Chinese Urbanism in Question: State, Society, and the Reproduction of Urban Spaces

Abstract

This study examines the growth and spatiality of Chinese urbanism with special reference to changes in state-society relations. Imperial China was well-known for a relatively strong state, weak society, and underdeveloped market. Earlier Chinese urbanism was shaped by an imperial state of tributary nature, a society stratified in the Confucian doctrine, and a relatively relaxed state-society relation. In the socialist era, important features of (anti-)urbanism were linked with a special state-society relation that privileges the interests of the working class, discriminates merchants, values equality, and stresses urban manageability. The reformation of state-society relations in the post-socialist era has facilitated the growth of modern urbanism characterized by the dramatic expansion of urban size, high inner-city density, growing diversity, heterogeneity, and inequality. The urban scale has been expanded and stretched as the state manages to negotiate with forces of globalization, enhance China's international competitiveness, and maintain domestic social stability. Chinese urbanism has been hybrid, path-dependent, and locally constituted, blending elements from the past with the present and the local with the global.