Cities with invisible walls: reinterpreting urbanization in post-1949 China

Abstract

In recent decades, most of the developing world has seen unprecedented urban growth, and urbanization has been regarded as an inevitable product of industrialization. At the same time, China's socialist development has been offered as an alternative model, an example of how one country can achieve industrialization without suffering the side effects of urban sprawl, social dislocation and rising poverty. This text weaves together a large body of diverse empirical data and theoretical literature in an analysis of official Chinese policies.