 pages

Urbanism as a State project

Lessons from Beijing’s Green Belt

part II|44 pages

Identity, lifestyle and forms of sociability

chapter 5|9 pages

Encountering strangers

Prostitution and urban life in Dongguan, China

chapter 6|12 pages

Greening the Chinese city

Young people, environmental activism and ChinaNet

chapter 7|21 pages

Interstitial spaces of caring and community

Commodification, modernisation and the dislocations of everyday practice within Beijing’s hutong neighbourhoods

part III|42 pages

Consumption and urban cultures

chapter 8|12 pages

Tasting, savouring, signalling

Articulating the luxury brand experience in Chinese cities

chapter 10|12 pages

Pop-up urbanism

Selling Old Beijing to the creative class

part IV|37 pages

(Im)mobilities and materialities

chapter 11|14 pages

Urban cross-border mobilities

Geopolitical encounters and bordering practices of ‘Taiwanese compatriots’ in China

chapter 12|10 pages

Contested (im)mobilities and rhythms of Chinese cities

Urban transformation and ‘slow life’ in Sanya

part V|37 pages

Bodies, emotions and atmospheres

chapter 14|13 pages

Embodying Chinese urbanism

chapter 15|6 pages

Noisy cities

chapter 16|13 pages

Creativity and Chinese urbanism

The moral atmosphere of Lishui Barbizon

chapter 17|3 pages

Afterword

Critical Chinese urbanism for the twenty-first century