Abstract
This book aims to fill the need for a book that introduces the main themes of China's urbanization to the general reader and especially to students. It is an effective descriptive overview. Xuefei Ren points out that it has grown out of her own experience teaching an urban China course where an overview textbook seemed more appropriate than a series of more specialized readings. It is similar in many ways to another book with a similar intent: John Friedmann's China's Urban Transition (University of Minnesota Press, 2005). Like Friedmann she devotes considerable attention to the long history of urban development in China, the nature of urban policy and restrictions on urban life that predominated in the socialist period, and the transformations occurring in the current “reform” era. These include changes in the governance of land development and its financing, migration and urban expansion, and new inequalities.
Ren's writing is reader–friendly. Like a good journalist, she often begins with an anecdote or story that illustrates the issues that she wants to introduce. She alludes to many recent events that readers are likely to have heard of (e.g., the Beijing Olympics, the prosecution of former Chongqing mayor Bo Xilai, the suicides at the massive Foxconn electronics assembly complex in South China). Like a good social scientist, she backs up her conclusions with well–chosen references to the current literature. Her presentation is theoretically grounded at a level that can be easily grasped. For example, she offers two interpretations of the rise of modern China: (1) that it is part and parcel of the expansion of global neoliberalism and (2) that it stems from specific and historically unique factors that positioned China in the 1980s to take advantage of growth opportunities. These views are developed just enough to make the reader think about larger theoretical questions, an approach that is well suited to an introductory text. As another example, in her chapter on the cultural economy she emphasizes state efforts to control and sanitize nightlife and the arts, which she contrasts with reliance on markets to regulate most private consumption. This is a simple dichotomy, but in fact there are profound questions here, and she succeeds in raising them without letting academic concerns dominate the text.
Ren is a specialist on the built environment, and her sensitivity to architecture and design shows up in her writing. Her descriptions of landscapes (Chapter 3)—new Central Business Districts, art spaces, historical preservation (and the loss of historic architecture), old socialist housing blocs, and new gated communities—are vividly visual even without photographs. She invites the reader to “see” these places and then offers useful explanation of their origins and what they represent.
Her final chapter on urban culture is also distinctive. She describes the sites of urban consumption and style making (in the home, shopping, dining out), nightlife, and arts districts. Her general point is that urban China, or at least its growing middle class sector, has become very consumption oriented. I suspect that especially for students this chapter will be evocative, allowing them to compare China's young adult cultural styles with their own. Describing the massive growth in use of social media would have been another way to portray the changes in urban ways of living. This emphasis on style reminds me of Li Zhang's study of middle–class living (In Search of Paradise, Cornell University Press, 2010).
Both Friedmann and Zhang discussed the political relevance of the middle class in the context of a Chinese state that severely limits public participation in political issues. How are “living better,” consuming more, and having more freedom in lifestyle decisions relevant to governance? Friedmann seems to conclude that these are disconnected, while Zhang discerns a trend toward middle class mobilization. Ren provides a clear exposition of the political system (the relations among different levels of government and the enactment and execution of development policies). She criticizes the current system of urban planning and decision making. However, she only briefly discusses conflicts over land grabs on the urban fringe and protests by urban homeowners associations. I would have appreciated more analysis of the possibilities of change or the obstacles to reform, since state policy is so fundamental to the development of urban China.