Abstract
Cities in China have a profound and unique history compared to many Western counterparts. The Chinese City by Weiping Wu and Piper Gaubatz provides a comprehensive account of the urban transformation that China experienced from the feudal era to the establishment of Communist China, the economic reform led by leaders such as Deng Xiaoping, and the current economic achievements as a “factory of the world” (116). The book is divided into four major parts: history and context, urbanization, urban development, and urban life. At the end of the book, the authors summarize the challenges and the future of Chinese cities. The book is well organized: each of the thirteen chapters starts with sets of questions, guiding the comprehension of the entire chapter. The book clearly explains how marketization, decentralization, industrialization, migration, and globalization help shape contemporary urban systems in China.
The book starts with a brief overview of the geographical and historical context of China, which influenced greatly how cities evolved and how economic activities take place. About 65 percent of the land in China is mountainous, which significantly restricts population growth in some areas. Carefully planned uniformity in urban design and walled cities gave way to diversity, vertical growth, and urban sprawl in contemporary Chinese cities. The distinctive “three steps” (13) of topography indicate that civilization and development were started in the lowland plains and river deltas characterized by abundant resources, ease of transportation and logistics, and proximity to trade routes and ports. The authors stress the importance of physical patterns, history, and traditional urban forms on our understanding of China’s current urbanization and development. Although the book addresses regional disparity in a later chapter, a brief discussion of how geography and history helped shape the inequality might add more cohesion to the book.
The urban growth since 1949 (chapter 4) has been stimulated by foreign direct investment (FDI), infrastructure investment, state urban policies, and China’s active participation in the global economy. The agglomeration of city regions characterizes today’s imbalanced urban system. However, regional disparities have been greatly reduced because of regional competition, effective regional planning, and economic development reforms. For example, the “Go West” policy in the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2000–2005) had the goal of gradually developing the west, therefore making the region more competitive. The authors argue that the post-1949 regional development was portrayed by waves of unbalanced and balanced development policies—and that unbalanced development policies promote priorities and regional competitiveness, while balanced policies encourage developing regions to catch up with developed areas.
One consequence of economic development reform and regional planning policies is widened social hierarchy and divisions in China, which is not only reflected by the urban–rural divide and the clashes between marginalized migrants and urban residents, but also the urban rich–poor divide and the social discontent from some ethnic minorities in the west. In chapter 5 the book solely focuses on the urban-rural divide and migration, which spurred the rapid industrialization process (and the need for a large number of low-cost laborers) and compounded the infrastructure pressures and urban conflicts facing contemporary cities. The Hukou, as a household registration system bounded by origin of birth, has further amplified the divide between rural and urban origins of households geographically and socioeconomically. While marginally surviving in the receiving cities in impoverished urban squatters or “villages,” rural migrants have helped to alleviate unskilled labor pressure in cities. The authors thus call for more “tolerant” (109) migration policies to reduce or eliminate the conflict of institutional and political structure (particularly the Hukou system) and the marginalized migrants in urban areas.
Economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping stimulated massive rural migration to cities for better employment opportunities. These migrants and urban factory workers greatly stimulated the competitiveness of labor-intensive manufacturing, which directly leads to the export-based economy discussed in chapter 6. More specifically, this chapter discusses the promotion of the knowledge-based economy in recent years due to the diminishing competitiveness of labor-intensive economy. The authors describe the current initiatives in fostering R&D centers and how private enterprises in China have begun to strengthen their ties with research institutions and universities. The book emphasizes the importance of technological innovation and competitiveness of Chinese firms to adapt to the changes in the global economy. Yet, the argument will lose its appeal if the examination- and theory-oriented educational pedagogy, which greatly suppresses creativity and innovation, is not overhauled.
The third part of the book focuses on urban development patterns in Chinese cities that are largely influenced by the urbanization forces mentioned in previous chapters: public policies, migration, and globalization. The authors argue that Chinese economic reform not only included promoting an export-based economy but also reforming the economic structure. In the late 1990s, reforms of struggling State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in manufacturing eliminated millions of steady jobs. The consequences of these policies to balance industrial structure by promoting more service-based sectors were increased job mobility and socioeconomic inequality. On the other hand, the increased legitimacy of non-state-owned enterprises has improved the market-based economy. After a few years of labor redistribution and readjustment, many cities were able to stabilize and prosper. The drastic socioeconomic reform created many changes and increased city- or region-wide stratification. The broadened stratifications, viewed by the authors, will become the driving forces of future urban changes.
Although the book does not attempt to predict the direction of these changes associated with various conflicts and challenges arising from the widened socioeconomic inequalities, political corruption, infrastructure pressure (chapter 9), shortage of affordable housing (chapter 10), and deteriorating environment (chapter 11), chapter 8 (“Social-spatial Transformation”) discusses the changing social-spatial landscape of cities under market reforms. Compact cities under the socialist ideology transformed to more dispersed polycentric urban regions. Residential mobility increased because of labor market reform and the increased use of automobiles. New spaces of production and commercial activities sprung up in cities. Inner city renewal was shifted to full-scale redevelopment. Increased residential mobility and the progress in private real estate market have offered developers lucrative opportunities providing market-rate housing in inner city and suburban areas. Rapid suburbanization helped rural farmers and local municipalities to gain income and revenues by selling land use and property rights to developers (chapter 10, “Urban Land and Housing”). On the other hand, the affordable housing shortage has become a prominent problem in many large cities, where house prices have skyrocketed in recent years. The discontent associated with redevelopment displacement has forced urban planners in China to search for more public involvement. The authors argue that continued spatial expansion should be carefully determined by efficient land use policies since unscrupulous urban sprawl is often costly. However, this argument does not consider the likelihood of sprawl being restricted due to the scarce developable land in the vast mountainous areas (the second and third “steps” of the topography). Infrastructure pressure from rapid urban expansion and widespread vehicle ownership pushes for innovative financing, public–private partnerships, and transport technology advancement.
Part four of the book describes Chinese urban life by focusing on environmental sustainability, lifestyle and social change, and urban governance. Improving environmental awareness and balancing economic development and environmental protection is deemed by the authors a daunting task, regardless of many programs and policies adopted by the Chinese government to solve the current environmental problems and promote environmental sustainability. When embracing new lifestyles, new social ideologies, and changing urban governance structures, innovative policies are needed to improve people’s quality of life when ageing, traffic congestion, and environmental degradation have become some of the most significant issues facing urban life in Chinese cities. The evolving urban development, environmental awareness, and decentralized administrative hierarchy have brought many positive changes in Chinese cities. However, the authors agree that all the associated issues and meaningful public participation in governance remain a challenge in the “evolving state-society relationship” (273).
In conclusion, Wu and Gaubatz contend that the urbanization trend and agglomeration of cities in China will continue to influence economic structures, social changes, and spatial transformations. They summarize the major challenges facing many Chinese cities such as urban sprawl and congestion, a shortage of skilled workers, intensified sociospatial differentiation, sustainable financial sources for urban growth, and human–environment relationships. They indicate that no doubt a strong state has helped achieve all the impressive socioeconomic reforms; however, new governance structure based on grassroots efforts (bottom–up approach) and urban regions might help alleviate many of the challenges the cities confront.
Overall, Wu and Gaubatz comprehensively analyze the urbanization process, and the character and challenges of Chinese cities. The book might merit more details about important issues such as historic preservation, political challenges, social conflicts, aging, educational challenges, food safety, marginality of migrants, cities and urban life in autonomous regions, and uneven development of cities. Nevertheless, it is well written and is a valuable text and reference book about Chinese cities for students and scholars in urban and regional planning, international studies, geography, or comparative studies.