IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v54y2017i4p827-846.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From an emerging market to a multifaceted urban society: Urban China studies

Author

Listed:
  • Shenjing He

    (The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

  • Junxi Qian

    (Singapore Management University, Singapore)

Abstract

China is undergoing an urban revolution. In 2011 more than half of the total population resided in cities and towns for the first time in history. Over the last two decades urban China scholars have actively engaged in dialogues with urbanists from different disciplines and different urban contexts. In consequence, urban China studies have embarked on a trail of rapid diversification and proliferation, moving beyond the topics of urbanisation and urban expansion to address a variety of issues echoing the latest developments in the Chinese city. Overall, urban China studies are witnessing a transition from a focus on economic development and spatial changes, to diverse social groups and the multifaceted experiences of living in rapidly changing cities. This virtual special issue (VSI) summarises the progress of urban China studies since the Economic Reform was launched in the 1970s. On the one hand, it delineates a broad picture of intellectual advancement and knowledge production in the field of urban China research. On the other hand, it identifies some emerging new themes that have not been well represented but are of potentially great significance in the comprehension and theorisation of Chinese urbanism. A total of 24 articles published in Urban Studies have been selected to represent, albeit in necessarily circumscribed form, the scope of urban China studies in this journal. They are distributed across four well-established themes: (1) globalisation and the making of global cities; (2) land and housing development; (3) urban poverty and socio-spatial inequality; (4) rural migrants and their urban experiences. We also highlight three emerging frontiers: (1) urban fragmentation, enclaves and public space; (2) consumption, middle class aestheticisation and urban culture; (3) the right to the city and urban activism. The editorial concludes by identifying some key gaps in the extant literature and some potentially productive future directions.

Suggested Citation

  • Shenjing He & Junxi Qian, 2017. "From an emerging market to a multifaceted urban society: Urban China studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(4), pages 827-846, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:54:y:2017:i:4:p:827-846
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098016675826
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098016675826
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098016675826?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Robinson, 2011. "Cities in a World of Cities: The Comparative Gesture," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 1-23, January.
    2. Fulong Wu & John Logan, 2016. "Do rural migrants ‘float’ in urban China? Neighbouring and neighbourhood sentiment in Beijing," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(14), pages 2973-2990, November.
    3. C Cindy Fan & Mingjie Sun & Siqi Zheng, 2011. "Migration and Split Households: A Comparison of Sole, Couple, and Family Migrants in Beijing, China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(9), pages 2164-2185, September.
    4. Shanzi Ke & Yan Song & Ming He, 2009. "Determinants of Urban Spatial Scale: Chinese Cities in Transition," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(13), pages 2795-2813, December.
    5. Hsing, You-tien, 2010. "The Great Urban Transformation: Politics of Land and Property in China," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199568048.
    6. Zhiming Cheng & Haining Wang & Russell Smyth, 2014. "Happiness and job satisfaction in urban China: A comparative study of two generations of migrants and urban locals," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(10), pages 2160-2184, August.
    7. Michael Storper & Allen J Scott, 2016. "Current debates in urban theory: A critical assessment," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(6), pages 1114-1136, May.
    8. Julie Ren & Jason Luger, 2015. "Comparative Urbanism and the ‘Asian City': Implications for Research and Theory," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 145-156, January.
    9. Shunfeng Song & Kevin Honglin Zhang, 2002. "Urbanisation and City Size Distribution in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(12), pages 2317-2327, November.
    10. Colin Mcfarlane, 2010. "The Comparative City: Knowledge, Learning, Urbanism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 725-742, December.
    11. Shin, Hyun Bang, 2016. "Economic transition and speculative urbanisation in China: gentrification versus dispossession," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 62608, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Shahid Yusuf & Weiping Wu, 2002. "Pathways to a World City: Shanghai Rising in an Era of Globalisation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(7), pages 1213-1240, June.
    13. Ananya Roy, 2009. "The 21st-Century Metropolis: New Geographies of Theory," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(6), pages 819-830.
    14. Canfei He & Fenghua Pan, 2010. "Economic Transition, Dynamic Externalities and City-industry Growth in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(1), pages 121-144, January.
    15. Ronan Paddison, 2013. "Editorial: Urban Studies at 50," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(1), pages 3-5, January.
    16. Jamie Peck, 2020. "Cities beyond Compare?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(1), pages 160-182, July.
    17. Simon Zhao & L. Zhang, 2007. "Foreign Direct Investment and the Formation of Global City-Regions in China," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(7), pages 979-994.
    18. Colin McFarlane, 2011. "Assemblage and critical urbanism," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 204-224, April.
    19. Anne Haila, 2007. "The Market as the New Emperor," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 3-20, March.
    20. Shenjing He & Guo Chen, 2012. "Interrogating Unequal Rights to the Chinese City," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(12), pages 2794-2800, December.
    21. Yan Song & Yves Zenou & Chengri Ding, 2008. "Let's Not Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water: The Role of Urban Villages in Housing Rural Migrants in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(2), pages 313-330, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xuan Sun & Weikai Wang & Tao Sun & Ya Ping Wang, 2018. "Understanding the Living Conditions of Chinese Urban Neighborhoods through Social Infrastructure Configurations: The Case Study of Tianjin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-17, September.
    2. Liang Zhuang & Chao Ye, 2018. "Disorder or Reorder? The Spatial Production of State-Level New Areas in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-15, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hyun Bang Shin & Loretta Lees & Ernesto López-Morales, 2016. "Introduction: Locating gentrification in the Global East," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(3), pages 455-470, February.
    2. Jennifer Robinson, 2016. "Comparative Urbanism: New Geographies and Cultures of Theorizing the Urban," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 187-199, January.
    3. Michael Hoyler & John Harrison, 2017. "Global cities research and urban theory making," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(12), pages 2853-2858, December.
    4. Jennifer Robinson, 2022. "Introduction: Generating concepts of ‘the urban’ through comparative practice," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(8), pages 1521-1535, June.
    5. Kevin Ward & Timothy Bunnell, 2021. "Reflections on five years of the Summer Institute in Urban Studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(4), pages 863-878, March.
    6. Fulong Wu, 2020. "Adding new narratives to the urban imagination: An introduction to ‘New directions of urban studies in China’," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(3), pages 459-472, February.
    7. Michael Storper & Allen J Scott, 2016. "Current debates in urban theory: A critical assessment," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(6), pages 1114-1136, May.
    8. Fulong Wu, 2020. "Scripting Indian and Chinese urban spatial transformation: Adding new narratives to gentrification and suburbanisation research," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 38(6), pages 980-997, September.
    9. Christian Schmid & Ozan Karaman & Naomi C Hanakata & Pascal Kallenberger & Anne Kockelkorn & Lindsay Sawyer & Monika Streule & Kit Ping Wong, 2018. "Towards a new vocabulary of urbanisation processes: A comparative approach," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(1), pages 19-52, January.
    10. Jamie Peck, 2017. "Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(1), pages 4-30, January.
    11. Paul Waley, 2016. "Speaking gentrification in the languages of the Global East," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(3), pages 615-625, February.
    12. Seth Schindler, 2014. "Understanding Urban Processes in Flint, Michigan: Approaching ‘Subaltern Urbanism’ Inductively," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 791-804, May.
    13. Cheng, Zhiming & King, Stephen P. & Smyth, Russell & Wang, Haining, 2016. "Housing property rights and subjective wellbeing in urban China," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 160-174.
    14. Fulong Wu, 2018. "Planning centrality, market instruments: Governing Chinese urban transformation under state entrepreneurialism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(7), pages 1383-1399, May.
    15. Marco Allegra & Irene Bono & Jonathan Rokem & Anna Casaglia & Roberta Marzorati & Haim Yacobi, 2013. "Rethinking Cities in Contentious Times: The Mobilisation of Urban Dissent in the ‘Arab Spring’," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(9), pages 1675-1688, July.
    16. Allen J. Scott & Michael Storper, 2015. "The Nature of Cities: The Scope and Limits of Urban Theory," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 1-15, January.
    17. Erin Collins, 2016. "Postsocialist informality: The making of owners, squatters and state rule in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (1989–1993)," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(12), pages 2367-2382, December.
    18. Christof Parnreiter, 2022. "The Janus-faced genius of cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(7), pages 1315-1333, May.
    19. Tariq Jazeel, 2021. "The ‘City’ As Text," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 658-662, July.
    20. Gavin Shatkin, 2022. "Mega-urban politics: Analyzing the infrastructure turn through the national state lens," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(5), pages 845-866, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:54:y:2017:i:4:p:827-846. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.